“It’s my fault. I couldn’t do the thing delicately. I’m clumsy.”
“No, no. I have told you that it is not that.”
“Well, you think it over. Supposing we leave it till you get stronger?”
“But you are offering everything and I nothing.”
“Nonsense! Besides, I don’t believe in marrying a woman with money. I’d rather have the business on my own back. Of course, I should settle two or three thousand on you, you know, so that you would have a little income for pin-money. I think that’s only fair to a woman.”
She coloured and felt guilty.
“I think you are more generous than fair. Don’t say any more. I’ll—I’ll think it over.”
He got up and seized his hat.
“That’s it—that’s it. You think it over! I’m not one of those fellows who thinks that a woman is going to rush at him directly he says come. It means a lot to a woman, a dickens of a lot. And you’re not quite yourself yet, are you? It’s awfully good of you to have listened.”
He reached for her hand, bent over it with cumbrous courtesy, and covered up a sudden silence by getting out of the room as quickly as he could.