"I'm not going to tell you his name, though you're perfectly right, oh shrewd young knight of the fountain pen."
Wick was shrewd, but he was also very young, and Mrs. Walbridge felt a little pang of pain as she saw how white he had grown and what a smitten look had come to his face. After a second he rallied, and lit a cigarette, but he had been badly hurt, and his face showed it as he said, with a laugh:
"That's a phase all attractive young girls go through—trying to make up their minds to marry some rich man they don't like, before they have the sense to settle down with the handsome object of their true affections."
"The object being you, I suppose?" she retorted.
"Grisel, Grisel," her mother protested gently. "You really go too far, my dear."
The girl laughed. "Poor mother. You're longing to tell me it isn't womanly, aren't you? But it's very kind of you to have brought me the violets, Oliver, and I'm glad to see you, and all that——" She held out her hand carelessly, with something of the air of a stage queen, "but I'm dining out, and must have a talk with mother before I dress, so I'm afraid you must go now."
He rose at once, apologising nervously and sensitively for having stayed too long, and Mrs. Walbridge went down to the door with him. He was very slow in getting into his coat, and she purposely did not look at him. She knew he was suffering, and she had an absurd feeling that he was hers, that she had written him—that she knew exactly what he was going through, and what he was going to do.
Then he opened the door and turned round, grinning broadly and holding out his hand.
"She got the first one in that round, didn't she?" he asked. "Never mind, I'll get her yet, the young minx! Oh, my word," he added, relapsing suddenly into helpless, conscious pathos: "What a little beauty she is! My knees feel like wet tissue paper."
Before she could speak he had bent and kissed her (for though he was not very tall, he was taller than she), and was gone into the darkness.