This was a new idea for Alvina to cogitate. She had counted on a speedy escape. She put his ring in her apron pocket, and there she forgot it until he pounced on her in the afternoon, in the house of one of her patients. He waited for her, to take her off.
“Where is your ring?” he said.
And she realized that it lay in the pocket of a soiled, discarded apron—perhaps lost for ever.
“I shan’t wear it on duty,” she said. “You know that.”
She had to go to tea with him. She avoided his love-making, by telling him any sort of spooniness revolted her. And he was too much an old bachelor to take easily to a fondling habit—before marriage, at least. So he mercifully left her alone: he was on the whole devoutly thankful she wanted to be left alone. But he wanted her to be there. That was his greatest craving. He wanted her to be always there. And so he craved for marriage: to possess her entirely, and to have her always there with him, so that he was never alone. Alone and apart from all the world: but by her side, always by her side.
“Now when shall we fix the marriage?” he said. “It is no good putting it back. We both know what we are doing. And now the engagement is announced—”
He looked at her anxiously. She could see the hysterical little boy under the great, authoritative man.
“Oh, not till after Christmas!” she said.
“After Christmas!” he started as if he had been bitten. “Nonsense! It’s nonsense to wait so long. Next month, at the latest.”
“Oh no,” she said. “I don’t think so soon.”