"What is afraid?" asked Peter longingly. He thought it must be some splendid thing. "I do wish you would teach me how to be afraid, Maimie," he said.
"I believe no one could teach that to you," she answered adoringly, but Peter thought she meant that he was stupid. She had told him about Tony and of the wicked thing she did in the dark to frighten him (she knew quite well that it was wicked), but Peter misunderstood her meaning and said, "Oh, how I wish I was as brave as Tony!"
It quite irritated her. "You are twenty thousand times braver than Tony," she said; "you are ever so much the bravest boy I ever knew."
He could scarcely believe she meant it, but when he did believe he screamed with joy.
"And if you want very much to give me a kiss," Maimie said, "you can do it."
Very reluctantly Peter began to take the thimble off his finger. He thought she wanted it back.
"I don"t mean a kiss," she said hurriedly, "I mean a thimble."
"What"s that?" Peter asked.
"It"s like this," she said, and kissed him.
"I should love to give you a thimble," Peter said gravely, so he gave her one. He gave her quite a number of thimbles, and then a delightful idea came into his head. "Maimie," he said, "will you marry me?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "My Lord Duke," said the physician elatedly, "I have the honour to inform your excellency that your grace is in love"]
Now, strange to tell, the same idea had come at exactly the same time into Maimie"s head. "I should like to," she answered, "but will there be room in your boat for two?"
"If you squeeze close," he said eagerly.
"Perhaps the birds would be angry?"
He a.s.sured her that the birds would love to have her, though I am not so certain of it myself. Also that there were very few birds in winter. "Of course they might want your clothes," he had to admit rather falteringly.
She was somewhat indignant at this.
"They are always thinking of their nests," he said apologetically, "and there are some bits of you"--he stroked the fur on her pelisse--"that would excite them very much."
"They shan"t have my fur," she said sharply.
"No," he said, still fondling it, however, "no. O Maimie," he said rapturously, "do you know why I love you? It is because you are like a beautiful nest."
Somehow this made her uneasy. "I think you are speaking more like a bird than a boy now," she said, holding back, and indeed he was even looking rather like a bird. "After all," she said, "you are only a Betwixt-and-Between." But it hurt him so much that she immediately added, "It must be a delicious thing to be."
"Come and be one, then, dear Maimie," he implored her, and they set off for the boat, for it was now very near Open-Gate time. "And you are not a bit like a nest," he whispered to please her.
"But I think it is rather nice to be like one," she said in a woman"s contradictory way. "And, Peter, dear, though I can"t give them my fur, I wouldn"t mind their building in it. Fancy a nest in my neck with little spotty eggs in it! O Peter, how perfectly lovely!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: Building the house for Maimie]
But as they drew near the Serpentine, she shivered a little, and said, "Of course I shall go and see mother often, quite often. It is not as if I was saying good-bye for ever to mother, it is not in the least like that."
"Oh no," answered Peter, but in his heart he knew it was very like that, and he would have told her so had he not been in a quaking fear of losing her. He was so fond of her, he felt he could not live without her. "She will forget her mother in time, and be happy with me," he kept saying to himself, and he hurried her on, giving her thimbles by the way.
But even when she had seen the boat and exclaimed ecstatically over its loveliness, she still talked tremblingly about her mother. "You know quite well, Peter, don"t you," she said, "that I wouldn"t come unless I knew for certain I could go back to mother whenever I want to? Peter, say it."
He said it, but he could no longer look her in the face.
"If you are sure your mother will always want you," he added rather sourly.
"The idea of mother"s not always wanting me!" Maimie cried, and her face glistened.
"If she doesn"t bar you out," said Peter huskily.
"The door," replied Maimie, "will always, always be open, and mother will always be waiting at it for me."
"Then," said Peter, not without grimness, "step in, if you feel so sure of her," and he helped Maimie into the Thrush"s Nest.
"But why don"t you look at me?" she asked, taking him by the arm.
Peter tried hard not to look, he tried to push off, then he gave a great gulp and jumped ash.o.r.e and sat down miserably in the snow.
She went to him. "What is it, dear, dear Peter?" she said, wondering.
"O Maimie," he cried, "it isn"t fair to take you with me if you think you can go back! Your mother"--he gulped again--"you don"t know them as well as I do."
And then he told her the woeful story of how he had been barred out, and she gasped all the time. "But my mother," she said, "_my_ mother----"
"Yes, she would," said Peter, "they are all the same. I dare say she is looking for another one already."
Maimie said aghast, "I can"t believe it. You see, when you went away your mother had none, but my mother has Tony, and surely they are satisfied when they have one."
Peter replied bitterly, "You should see the letters Solomon gets from ladies who have six."
Just then they heard a grating _creak_, followed by _creak, creak_, all round the Gardens. It was the Opening of the Gates, and Peter jumped nervously into his boat. He knew Maimie would not come with him now, and he was trying bravely not to cry. But Maimie was sobbing painfully.
"If I should be too late," she said in agony, "O Peter, if she has got another one already!"
Again he sprang ash.o.r.e as if she had called him back. "I shall come and look for you to-night," he said, squeezing close, "but if you hurry away I think you will be in time."
Then he pressed a last thimble on her sweet little mouth, and covered his face with his hands so that he might not see her go.
"Dear Peter!" she cried.
"Dear Maimie!" cried the tragic boy.
She leapt into his arms, so that it was a sort of fairy wedding, and then she hurried away. Oh, how she hastened to the gates! Peter, you may be sure, was back in the Gardens that night as soon as Lock-out sounded, but he found no Maimie, and so he knew she had been in time.
For long he hoped that some night she would come back to him; often he thought he saw her waiting for him by the sh.o.r.e of the Serpentine as his bark drew to land, but Maimie never went back. She wanted to, but she was afraid that if she saw her dear Betwixt-and-Between again she would linger with him too long, and besides the ayah now kept a sharp eye on her. But she often talked lovingly of Peter, and she knitted a kettle-holder for him, and one day when she was wondering what Easter present he would like, her mother made a suggestion.
[Ill.u.s.tration: If the bad ones among the fairies happen to be out (missing from book)]
"Nothing," she said thoughtfully, "would be so useful to him as a goat."