"You must be awfully glad," he said sympathetically.
There was a little pause while the music rose to a loudness greater than was comfortable as a background to conversation. Then he said gently, "I'm sorry I made such a fool of myself the last time I saw you, Grisel. I meant it, you know. I was perfectly serious—puppy love, you know! Heavens, how I must have bored you! Well, it's all over now and I've made my manners. And now," he added with a look of proud shyness in his face, "I've got something to tell you."
"Yes?" Grisel murmured.
"It's this. I—I'm engaged to be married to the sweetest girl in all the world."
The words seemed vaguely familiar to Mrs. Walbridge, and then she realised that she had written them often.
"Her name is Perkins, isn't it?" said Mrs. Walbridge kindly, but with ludicrous effect.
"Mother!" said Grisel sharply.
Wick took a leather case from his pocket. "Here's her picture," he said. "You're the very first people I've shown it to, except my dear old mother and my little sister."
This, too, seemed vaguely familiar to the novelist. Indeed, she had a feeling that none of the conversation was true—that she was writing it in one of her own books.
Grisel took the photograph and held it towards her mother; they looked at it together.