“Miss Dombey, I beg your pardon,” says Mr Toots, in a sad fluster, “but if you would allow me to—to—”
The smiling and unconscious look of Florence brings him to a dead stop.
“If you would allow me to—if you would not consider it a liberty, Miss Dombey, if I was to—without any encouragement at all, if I was to hope, you know,” says Mr Toots.
Florence looks at him inquiringly.
“Miss Dombey,” says Mr Toots, who feels that he is in for it now, “I really am in that state of adoration of you that I don’t know what to do with myself. I am the most deplorable wretch. If it wasn’t at the corner of the Square at present, I should go down on my knees, and beg and entreat of you, without any encouragement at all, just to let me hope that I may—may think it possible that you—”
“Oh, if you please, don’t!” cries Florence, for the moment quite alarmed and distressed. “Oh, pray don’t, Mr Toots. Stop, if you please. Don’t say any more. As a kindness and a favour to me, don’t.”
Mr Toots is dreadfully abashed, and his mouth opens.
“You have been so good to me,” says Florence, “I am so grateful to you, I have such reason to like you for being a kind friend to me, and I do like you so much;” and here the ingenuous face smiles upon him with the pleasantest look of honesty in the world; “that I am sure you are only going to say good-bye!”
“Certainly, Miss Dombey,” says Mr Toots, “I—I—that’s exactly what I mean. It’s of no consequence.”
“Good-bye!” cries Florence.