"Well, please do it like this. Ask Mabel if you may."
"Now?" asked Mr. Symington.
"If you like," said Elma.
They were on the lawn after dinner, and Mr. Symington in two days had hardly had a glimpse of Mabel, far less any conversation with her.
She was talking to Isobel.
He walked straight up to her.
"May I escort you out of church on Tuesday?" he asked.
Mabel looked up in a puzzled way, then her eyes lit with shyness and something much more brilliant than had been seen in them for a long time.
"Yes," she said simply.
(Could he know how her heart thumped to that quiet "yes"?)