"I say, suppose I had believed you—and yielded one day, don't you know very well that all the world would laugh at me?"
"Why?"
"Why—because, my dear boy, I'm almost old enough to be your mother—and I have done with love, and all that sort of thing."
"No, you haven't. You're just ripe for love—I felt that when I was kissing you."
Mrs. Thompson rose abruptly.
"I must go home.... Come;" and they walked side by side through the summer dusk towards the lamp-light of the town.
"This must never be spoken of again," she said firmly; and before they reached the last field gate, she had told him many times that her rejection of his suit was final and irrevocable. Hers was a flat deliberate refusal, and nothing could ever modify it.
"Yes," he said sadly, "it's hopeless. I knew it all along, in my secret heart—quite hopeless."
But she told him that if he promised never to think of it again, she would allow him to remain in the shop.