y never dreamed that such a person as Gaga existed,
any more than he guessed at any of Sally's encounters with young men on
the way home. Sally had discretion. Had he been a lover, she might have
told him; but as he was more to her than that she saw no reason to
arouse his jealousy. And really, if a man spoke to her, and looked all
right, where was the harm in letting him walk a little way with her? She
never made appointments, and after a time, when they found she could
take care of herself, and did not want a non-committed male friend,
these fellow-pedestrians soon left her alone. For Sally, each of them
was practice. To mention them to Toby would have been to give them all
too great importance. And he might have made a fuss, and unnecessarily
interrupted her fun. "Where ignorance is bliss," thought Sally, "'tis
folly to call out the guard." And, further, "Let sleeping dogs lie until
the milk is stolen." And so Toby pursued his own path, and never knew a
tenth of what went on in Sally's life and mind. Compared with Sally, he
knew nothing at all. She grew each day more _rusee_, more cunning in
knowledge of the world. And Toby blundered where he should have been
most astute. It was his fate.

Sally told him about the outing, because she saw he was in a gloomy mood
on the day--a Sunday--after the girls' treat. She described it at length
as they walked in Waterlow Park, hanging on to his arm, and all the time
searching his tell-tale face and guessing at the cause of his manifest
depression. She told about the picnic and the woods, and the tea, and
the journey home; and she saw his mouth slightly open as he grunted. She
could see the tiny points of hair that were beginning to make a
perceptible blueness upon his chin, and the moulding of his cheek, and a
little patch of fine down upon his cheek bone, and the hair at his
temples which she had so often kissed. And she knew by his averted eye
that something was the matter with him. She began to try drawing him on
the subject--his aunt, had he heard from his mother (who had married
again when Toby was a baby, and lived with her husband in the North),
what had he been doing at the Works? Ah! That was it. Toby had started,
and frowned. It was something at the Works. Oh, he was easy for Sally to
read!

"What's the matter?" she suddenly asked. Toby flushed and scowled down
at her, very dark and ugly in his irritation, his mouth twisted.

"Matter?" he demanded. "What d'you mean?