if we don't."

"Do you think they're at all decent?" asked Michael. "Because if you do,
I vote we talk to them. I say, Alan, do let's anyway, for a lark."

"Supposing anyone we know saw us?" queried Alan.

"Well, we could say _some_thing," Michael urged. He was on fire to
prosecute this adventure and, lest Alan should still hold back, he took
from his pocket a feverish bag of Satin Pralines and boldly offered them
to the girl of his choice.

"I say, would you like some tuck?"

The girls giggled and sat closer together; but Michael still proffered
the sweets and at last the girl whom he admired dipped her hand into the
bag. As all the Satin Pralines were stuck together, she brought out half
a dozen and was so much embarrassed that she dropped the bag, after
which she giggled.

"It doesn't matter a bit," said Michael. "I can get some more. These are
beastly squashed. I say, what's your name?"

So began the quadruple intrigue of Dora and Winnie and Michael and
Alan.

Judged merely by their dress, one would have unhesitatingly set down
Dora and Winnie as sisters; but they were unrelated and dressed alike
merely to accentuate, as girl friends do, the unanimity of their minds.
They were both of them older by a year or more than Michael and Alan;
while in experience they were a generation ahead of either. The
possession of this did not prevent them from giggling foolishly and from
time to time looking at each other with an expression compounded of
interrogation and shyness. Michael objected to this look, inasmuch as it
implied their consciousness of a mental attitude in which neither he nor
Alan had any part. He was inclined to be sulky whenever he noticed an
exchange of glances, and very soon insisted upon a temporary separation
by which he and Dora took one path, while Alan with Winnie pursued
another.

Dora was a neatly made child, and Michael thought the many-pleated blue
skirt that reached down to her knees and showed as she swung along a
foam of frizzy white petticoats very lovely. He liked, too, the curve of
her leg and the high buttoned boots and the big blue bow in her curly
golden hair. He admired immensely her large shady hat trimmed with
cornflowers and the string of bangles on her wrist and her general
effect of being almost grown up and at the same time still obviously a
little girl. As for Dora's face, Michael found it beautiful with the
long-lashed blue eyes and rose-leaf complexion and cleft chin a