But apprehension gripped him now. He had not known her for a week, and she was Ada. Peter’s daughter. He stood aghast at his precipitance, then, with the feeling that it was after all a “stroke” (though a larger one than ever before), and that he believed in acting promptly, cleared his throat and plunged into speech.
“Miss Struggles,” he said, “I know that I have only made your acquaintance during the current week, but I seem to have known you all my life. It’s because I used to see you in church, I daresay. I mean we were not strangers when we met, and, anyhow,” he continued recklessly, “I don’t care if we were. I’m not the hesitating sort. I mean, show me a thing, and I can tell you right off whether it’s good or bad. My mind’s made up in a jiffy: that’s the kind of fellow I am. And when my mind’s made up, I act.”
Ada had given a little gasp at the phrasing of his opening—that “during the current week,” an idiom from his business correspondence slipping in here to mark his nervousness—but he was fairly launched now, and she purred gently like a cat well lubricated with butter.
“Yes, Mr. Branstone,” she said, “I think men ought to be resolute.”
“So do I,” he replied. “And so I am. Quite resolute and quite determined about you.”
“About me?” She turned innocent eyes wonderingly at him. “I didn’t know you were being personal.”
“Well,” he said, “I am. I am,” he repeated, and took her hand.
“Mr. Branstone,” she murmured, as one who sees a vision splendid in a dream, and let her hand lie limp in his.
He bent to her. “Can’t you,” he asked hoarsely, “can’t you call me Sam?”
She called him Sam, and he kissed her.