Andy shook out his pen again, and wrote on a blank sheet—
“Elizabeth——”
As he wrote it, he seemed to reach out towards her with his very soul. He felt that she must know, though she lay asleep with her cheek upon the white pillow and her hair spread round her.
A deep tenderness came over Andy as he pictured her so—it seemed to flow through all his being—how could he write a letter asking her to marry him? A man must be a poet without self-consciousness, a lover without fear, and a potential husband without priggishness to do that properly—and where do you find that man?
Anyway, not in poor Andy, who sat clutching the mop of curls above his brow that had been brilliantined so nice and flat for the harvest festival, and who could get no further than—
“I do not know if you will be surprised to hear that I love you.”
He read it over. It sounded lame—awful! He must think of something more suitable.
But in about a week’s time the letter would have to be sent. He had not liked to mention it to Dick Stamford—a sort of fierce delicacy restrained him—but of course Dick would be obliged to say something when the end of his period of probation arrived.
It was now the end of the third week in September, and October had been the time named; but what part of October, Andy did not know. In any case, it must be soon.
He tore up the paper and started afresh—