"Should I?"
"Do; and I'll light the gas-fire—a bachelor has to have gas-fires, you know."
While he was down on his knees lighting the fire, and regulating its burning from blue to red, Bessie, with trembling fingers, was drawing the pins out of her hat—the wonderful new hat of a few hours ago, now wet and bedraggled. In doing so she pulled down her hair and made a faint cry,
"Oh!"
"Don't mind that at this time of night," said Victor. But at sight of the girl's face, now framed in its shower of waving black hair, his nervousness increased. He had always thought her a good-looking girl, but he had never known before that she was beautiful.
"My coat is wet, too. I must change it," he said, getting up and going towards his bedroom door. "It would be foolish to put an overcoat over a wet jacket, wouldn't it?"
"Yes."
"But your blouse seems to be soaking. Why shouldn't you take it off and dry it at the fire while I'm away at Mrs. Quayle's?"
"Should I?"
"Why not?"