He became maudlin and begged her to forgive him, and she sank back again into his embrace, appeased at once.
At last, when the park gates were closing, she roused herself and insisted that if he wanted to go on talking to her they must go somewhere and have supper.
The man seemed too dazed and wretched to understand her, but when Elsie, rendered prudent by certain previous experiences, asked whether he had any money, he drew out a handful of loose silver.
“That’s all right, then,” she said, relieved, and took him to a cheap and very popular restaurant.
Elsie drank cocoa and ate sweet cakes, and her escort, leaning heavily on the marble-topped table, continued his low, maundering recitation of self-pity.
She had very little idea of what he was talking about.
She liked the restaurant and enjoyed her cakes, and the occasional contact between herself and the unknown man satisfied her for the time being.
When they left the restaurant, Elsie directed him to the omnibus that would take her nearest to her own suburb, and they climbed to the top of it, and sat in close proximity on the narrow seat all through the long drive.
It was with real difficulty that she tore herself away in the end, physically roused to a pitch that rapidly amounted to torment. She was frightened and disgusted by her own sensations, but much less so than she had been in the days of her technical innocence, before she had known Doctor Woolley. She decided that she would go to Brighton with Mr. Williams.
And she would buy the silk underclothes—pink silk—and a real evening dress, cut low, that should reveal her shoulders and the full contour of her bust, and perhaps he would give her enough money for a string of imitation pearl beads as well.