The crimson flamed over Nancy"s face again. She pulled her hand away.
"That"s cruel of you, Peter."
Peter suddenly laughed. There was a note of boyishness in the laughter.
"So it is," he said, "but I had to get rid of the acc.u.mulated malice and spite of twenty years somehow. It"s all gone now, and I"ll be as amiable as I know how. But since you have gone to the trouble of getting my supper for me, Nancy, you must stay and help me eat it. Them strawberries look good. I haven"t had any this summer--been too busy to pick them."
Nancy stayed. She sat at the head of Peter"s table and poured his tea for him. She talked to him wittily of the Avonlea people and the changes in their old set. Peter followed her lead with an apparent absence of self-consciousness, eating his supper like a man whose heart and mind were alike on good terms with him. Nancy felt wretched--and, at the same time, ridiculously happy. It seemed the most grotesque thing in the world that she should be presiding there at Peter"s table, and yet the most natural. There were moments when she felt like crying--other moments when her laughter was as ready and spontaneous as a girl"s.
Sentiment and humour had always waged an equal contest in Nancy"s nature.
When Peter had finished his strawberries he folded his arms on the table and looked admiringly at Nancy.
"You look well at the head of a table, Nancy," he said critically. "How is it that you haven"t been presiding at one of your own long before this? I thought you"d meet a lots of men out in the world that you"d like--men who talked good grammar."
"Peter, don"t!" said Nancy, wincing. "I was a goose."
"No, you were quite right. I was a tetchy fool. If I"d had any sense, I"d have felt thankful you thought enough of me to want to improve me, and I"d have tried to kerrect my mistakes instead of getting mad. It"s too late now, I suppose."
"Too late for what?" said Nancy, plucking up heart of grace at something in Peter"s tone and look.
"For--kerrecting mistakes."
"Grammatical ones?"
"Not exactly. I guess them mistakes are past kerrecting in an old fellow like me. Worse mistakes, Nancy. I wonder what you would say if I asked you to forgive me, and have me after all."
"I"d snap you up before you"d have time to change your mind," said Nancy brazenly. She tried to look Peter in the face, but her blue eyes, where tears and mirth were blending, faltered down before his gray ones.
Peter stood up, knocking over his chair, and strode around the table to her.
"Nancy, my girl!" he said.