"Yes, I hear. Then we must tell Bessie to take a lot of extra milk on Sunday. Have you really left?"
"Yes, I have." She kicked her shoes to the far end of the room. "Good heavens! The creature asked me to marry him!" She shuddered strongly. "Grace, he asked me to marry him! And his hands trembled! I didn't know people could go on like that. Never, never, never, shall any other man do it. I won't give him a chance. It was dreadful."
"It wouldn't have been dreadful if you had loved him." Grace spoke softly. "Poor little man. What did you say to him?"
"Say! I couldn't speak! How did I know he was going to be so ridiculous? And to do it in the office! I thought I might conceivably fall in love some day, but I know now that my affection wouldn't survive the proposal. Why didn't you tell me people behaved like that?"
"I expect they are all different. Tell me about it, Terry."
Theresa padded up and down the room in her stockinged feet.
"It was this afternoon. I went into his room to take down letters, and suddenly he stopped dictating. Oh, I can't tell you! But he says he has loved me for three years, and something about the sunlight on my hair when I first entered the office—I don't know!—and his eyes looked like lamps behind those enormous spectacles, and his face was white and—and quivering. Oh, let me forget it. But I never shall. I want to go into a nunnery. I feel stained."
"Don't talk like that, Theresa dear. He couldn't do more than ask you to marry him, could he? And you are insulting him, and—and love, too!"
"Good gracious!" Theresa stood still and looked down on her sister, whose upturned face was pale and earnest. The luminous eyes looked steadily at Theresa: they had lost their sparkle, and showed dark and unsuspected depths. "Who taught you to be love's advocate?"
Grace made a weak little movement with her hands and turned to look out on the docks. In the silence Theresa heard her breathing and saw the throbbing pulse in her throat. Speech came with difficulty.