"I know," said young Mr. Brace rather hoarsely, "that it is fearful presumption on my part. I know I haven't got anything much to offer a girl like you."
"Oh," I said, coming out of my first shock of surprise, "oh, but I'm sure you have." I felt quite a lump in my throat. I was so touched at the young man's modesty. I said again: "Oh, but I'm sure you have, Mr. Brace. Heaps!"
And I looked at his face in the light of the street lamp past which the 'bus was swinging. That radiance and the haze of lamp-lit raindrops made a sort of "glory" about him. He has a nice face, one can't deny it. A fair, frank, straight, conscientious, young face. So typically the best type of honourable, reliable, average young Englishman. Such a contrast to the wary, subtle, dare-devil Celtic face, with the laughing, mocking eyes of Mr. Jim Burke, for example.
The next thing I knew was that Mr. Brace had got hold of my hand and was holding it most uncomfortably tight.
"Then, could you?" he said in that strained voice. "Do you mean you could make me so tremendously proud and happy?"
"Oh, no! I'm afraid not," I said hastily. "I couldn't!"
"Oh, don't say that," he put in anxiously. "Miss Lovelace! If you only knew! I am devoted to you. Nobody could be more so. If you could only try to care for me. Of course, I see this must seem very abrupt."
"Oh, not at all," I put in hastily again. I did hate not to seem kind and nice to him, after he'd said he was devoted, even though it did sound—well—do I mean "stilted"? The next thing he said was also rather stilted and embarrassing.
"But ever since I first saw you in Putney I knew the truth. You are the one girl in the world for me!"
"Oh, no! There must be such crowds of them," I assured him. "Really pretty ones; much nicer than me. I'm sure I'm not one bit as nice as you think me.... Oh, heavens——"