"Well, if you do it now, it's done for good. You won't whistle me back again, you know. I'm not that sort. If I go, I go." He paused, adding with a sudden spurt of anger at her injustice: "And I shan't come back if you crawl on your hands and knees after me from one end of the promenade to the other. I haven't done nothing. What's the matter with you? But I can tell you. You're gone on that Wilson."
"I aren't gone on him," said Caroline angrily. "A man I hardly know. You must have got a bee in your bonnet, Wilf."
"I may, or I may not, but I'm not going to have my future wife conduct herself in a silly style without saying a word," he answered with youthful pomposity.
"Your wife! It hasn't got to that yet," said Caroline. Then she thrust her face nearer to his, adding impulsively: "It would be years and years before we could think of marrying. I didn't plan ahead like that when we started keeping company, and I don't feel as if I could ever look on you as a future husband, Wilf. I don't feel I ever shall want to marry you—not now it comes to it."
"Then that's why you wouldn't have my ring," he said, his face blank and pale in the twilight. He began to see that it was all real—not just a "tiff" such as they had had before.
"I suppose so," said Caroline, her tone changing too—becoming anxious and slightly troubled. "I didn't realize at the time, but I expect I was shying away from the idea, if you know what I mean?"
"Oh, I know what you mean well enough. You're tired of me, and you want to turn me down. But let me tell you you won't find fellows like me growing on every gooseberry bush. I've always treated you like a gentleman—I have. I never hinted a word when you were going out as day girl to that woman who keeps a little shop in your street, though I could see some of my pals thought I was walking out a bit beneath myself. And this is the return I get." He jerked his hat back on his head. "It's enough to make a chap go to the dogs and enjoy himself: blest if it isn't!"
"I'm sorry, Wilf. I know I'm behaving like a perfect pig, but when it comes to marrying, you must have the right sort of feeling, or where are you?" said Caroline.
"Well, I only know one thing. I wish to goodness I had bought that second-hand motor-bike I wanted, instead of saving up the money against getting married! Why, I fair couldn't sleep for thinking about it: and now Simpson has bought it. And it was all for you. And now this is how I'm treated."
"Oh, Wilf! You never told me. I never knew about the motor-bike," said Caroline, taken aback.