“I’m sorry!” he shouted, beside himself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” He dithered before her.
She recovered her equilibrium, and, pale to the lips, looked at him with sombre eyes.
“I’m sorry!” he continued loudly, in his strange frenzy like a small boy. “Don’t remember! Don’t remember! Don’t think I did it.”
His face was a kind of blank, and unconsciously he wrung the hand that had gripped her, as if it pained him. She watched him, and wondered why on earth all this frenzy. She was left rather cold, she did not at all feel the strong feelings he seemed to expect of her. There was nothing so very unnatural, after all, in being bumped up suddenly against the wall. Certainly her shoulder hurt where he had gripped it. But there were plenty of worse hurts in the world. She watched him with wide, distant eyes.
And he fell on his knees before her, as she backed against the bookcase, and he caught hold of the edge of her dress-bottom, drawing it to him. Which made her rather abashed, and much more uncomfortable.
“Forgive me!” he said. “Don’t remember! Forgive me! Love me! Love me! Forgive me and love me! Forgive me and love me!”
As Alvina was looking down dismayed on the great, red-faced, elderly man, who in his crying-out showed his white teeth like a child, and as she was gently trying to draw her skirt from his clutch, the door opened, and there stood the matron, in her big frilled cap. Alvina glanced at her, flushed crimson and looked down to the man. She touched his face with her hand.
“Never mind,” she said. “It’s nothing. Don’t think about it.”
He caught her hand and clung to it.
“Love me! Love me! Love me!” he cried.