MY FIRST PROPOSAL
WE were alone on the top of the 'bus.
Mr. Brace turned to me, settling the oil-cloth 'bus apron over my knees
as if I were a very small and helpless child that must be taken great
care of.
Then he said: "You didn't like it, did you? All that?" with a jerk of
his head towards the side street from which the 'bus was lurching away.
I said: "Well! I don't think there seemed to be any real harm in that
sort of frivolling. It's very expensive, though, I suppose----"
"Very," said Mr. Brace grimly.
"But, of course, Miss Million has plenty of money to waste. Still, it's
rather silly--a lot of grown-up people behaving like that----"
Here I had another mental glimpse of Mr. Burke's reckless, merry,
well-bred face, bending over Miss Vi Vassity's common, good-humoured
one, with its shrewd, black eyes, its characteristic flash of prominent
white teeth; I saw his tall, supple figure whirling round her rather
squat, overdressed little shape in that one-step.
"'Larking' about with all sorts of people they wouldn't otherwise meet,
I suppose, and shrieking and 'ragging' like a lot of costers on
Hampstead Heath. Yes. Really it was rather like a very much more
expensive Bank Holiday crowd. It was only another way of dancing to
organs in the street, and of flourishing 'tiddlers,' and of shrieking in
swing-boats, and of changing hats. Only all that seems to 'go' with
costers. And it doesn't with these people," I said, thinking of Mr.
Burke's clean-limbed, public-school, hunting-field look.
"I shall tell Mill--Miss Million that. And she won't like it," I
chattered on, as Mr. Brace didn't seem to be going to say anything more.
"I really think she's better away from those places, perhaps, after all.
"Late hours won't suit her, I know. Why, she's never been out of bed
after half-past ten before in her whole life. And she's never tasted
those weird things they were having for supper; hot dressed crab and
pastry with mushrooms inside it! As for champagne--well, I expect she'll
have a horrid headache to-morrow. I shall have to give her breakfast in
bed and look after her like a moth----"
"Miss Lovelace! You must do nothing of the sort. That sort of thing must
stop," the young man at my side blurted out. "You oughtn't to be doing
that. It's too preposterous----"
This was the second time to-day I'd heard that word applied to my
working as Miss Million's maid. The first time the Honourable Jim Burke
had said it. Now here was a young man who disagreed with the Honourable
Jim on every other point, apparently working himself up into angry
excitement over this.
"That you--you--should be Miss Million's maid. Good heavens! It's
unthinkable!"
"I suppose you mean," I said rather maliciously, "that you couldn't
think of that sister of yours doing anything of the kind."
He didn't seem to hear me. He said quite violently: "You must give it
up. You must give it up at once."
I laughed a little. I said: "Give up a good, well-paid and amusing
situation? Why? And what could I do instead? Go back to my aunt, I
suppose----"
"No," broke in the young bank manager, still quite violently, "come to
me, couldn't you?"
I was so utterly taken aback that I hadn't a word to reply. I thought I
must have misunderstood what he said.
There was a moment of jolting silence.
Then, in a tone of voice that seemed as if it had been jerked out of
him, sentence by sentence, with the rolling of the 'bus, Mr. Brace went
on:
"Miss Lovelace! I don't know whether you knew it, but--I have always--if
you only knew the enormous admiration, the reverence, that I have always
had for you--I ought not to have said it so soon, I suppose. I meant not
to have said it for some time yet. But if you could possibly--there is
nothing that I would not do to try to make you happy, if you would
consent to become my wife."
"Oh, good heavens!" I exclaimed, absolutely dazed.
"I know," said young Mr. Brace rather hoarsely, "that it is fearful
presumption on my part. I know I haven't got anything much to offer a
girl like you."
"Oh," I said, coming out of my first shock of surprise, "oh, but I'm
sure you have." I felt quite a lump in my throat. I was so touched at
the young man's modesty. I said again: "Oh, but I'm sure you have, Mr.
Brace. Heaps!"
And I looked at his face in the light of the street lamp past which the
'bus was swinging. That radiance and the haze of lamp-lit raindrops made
a sort of "glory" about him. He has a nice face, one can't deny it. A
fair, frank, straight, conscientious, young face. So typically the best
type of honourable, reliable, average young Englishman. Such a contrast
to the wary, subtle, dare-devil Celtic face, with the laughing, mocking
eyes of Mr. Jim Burke, for example.
The next thing I knew was that Mr. Brace had got hold of my hand and was
holding it most uncomfortably tight.
"Then, could you?" he said in that strained voice. "Do you mean you
could make me so tremendously proud and happy?"
"Oh, no! I'm afraid not," I said hastily. "I couldn't!"
"Oh, don't say that," he put in anxiously. "Miss Lovelace! If you only
knew! I am devoted to you. Nobody could be more so. If you could only
try to care for me. Of course, I see this must seem very abrupt."
"Oh, not at all," I put in hastily again. I did hate not to seem kind
and nice to him, after he'd said he was devoted, even though it did
sound--well--do I mean "stilted"? The next thing he said was also rather
stilted and embarrassing.
"But ever since I first saw you in Putney I knew the truth. You are the
one girl in the world for me!"
"Oh, no! There must be such crowds of them," I assured him. "Really
pretty ones; much nicer than me. I'm sure I'm not one bit as nice as you
think me.... Oh, heavens----"
For here a wild jolt from the motor-'bus had nearly pitched me into his
arms. The top of the 'bus is absolutely the worst place in the world to
listen to a proposal, unless you're absolutely certain of accepting the
young man. Even so it must have its drawbacks.
"I'm sure," I said, "that I should be bad-tempered, horrid to live
with----"
"Miss Lovelace----"
"And here's the Cecil. I must get off here," I said with some relief.
"Good-night. No! Please don't get off with me. I'd so much rather you
didn't."
"May I see you again, then? Soon?" he persisted, standing up on that
horrible 'bus that rocked like a boat at anchor in a rough sea.
"To-morrow?"
"Yes--no, not to-morrow----"
"Yes, to-morrow. I have so much to say to you. I must call. I'll
write----"
"Good-night!" I called back ruefully.
And feeling aghast and amused and a little elated all at once, Miss
Million's maid, who had just had an offer of marriage from the manager
of Miss Million's bank, entered Miss Million's hotel, and went upstairs
to Miss Million's rooms to wait until her mistress came back from the
Thousand and One.
When I had taken off my wet outdoor things and reassumed my cap and
apron, I sat down on Miss Million's plump pink couch, stuffed one downy
cushion into the curve of my back, another into the nape of my neck, put
my slippered feet up on a _pouffe_, and prepared to wait up for her,
dozing, perhaps....