“Silly gubbins,” she said. “You told me twice, and I was interested even the second time. David, do buck up! Go and smoke a cigarette, won’t you? It’s quite disgusting of you to smoke, and some day father will smell it and there’ll be trouble. But it used to make you feel—feel starched.”
“Given up smoking,” said David morosely. “Ages ago.”
“Hurrah! Did it make you feel extra-special unwell?”
“No, you ass. But it’s scuggish to smoke. Only scugs smoke at Marchester.”
“I always told you you would cease to think it grand when you got with nice boys,” she said.
Margery melted completely under this. She felt that he was only a little boy, in spite of all the wickets he had taken, and that she was a woman. Instinctively she took up the glory and burden of her sex.
“Oh, David, what’s the matter?” she said. “I am sorry you feel beastly. What is it?”
David slid off his chair, and lay down flat on the grass, staring up into the thick green leaves, chinked with blue sky. Almost immediately a ripe mulberry dropped on his nose and burst, and though it was immensely funny, Margery continued quite grave. David said “Damn,” and solemnly wiped it off. Then she sat down on the grass by him.
“What is the matter, David?” she repeated.
David blew away a fly that wished to settle on his face.
“Oh, it’s so dull,” he said. “I am so bored! And fancy being stuck here all August, as father’s in residence. You’re a ripper, all right, but then you’re a girl. I expect you can’t help. I’ll come and play cricket if you like.”
“I don’t suppose you would understand,” said the superior sex, “but you see I’ve got to start again. It’s scuggish to smoke or to keep stag-beetles, and I shan’t see any of the chaps I was friends with again (and some of them were jolly decent, in spite of what you say about smoking) except Bags. It’s . . . it’s like emigrating. Of course, it’s perfectly ripping going to Marchester, but . . . oh, well, I feel rotten this afternoon.”
“Oh, is Bags going to Marchester?” asked Margery.
“Yes. I heard from him this morning. He’s going to Adams’s too.”
David’s tone was not that of one who finds a consoling circumstance, and Margery felt her way.
“But you’re tremendous friends with him, aren’t you?” she asked.