"If I can't find out, Aubrey?" she went on, in a moist kind of way.
"Then you will have to take mine," he said as lightly as he could.
Boodles stopped, turned away, began to play with a golden frond of bracken almost as bright as her hair, and began to cry as gently as an April shower. She had been on the point of it all the afternoon; and she persuaded herself it was all because Aubrey was going away, although she knew that wasn't true. It was because she was finding out things.
"Don't," she sobbed. "It's doing me good,"
However, Aubrey took her in his arms and tried to pet her, and that did her as much good as anything, although she went on crying.
"Can't give me yours--you silly! They won't be given. They don't want me to love you, they hate me, and your mother kissed me--she did--on my mouth."
"Mother is very fond of you, darling. She is really," Aubrey whispered as quickly as he could. "She said you were perfect, and father agreed with her, and said you would be all that a girl could be, if--if--"
"Go on," murmured Boodles. "It won't hurt. I've got hold of you. I'm taking all the starch out of your collar."
"We don't say good-bye until you have told me. I'll hang on to you. Stop you, perhaps. Oh, Aubrey, you are going away--that's why I'm crying. Your father said I should be a nice little girl, if--go on."
"If you had a name," said Aubrey, with an effort.
Boodles let him go and stepped back. She looked rather nice, with her eyes in the rain, and her head in the sunshine.
"What does that mean, Aubrey?" she said, almost fiercely.
"Nothing whatever to me, darling. Don't be silly," he said tenderly. "It's only father's nonsense. He thinks so much of his name because it's a fossilised old concern which has been in the county since Noah. He doesn't want me to marry you, only because he's afraid your people may not have lived about here since Noah. If you went and told him you're a Raleigh or a Cruwys he would lay his pedigree at your feet and ask you to roll on it."
"Not well-born. No name," said Boodles, aloud this time. "I think we have been silly babies. I seem to have grown up all at once. Oh, Aubrey, was it you and I who used to walk here--years ago?"
He bent and took her face between his hands and kissed the pretty head.