“Let’s talk,” she said, and for a time they were both tongue-tied.
Mr. Polly’s literary proclivities had taught him that under such circumstances a strain of gallantry was demanded. And something in his blood repeated that lesson.
“You make me feel like one of those old knights,” he said, “who rode about the country looking for dragons and beautiful maidens and chivalresque adventures.”
“Oh!” she said. “Why?”
“Beautiful maiden,” he said.
She flushed under her freckles with the quick bright flush those pretty red-haired people have. “Nonsense!” she said.
“You are. I’m not the first to tell you that. A beautiful maiden imprisoned in an enchanted school.”
“You wouldn’t think it enchanted!”
“And here am I— clad in steel. Well, not exactly, but my fiery war horse is anyhow. Ready to absquatulate all the dragons and rescue you.”
She laughed, a jolly laugh that showed delightfully gleaming teeth. “I wish you could see the dragons,” she said with great enjoyment. Mr. Polly felt they were a sun’s distance from the world of everyday.
“Fly with me!” he dared.
She stared for a moment, and then went off into peals of laughter. “You are funny!” she said. “Why, I haven’t known you five minutes.”
“One doesn’t — in this medevial world. My mind is made up, anyhow.”
He was proud and pleased with his joke, and quick to change his key neatly. “I wish one could,” he said.
“I wonder if people ever did!”
“If there were people like you.”
“We don’t even know each other’s names,” she remarked with a descent to matters of fact.
“Yours is the prettiest name in the world.”
“How do you know?”
“It must be — anyhow.”
“It is rather pretty you know — it’s Christabel.”
“What did I tell you?”
“And yours?”
“Poorer than I deserve. It’s Alfred.”
“I can’t call you Alfred.”
“Well, Polly.”
“It’s a girl’s name!”
For a moment he was out of tune. “I wish it was!” he said, and could have bitten out his tongue at the Larkins sound of it.
“I shan’t forget it,” she remarked consolingly.
“I say,” she said in the pause that followed. “Why are ............