Nobody except David took the childish love-affair very seriously,
not even the principals--especially not Elizabeth. . . .

David did not see her for a day or two, except out of the corner
of his eye when, during the new and still secret rite of shaving--
for David was willing to shed his blood to prove that he was a
man--he looked out of his bedroom window and saw her down in the
garden helping her uncle feed his pigeons. He did not want to see
her. He was younger than his years, this honest-eyed,
inexpressive fellow of seventeen, but for all his youth he was
hard hit. He grew abruptly older that first week; he didn't sleep
well; he even looked a little pale under his freckles, and his
mother worried over his appetite. When she asked him what was the
matter, he said, listlessly, "Nothing." They were very intimate
friends these two, but that moment on the bridge marked the
beginning of the period--known to all mothers of sons--of the
boy's temporary retreat into himself. . . . When a day or two
later David saw Elizabeth, or rather when she, picking a bunch of
heliotrope in her garden, saw him through the open door in the
wall, and called to him to come "right over! as fast as your legs
can carry you!"--he was, she thought, "very queer." He came in
answer to the summons, but he had nothing to say. She, however,
was bubbling over with talk. She took his hand, and, running with
him into the arbor, pulled him down on the seat beside her.

"David! Where on earth have you been all this time? David,
_have you heard?_"

"I suppose you mean--about you and Blair?" he said. He did not