“No, no! It isn’t right—I oughtn’t to let you! Oh, Mr. Williams, I’d rather not have the brooch, though it’s lovely. But I can’t be a bad girl!”
He had taken a step backwards in his disconcerted amazement. “What on earth——Why, Elsie, you don’t think there’s any harm in a kiss, do you?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered, half crying. “But you make me feel so—so helpless, somehow, Mr. Williams.”
Purest instinct was guiding her, but no subtlety of insight could have better gauged the effect of her implication upon the little solicitor’s vanity.
He drew himself up, and expanded the narrow width of his chest. “You’re not frightened of me, little girl, are you?”
“I—I don’t know,” faltered Elsie.
“I can assure you that you needn’t be. Why, I—I—I’m very fond of you, surely you know that?”
Elsie felt rather scornful of the lameness of his speech. She saw that he was afraid of his own impulses, and the knowledge encouraged her.
“Here, Mr. Williams,” she said rather tremulously, holding out the turquoise brooch.
He closed her hand over it. “Keep it. Are you fond of jewellery?”