With a gesture of hopelessness Miss Lomas showed him into the empty drawing-room.
“It’s Miss Dobson I’ve really come for,” explained William obligingly as he sat down.
Miss Lomas fled, but Miss Dobson did not appear.
William spent the interval wrestling with his Valentine. He had carried it sticky side towards his coat, and it now adhered closely to him. He managed at last to tear it away, leaving a good deal of glue and bits of yew-tree still attached to his coat.... No one came.... He resisted the temptation to sample a plate of cakes on a side table, and amused himself by pulling sticky bits of yew off his coat and throwing them into the fire from where he sat. A good many landed on the hearthrug. One attached itself to a priceless Chinese vase on the mantelpiece. William looked at what was left of his Valentine with a certain dismay. Well ... he didn’t call it pretty, but if it was the sort of thing they did he was jolly well going to do it.... That was all.... Then the guests began to arrive, Robert and Ethel among the first. Miss Dobson came in with Robert. He handed her a large box of chocolates.
“A Valentine,” he said.
“Oh ... thank you,” said Miss Dobson, blushing.
William took up his enormous piece of gluey cardboard with bits of battered yew adhering at intervals.
“A Valentine,” he said.
Miss Dobson looked at it in silence. Then:
“W-what is it, William?” she said faintly.