‘Poor old Bobbie!’

A quarter of an hour later, in some miraculous manner, they were more intimate than they had ever been, much more intimate.  He revised his estimate of the time that must elapse before he might propose to her.  In another five minutes he was fighting hard against a mad impulse to propose to her on the spot.  And then the fight was over, and he had lost.  He proposed to her under the rose-coloured shade of the Welsbach light.

She drew away, as though shot.

And with the rapidity of lightning, in the silence which followed, he went back to his original criticism of himself, that he was a fool.  Naturally she would request him to leave.  She would accuse him of effrontery.

Her lips trembled.  He prepared to rise.

‘It’s so sudden!’ she said.

Bliss!  Glory!  Celestial joy!  Her words were at least equivalent to an absolution of his effrontery!  She would accept!  She would accept!  He jumped up and approached her.  But she jumped up too and retreated.  He was not to win his prize so easily.

‘Please sit down,’ she murmured.  ‘I must think it over,’ she said, apparently mastering herself.  ’Shall you be at chapel next Sunday morning?’

‘Yes,’ he answered.

’If I am there, and if I am wearing white roses in my hat, it will mean—­’ She dropped her eyes.

‘Yes?’ he queried.

And she nodded.

‘And supposing you aren’t there?’

‘Then the Sunday after,’ she said.

He thanked her in his Hessian style.

‘I prefer that way of telling you,’ she smiled demurely.  ’It will avoid the necessity for another—­so much—­you understand?...’

‘Quite so, quite so!’ he agreed.  ‘I quite understand.’

‘And if I do see those roses,’ he went on, ’I shall take upon myself to drop in for tea, may I?’

She paused.

’In any case, you mustn’t speak to me coming out of chapel, please.’

As he walked home down Oldcastle Street he said to himself that the age of miracles was not past; also that, after all, he was not so old as the tale of his years would mathematically indicate.

III

Her absence from chapel on the next Sunday disagreed with him.  However, Robert was away nearly all the week, and he had the house to himself to dream in.  It frequently happened to him to pass by Miss Emery’s shop, but he caught no glimpse of her, and though he really was in serious need of writing-paper and envelopes, he dared not enter.  Robert returned on the Friday.