She said afterwards that it was a fine morning, a very fine morning, a fact that he did not deny, neither did he acknowledge, and so abstracted and strange did he seem that the gold-fish slipped out of her mind, and for a few moments she was agitated. She recovered though, and laying down a little bunch of violets beside her reticule, she went through her regular routine, received her change, and with a strange feeling of exultation at the artfulness of her procedure, she had reached the door after a most impressive “good-morning,” for Miss Heathery always kept up the fiction of dining late, though she partook of her main meal at half-past one.
She had reached the door, when James Thickens spoke, his voice, the voice of her forlorn hope, thrilling her to the core. It was not a thrilling word, though it had that effect upon her, for it was only a summons—an arrest, a check, to her outward progress.
“Hi!”
That was all. “Hi!” but it did thrill her, and she stopped short with bounding pulses. It was abrupt, but still what of that! Gentlemen were not ladies; and if in their masterful, commanding way, they began their courtship by showing that they were the lords of women, why should she complain? He had only to order her to be his wife, and she was ready to become more—his very submissive slave.
She stopped, and, after a moment’s hesitation, turned at that “Hi!” so full of hope to her thirsty soul. Her eyes were humid with pleasurable sensations, and but for that broad mahogany counter, she could have thrown herself at his feet. At that moment she was upon the dazzling pinnacle of joy; the next she was mentally sobbing despairingly in the vale of sorrow and despair into which she had fallen, for James Thickens said coldly:
“Here, you’ve left something behind.”
Her violets! Her sweet offering that she had laid upon the altar behind which her idol always stood. That bunch was gathered by her own fingers, tied up with her own hands, incensed with kisses, made dewy with tears. It was the result of loving and painful thought followed by an inventive flash. It meant an easy confession of her love, and after laying it upon the mahogany altar, her sanguine imagination painted James Thickens lifting it, kissing it, holding it to his breast, searching among the leaves for the note which was not there; and, lastly, wearing it home in his button-hole, placing it in water for a time, and then keeping it dried yet fragrant in a book of poetry—the present of his love.
All that and more she had thought; and now James Thickens had called out, “Hi! you’ve left something behind.”
She crept back to the counter, and said, “Thank you, Mr Thickens,” in a piteous voice, her eyes beneath her veil too much blinded by the gathering tears to see Mr Trampleasure passing through the bank, though she heard his words, “Good-day, Miss Heathery,” and bowed.
It was all over: James Thickens was not a man, he was a rhinoceros with an impenetrable hide; and, taking up her bunch of flowers, she was about to leave the bank when Thickens spoke again.