"And that's made you glad?" said Elsie coldly.
"Glad? I should think it did!" He stood up, and continued, "Don't you see, dear, it showed me that you _cared_? A girl doesn't lie sobbing on the sand if she's absolutely indifferent. Oh, I know now, right enough: half an hour ago I didn't. I came upon you then hunting for your ball and dabbing your eyes with your handkerchief; but that of course was different; I knew it wasn't the real thing. You were just tired then, and sick at losing the game; but this time"--his face glowed--"this time I knew it was the real thing, and that you cared, you really cared. Yes, you cared; you had cared all the time, and I had never known it!"
He stood over her, absolutely radiant: no one had ever seen Pip like this before. Then he dropped down on to the grass beside the girl, and put his arm inside hers.
"You do care, don't you, Elsie?" he said.
Elsie turned and looked him full in the face, without a trace of affectation or fear.
"Yes, Pip, I do," she answered.
It was long after six when they emerged from their retreat. The clouds were drifting up once more from the southwest, and everything promised a wet night. There was little wind, but already rain-drops were beginning to fall, unsteadily and fitfully. Presently this period of indecision ceased, and the rain came down in earnest. The two paused, and Pip surveyed Elsie's thin blouse disapprovingly.
"Isn't there some place where we can shelter?" said Elsie.
"There's a sort of tin place over there, but you would be soaked through before you got halfway to it. Besides, this rain means business; it'll go on all night now."
"Come along then," said Elsie; "we must hurry. I can change when we get home."
"Wait a minute," said Pip.
He began to divest himself of his tweed jacket.
"Put this on," he said.
"Nonsense, Pip; you'll get soaked."
Pip sighed, gently and patiently.
"Put it on," he repeated, holding it open for her.
Elsie glanced at him, and obeyed.
"You're an obstinate old pig, sometimes, Pip," she remarked.
And so they tramped home. They said little: there seemed to be nothing left in the world worth saying. Pip carried both sets of clubs under his left arm. Occasionally he sighed, long and gently, as one who has done his day's work and is at peace with all the world. Elsie marched beside him, with her arms buried to the elbows in the deep pockets of Pip's old jacket. (They were spacious pockets: one of them was sheltering two hands.) At intervals Elsie would look up at Pip, upon whose head and shoulders the rain was descending pitilessly. Once she said,--
"Pip, you're getting awfully wet."
Pip looked down upon her for a moment. Then he looked up again, and shook his glistening head defiantly at the weeping heavens.
"Who cares?" he roared.
THE END