She said: "I haven't had anything to eat in years that I haven't cooked
myself."

He planned for that time to come, and Lulu listened as one intensely
experiencing every word that he uttered. Yet it was not in that future
merry-making that she found her joy, but in the consciousness that
he--some one--any one--was planning like this for her.

Meanwhile Di and Bobby had rounded the corner by an old hop-house and
kept on down the levee. Now that the presence of the others was
withdrawn, the two looked about them differently and began themselves to
give off an influence instead of being pressed upon by overpowering
personalities. Frogs were chorusing in the near swamp, and Bobby wanted
one. He was off after it. But Di eventually drew him back, reluctant,
frogless. He entered upon an exhaustive account of the use of frogs for
bait, and as he talked he constantly flung stones. Di grew restless.
There was, she had found, a certain amount of this to be gone through
before Bobby would focus on the personal. At length she was obliged to
say, "Like me to-day?" And then he entered upon personal talk with the
same zest with which he had discussed bait.

"Bobby," said Di, "sometimes I think we might be married, and not wait
for any old money."

They had now come that far. It was partly an authentic attraction, grown
from out the old repulsion, and partly it was that they both--and
especially Di--so much wanted the experiences of attraction that they
assumed its ways. And then each cared enough to assume the pretty role
required by the other, and by the occasion, and by the air of the time.

"Would you?" asked Bobby--but in the subjunctive.

She said: "Yes. I will."

"It would mean running away, wouldn't it?" said Bobby, still
subjunctive.

"I suppose so. Mamma and papa are so unreasonable."

"Di," said Bobby, "I don't believe you could ever be happy with me."

"The idea! I can too. You're going to be a great man--you know you are."

Bobby was silent. Of course he knew it--but he passed it over.

"Wouldn't it be fun to elope and surprise the whole school?" said Di,
sparkling.

Bobby grinned appreciatively. He was good to look at, with his big
frame, his head of rough dark hair, the sky warm upon his clear skin and
full mouth. Di suddenly announced that she would be willing to elope
_now_.

"I've planned eloping lots of times," she said ambiguously.

It flashed across the mind of Bobby that in these plans of hers he