My secret was too big and beautiful to keep to myself. There was no one I could tell it to save the Bantam. But the Bantam had grown shy of me; he knew that within myself I had been laughing at him. He turned away when I tried to catch his eye, and bent with unaccustomed diligence above his lessons.

Not till after lunch did I get a chance to approach him. All the other boys had changed into flannels and had hurried off to the cricket-nets. I wandered into the empty playground and there found him seated alone in a corner. His knees were drawn up so that his chin rested on them; in his eyes was a far-away sorrowful expression. I halted before him.

“Bantam.”

He did not look up, but I knew by the twitching of his hands that he had heard.

“Bantam, I’ve got something to tell you.”

Slowly he turned his head. He was acting the part of Hamlet and I was vastly impressed. “Is it about Ruthita?”

“Partly. But it’s happened to me too, Bantam.”

“Wot?”

“A girl.”

A genuine look of live-boy astonishment overspread his countenance. “A girl!” he ejaculated. “But there ar’n’t any about—unless you mean Pigtails.”

Pigtails was Beatrice Sneard, and I felt that an insult was being leveled at me.

“If you say that again, I’ll punch your head.”

“Oh, so it is Pigtails.” He rose to his feet lazily and began to take off his jacket. “Come on and punch it.”

But a fight wasn’t at all what I wanted. So I walked straight up to him with my hands held down.

“Silly ass, how could it be Pigtails? Do I look that sort? It’s another girl. I came to you ’cause you’re in love, and you’ll understand. I’ve been a beast to you—won’t you be friends?”

I held out my hand and he took it with surly defiance. I was too eager for sympathy, however, to be discouraged.

“She’s called Fiesole,” I said. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

“Ruthita’s better.”

“She’s got gold hair with just a little—a little red in it.”

“I prefer black.”

“I’m not talking about Ruthita; I’m telling you about Fiesole.”

“I know that,” said the Bantam; “you never do talk about Ruthita now.”

I walked away from him angrily in the direction I had taken on the previous evening. As I approached the nets I saw a little group of spectators. Then I made out the clerical figure of Sneard and the figure of Pigtails dressed in gray, and between them a slim white girl. Behind me I heard the pit-a-pat of running feet on the turf. The Bantam flung his arm about my shoulders, saying, “I’ve been a beast and you’ve been a beast; but we won’t be beasts any longer.” Then, following the direction of my eyes, “What are you staring at? Is that her? My eye, she’s a topper!”

He prodded me to go forward. When I showed reluctance, he used almost Fiesole’s words, “Why, surely, Dante, you ar’n’t afraid of a girl!”

I was afraid, and always have been wherever my affections are concerned. But I wasn’t going to own it just then. I let him slip his arm through mine, and we sauntered forward together. Through the soft summer air came the sharp click of the ball as it glanced off the bat, and the long cheer which followed as the wicket went down. Fiesole turned, clapping her hands, and our eyes met. Then she ceased to look at me; her gaze rested on the Bantam, while a half-smile played about her mouth. A pang of jealousy shot through me. With the instinctive egotism of the male, I felt that by the mere fact of loving her I had made her my property. However, Pigtails came to my rescue, for I saw her jolt Fiesole with her elbow; her shocked voice reached me, saying, “Cousin Fiesole, whatever are you staring at?”

I tugged at the Bantam’s sleeve and we turned away.

“My golly, but she is a ripper,” he whispered....

As the distance grew between us and her, he kept glancing across his shoulder and once halted completely to gaze back. I envied him his effrontery. My fate from the beginning has been to run away from the women I love—and then to regret it.

We had entered into another field and were passing a laburnum tree, when the Bantam drew up sharply. He pointed to its blossom all gold and yellow. “The color of her hair,” he said, and promptly threw himself under it, lying on his back, gazing up at its burning foliage. The sun filtered down through its leaves upon us, making fantastic patterns on our hands and faces. The field was tall in hay, ready for the cutting, so we had the boy’s delight of being completely hidden from the world.

“What’s the color of her eyes?”............