Charles, watching with approval Ulysses's first assumption of deafness and subsequently leisurely progress in Mrs. Midgeholme's wake, said: “I like that dog. He knows what is due to his own dignity. All the same, I'm damned if I'd put up with being called his father.” He turned his head, and looked down at Abby. “You stood me up yesterday: what about running down to Filey Cove now?”
“Don't you ever do any work?” asked Abby provocatively.
“I do a great deal of work. I've been out on an important job this very afternoon. If you need reassurance, I shan't get the sack for not returning to the office. I'm a full partner, let me tell you! No, you don't!”
Miss Dearham, about to retire strategically, found her right wrist clamped suddenly to the top of the gate, and at once protested. She said that Charles was hurting her arm, upon which he lifted her wrist and kissed it. Much shaken, she could think of nothing to say, but, blushing, adorably, peeped up at him under the huge brim of her hat. Charles, quick to seize opportunity, kissed her in good earnest.
“What on earth are you doing?” demanded Miss Patterdale, suddenly emerging from her little potting-shed, and screwing her monocle into her eye, the better to observe her young friends.
“Asking Abby to marry me,” responded Charles brazenly, one arm round Abby's shoulders, his other hand still clasping her maltreated wrist.
“Nonsense! You don't ask a girl to marry you in front of her aunt!”
“I've already made several attempts to ask her to marry me not in front of her aunt, but you always turn up just as the words are hovering on my tongue!” Charles retorted.
Miss Patterdale looked suspiciously from one flushed face to the other. “Well, I don't know what the world's coming to, I'm sure!” she said. “Kissing and cuddling across my garden-gate! If you really are going to marry Abby you'd better come inside, and stop making a public exhibition of yourself! Or are you pulling my leg?”
“Certainly not!” said Charles, affronted. “You don't suppose I'd kiss Abby across your gate, or anyone else's, if I didn't hope to marry her, do you?”