To which Arissa: "And when would this be?"
To which Sir Percival: "I dunno. How about tomorrow night?"
To which—well, anyway, to her own surprise, to the astonishment of
Sir Percival, and to the great confusion of the rest of the kingdom,
Arissa finally actually agreed to this scenario and the next evening
the two young people went to Andre's.
Arissa, of course, ordered the eleven most expensive things on the menu, for she was still intending to discourage Sir Percival, but the knight was willing to put up with only a glass of water for his own dinner, because the success he had enjoyed so far with the desirable Arissa had quite taken away his appetite anyway.
In the course of the evening, Arissa happened to remark, "I wish they had apricots on the menu here. You know, I really love them. I could eat them by the ton."
To which Sir Percival: "Why, Arissa, my dove, I own an orchard of apricot trees."
To which Arissa: "Really? Oh, Perce." When she pronounced his name, the young maiden sighed and a glisten appeared in one or both eyes.
Well, from here the story gets pretty mushy, so we'd better make it short. This delightful couple soon held hands; they discovered anon that their lips fit together pretty well, Arissa's ten years' worth of plans were miraculously cancelled, and Sir Percival finally asked the Big Question, to which Arissa replied, "Well, okay."
And so they were married and lived happily ever after, with Arissa often telling Sir Percival how she had secretly loved him from the first time she saw him, while Sir Percival, each time he kissed Arissa's apricot-flavored lips, congratulated himself for his skill in winning her.
Truth Carved in Stone