Elspeth was not at this pleasant jink in high life.  She had been invited, but her ladyship had once let Tommy kiss her hand for the first and last time, so he decided sternly that this was no place for Elspeth.  When temptation was nigh, he first locked Elspeth up, and then walked into it.

With two in every three women he was still as shy as ever, but the third he escorted triumphantly to the conservatory.  She did no harm to his work—­rather sent him back to it refreshed.  It was as if he were shooting the sentiment which other young men get rid of more gradually by beginning earlier, and there were such accumulations of it that I don’t know whether he ever made up on them.  Punishment sought him in the night, when he dreamed constantly that he was married—­to whom scarcely mattered; he saw himself coming out of a church a married man, and the fright woke him up.  But with the daylight came again his talent for dodging thoughts that were lying in wait, and he yielded as recklessly as before to every sentimental impulse.  As illustration, take his humourous passage with Mrs. Jerry.  Geraldine Something was her name, but her friends called her Mrs. Jerry.

She was a wealthy widow, buxom, not a day over thirty when she was merry, which might be at inappropriate moments, as immediately after she had expressed a desire to lead the higher life.  “But I have a theory, my dear,” she said solemnly to Elspeth, “that no woman is able to do it who cannot see her own nose without the help of a mirror.”  She had taken a great fancy to Elspeth, and made many engagements with her, and kept some of them, and the understanding was that she apprenticed herself to Tommy through Elspeth, he being too terrible to face by himself, or, as Mrs. Jerry expressed it, “all nose.”  So Tommy had seen very little of her, and thought less, until one day he called by passionate request to sign her birthday-book, and heard himself proposing to her instead!

For one thing, it was twilight, and she had forgotten to ring for the lamps.  That might have been enough, but there was more:  she read to him part of a letter in which her hand was solicited in marriage.  “And, for the life of me,” said Mrs. Jerry, almost in tears, “I cannot decide whether to say yes or no.”

This put Tommy in a most awkward position.  There are probably men who could have got out of it without proposing; but to him there seemed at the moment no other way open.  The letter complicated matters also by beginning “Dear Jerry,” and saying “little Jerry” further on—­expressions which stirred him strangely.

“Why do you read this to me?” he asked, in a voice that broke a little.

“Because you are so wise,” she said.  “Do you mind?”

“Do I mind!” he exclaimed bitterly. ("Take care, you idiot!” he said to himself.)

“I was asking your advice only.  Is it too much?”

“Not at all.  I am quite the right man to consult at such a moment, am I not?”