'Thank you, Winifred, for having pardoned me. I feel that you would
have forgiven no one else as you have forgiven me. I feel that you
would not have forgiven any one else than your old child-companion,
whom on a memorable occasion you threatened to hit, and then had not
the heart to do so.'
'I don't think I _could_ hit _you_,' said she, in a meditative tone
of perfect unconsciousness as to the bewitching import of her speech.
'Don't you think you could?' I said, drawing nearer, but governing my
passion.
'No,' said she, looking now for the first time with those wide-open
confiding eyes which, as a child, were the chief characteristic of
her face. 'I don't think I could hit you, whatever you did.'
'Couldn't you, Winifred?' I said, coming still nearer, in order to
drink to the full the wonder of her beauty, the thrill at my heart
bringing, as I felt, a pallor to my cheek. 'Don't you think you could
hit your old playfellow, Winifred?'
'No,' she said, still gazing in the same dreamy, reminiscent way
straight into my eyes as of yore.
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