I was rather chapfallen at this very definite refusal, but persisted feebly: 

“I wish you would.  It may seem rather cheek for a comparative stranger like me to make such a proposal to a lady; but if you’d been a man—­in these special circumstances—­I should have made it all the same, and you would have accepted as a matter of course.”

“I doubt that.  At any rate, I am not a man.  I sometimes wish I were.”

“Oh, I am sure you are much better as you are!” I exclaimed, with such earnestness that we both laughed.  And at this moment Mr. Bellingham entered the room carrying several large and evidently brand-new books in a strap.

“Well, I’m sure!” he exclaimed genially; “here are pretty goings on.  Doctor and patient giggling like a pair of schoolgirls!  What’s the joke?”

He thumped his parcel of books down on the table and listened smilingly while my unconscious witticism was expounded.

“The Doctor’s quite right,” he said.  “You’ll do as you are, chick; but the Lord knows what sort of man you would make.  You take his advice and let well alone.”

Finding him in this genial frame of mind, I ventured to explain my proposition to him and to enlist his support.  He considered it with attentive approval, and when I had finished turned to his daughter.

“What is your objection, chick?” he asked.

“It would give Doctor Berkeley such a fearful lot of work,” she answered.

“It would give him a fearful lot of pleasure,” I said.  “It would, really.”

“Then why not?” said Mr. Bellingham.  “We don’t mind being under an obligation to the Doctor, do we?”

“Oh, it wasn’t that!” she exclaimed hastily.

“Then take him at his word.  He means it.  It is a kind action and he’ll like doing it, I’m sure.  That’s all right, Doctor; she accepts, don’t you, chick?”

“Yes, if you say so, I do; and most thankfully.”

She accompanied the acceptance with a gracious smile that was in itself a large payment on account, and when we had made the necessary arrangements, I hurried away in a state of the most perfect satisfaction to finish my morning’s work and order an early lunch.

When I called for her a couple of hours later I found her waiting in the garden with the shabby handbag, of which I relieved her, and we set forth together, watched jealously by Miss Oman, who had accompanied her to the gate.

As I walked up the court with this wonderful maid by my side I could hardly believe in my good fortune.  By her presence and my own resulting happiness the mean surroundings became glorified and the commonest objects transfigured into things of beauty.  What a delightful thoroughfare, for instance, was Fetter Lane, with its quaint charm and mediaeval grace!  I snuffed the cabbage-laden atmosphere and seemed to breathe the scent of the asphodel.  Holborn was even as the Elysian Fields; the omnibus that bore us westward was a chariot of glory; and the people who swarmed verminously on the pavements bore the semblance of the children of light.