She wore the brooch on the following morning, and fingered it very often. Williams eyed her complacently.
She began to notice that he was taking some pains with his own appearance, occasionally wearing a flower in his coat, and discarding the crêpe band round his arm. She even suspected, from a certain smell noticeable in the small office, that he was trying the effect of a hair-dye upon his scanty strands of hair. Elsie mocked him inwardly, but felt excited and hopeful.
When Williams actually did ask her to marry him, Elsie’s head reeled with the sudden knowledge of having achieved her end. He had offered to take her for a walk one Sunday afternoon, and they were primly going across the Green Park.
To Elsie’s secret astonishment, he had neither put his arm round her waist nor attempted to direct their steps towards a seat beneath one of the more distant trees. He simply walked beside her, with short little steps, every now and then jerking up his chin to pull at his tie, and saying very little.
Then, suddenly, it came.
“Elsie, perhaps you don’t know that I’ve been thinking a great deal about you lately.” He cleared his throat. “I—I’ve been glad to see that you’re a very good girl. Perhaps you’ve not noticed one or two little tests, as I may call them, that I’ve put you through. We lawyers learn to be very cautious in dealing with human nature, you know. And I’m free to admit that I thought very highly of you after—after thinking it over—for the attitude you took up over that little trip we were going to take together. Not, mind you, that you weren’t mistaken. I should never, never have asked you to do anything that wasn’t perfectly right and good. But your scruples, however unfounded, made a very favourable impression on me.”
He stopped and cleared his throat again.
Intuition warned Elsie to say nothing.
“A young girl can’t be too particular, Elsie. But I don’t want to give up our plan—I want my little companion on holidays, as well as on work days. Elsie,” said Mr. Williams impressively, “I want you to become my little wife.”
And as she remained speechless, taken aback in spite of all her previous machinations, he repeated: