In the little house by the lake where the cousins still slept, conversation seldom flagged before one or two o'clock in the morning. Having said good-night to each other at about eleven, one or the other was pretty sure to let out some new discovery about the Darlings in general and Maud Darling in particular, and then all desire for sleep vanished and their real cousinly confidences began.
But these confidences had their limits, for neither confessed to being sentimentally interested in the young lady, whereas, within limits, they both were. And each enjoyed the satisfaction of believing (quite erroneously) that he deceived the other. I do not wish to convey the impression that they were actually in love with her.
When you are really in love, you are also in love before breakfast. That is the final test. And when love begins to die, that is the time when its weakening pulse is first to be concerned. What honest man has not been mad about some pretty girl (in a crescendo of madness) from tea time till sleep time and waked in the morning with no thought but for toast and coffee the soonest possible? and gone about the business of the morning and early afternoon almost heart-whole and fancy-free, and relapsed once more into madness with the lengthening of the shadows? A man who proposes marriage to a girl until he has been in love with her for twenty-four consecutive hours is a light fellow who ought to be kicked out of the house by her papa. As for the girl, let her be sure that he is bread and meat to her, comfort and rest, demigod and man, wholly necessary and not to be duplicated in this world, before she even says that she will think about it.
In the early morning there would arise in the house of the Carolinians the sounds of whistling, of singing, laughter, scuffling, and running water. So that a girl who really wanted either of them must, in listening, have despaired.
As for Maud Darling, she was disgusted with herself--theoretically. But practically she was having the time of her life. In theory, she felt that no self-respecting girl ought to be unable to decide which of the two young men she liked the better. In practice, she found a constant pondering of this delicate question to be delightful. It was very comfortable to know that the moment she was free to play there were two pleasant companions ready and waiting.