“Oh, it will come—it will come!”
“I like to hear you talk about it, Charley. But if we are ever to marry—if I am to give up the post-office, you must make a bigger screw. Remember what you promised. The shorthand and the French class. Put them before your speechifying.”
“All right, Lily dear, and then we will get married, and we will have the most splendid time. Oh, there’s the most splendid time for us—ahead!”
II.
It is six months later and mid-winter, and the time is again the evening. The day has been gloomy, with a fog heavy enough to cause the offices to be lit with gas, so that the eyes of all London are red and the heads of all London are heavy.
Lily stepped outside the post-office, work done. She was going home.
At the door stood her sweetheart, waiting for her. She tossed her head and made as if she would pass him without speaking. But he stepped after and walked beside her.
“No, Lily,” he said, “I will speak to you; even if you don’t answer my letters you shall hear me speak.”
“You have disgraced yourself,” she said.
“Yes, I know. But you will forgive me. It is the first time. I swear it is the first time.”