"Louie, old girl," he said piteously over the bread-board, "why didn't you--tell a fellow?" Louie did not answer. Then Roy chirped up a little, as if something might now, past all discussion, be taken for granted. "Well, this settles it," he said. "Clinches it entirely. You know what I mean." Louie did know. "Just take the kettle off, will you?" she said. "So you see that's settled--clinched," said Roy, quite bustling. "Right you are. The only question now is; how soon can you pack up." "We'll talk about it presently, if there's anything to say. There isn't, though. Will you carry the tray in?" Jimmy ran straight to his knee again. "May I give him some jam?" said Roy; and then he added to the boy: "Oh, come, don't mess yourself up with it like that!" Louie remembered his account of the accident with the centre-board: "Jam and all the lot!" but she did not smile. "Rhoda will be here in a few minutes, then I'll have a short walk with you," she said. "I've nothing to say, though." Presently Rhoda did come in, and Louie put on her hat and old grey coat. They went out and walked slowly across Eelbrook Common towards Walham Green. There she told Roy that his return could make no difference whatever. "Don't talk such stuff, Louie," he said; "sit down." They sat down on a bench on the side of the common past which the District Railway runs and talked. The air rang with the shouts of poorly clad children at their Saturday afternoon play; the common was a-crawl with urchins. Into Roy's honest, statue-like eyes tears had come; none came into Louie's. She only shook her head. "You're only lacerating me," she said. "But, Louie----" "You want to lacerate me?" "But--the little chap----" Roy said presently, with a gulp. "Will you tell a fellow how you manage?" That Louie did not mind doing, more or less. "And now I must go back," she said, rising. "I'll walk back a bit of the way with you. I'm not going to let you go like this." At the little drinking-fountain she stopped. "Don't make it harder," she said. He had been indicating the rabble of children. "But look at 'em, poor little beggars!" he said. "Dash it all, I'm not just blowing off--I _could_ do such lots for him--he could ride--and shoot--and fish--and I've a corking little pony at grass now." He mentioned these things one after the other, slowly, as they occurred to him. Louie groaned inwardly, but aloud she said: "Please don't come any farther. Good-bye." "But I may come again? You see, I jolly well know I could persuade you." "N-o----" "I shall, though--you bet," Roy announced. She left him, wondering whether it would have made any difference at all had he, in asking her to marry him, told her once, even once, that he loved her.