"But your father does not wish it, nor your mother."

"I know that."

"Then why go?"

"You ought to know."

"Why, then?"

"Because you make me!"

"I don't want you to go, Jack."

"You said it. You said that the folk in the country were fit for
nothing better. You always speak like that. You think no more of me
than of those doos in the cot. You think I am nobody at all. I'll show
you different."

All my troubles came out in hot little spurts of speech. She coloured
up as I spoke, and looked at me in her queer half-mocking, half-petting
fashion.

"Oh, I think so little of you as that?" said she. "And that is the
reason why you are going away? Well then, Jack, will you stay if I
am--if I am kind to you?"

We were face to face and close together, and in an instant the thing was
done. My arms were round her, and I was kissing her, and kissing her,
and kissing her, on her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, and pressing her to