William happened to be passing through the hall as Mrs. de Vere Carter came out of the drawing-room followed by Mrs. Brown.
“There you are!” she said. “I thought you’d be waiting to say good-bye to me.”
She stretched out her arm with an encircling movement, but William stepped back and stood looking at her with a sinister frown.
“I have so enjoyed seeing you. I hope you’ll come again,” untruthfully stammered Mrs. Brown, moving so as to block out the sight of William’s face, but Mrs de Vere Carter was not to be checked. There are people to whom the expression on a child’s face conveys absolutely nothing. Once more she floated towards William.
“Good-bye, Willy, dear. You’re not too old to kiss me, are you?”
Mrs. Brown gasped.
At the look of concentrated fury on William’s face, older and stronger people than Mrs. de Vere Carter would have quailed, but she only smiled as, with another virulent glare at her, he turned on his heel and walked away.
“The sweet, shy thing!” she cooed. “I love them shy.”
Mr. Brown was told of the proposal.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I can’t quite visualise William at a Band of Hope meeting; but of course, if you want him to, he must go.”