"It's the other way. I think _you're_ afraid of me."
He frowned me down at that, and demanded to know what I meant, but I
couldn't explain.
He lighted the logs in the fireplace, and pulled up the big Morris
chair and a footstool before it. He made me sit on the stool at his
knee. Then we talked till it was pretty late, and mama popped her head
in and said I ought to go to bed. I protested that as I didn't have to
go to work next day, I need not get up early. Roger said she was right,
and that he must be going.
I had thought he was going to spend Christmas with me, and I was so
dreadfully disappointed that I nearly cried, and he tried to cheer me
up. He said he wouldn't go if he could help it, but that his people
expected him home at least at Christmas. That was the first time he had
ever referred to his "people," and I felt a vague sense of jealousy
that they meant more to him than I did. But I did not tell him that,
for he suddenly leaned over me and said:
"I'd rather be here with you, Nora, than anywhere else in the world."