‘The girl behind the counter made me buy a dozen pairs of gloves instead. They turned out to be three sizes too large for me when they came home. I believe she thought I’d gone to spoon the glove girl,—she went out and left me there. That girl loaded me with all sorts of things when she was gone,—I couldn’t get away. She held me with her blessed eye. I believe it was a glass one.’
‘Miss Lindon’s?—or the glove girl’s?’
‘The glove girl’s. She sent me home a whole cartload of green ties, and declared I’d ordered them. I shall never forget that day. I’ve never been up the Arcade since, and never mean to.’
‘You gave Miss Lindon a wrong impression.’
‘I don’t know. I was always giving her wrong impressions. Once she said that she knew I was not a marrying man, that I was the sort of chap who never would marry, because she saw it in my face.’
‘Under the circumstances, that was trying.’
‘Bitter hard.’ Percy sighed again. ‘I shouldn’t mind if I wasn’t so gone. I’m not a fellow who does get gone, but when I do get gone, I get so beastly gone.’
‘I tell you what, Percy,—have a drink!’
‘I’m a teetotaler,—you know I am.’
‘You talk of your heart being broken, and of your being a teetotaler in the same breath,—if your heart were really broken you’d throw teetotalism to the winds.’