“Are you shocked?” Elsie giggled. “I didn’t ought to, I suppose, but really it’s hard to know what else to do.” She peeped into the tiny looking-glass. “Isn’t it pretty!” “_You_ are,” said Williams awkwardly. “How are you going to thank me, Elsie?” He always seemed to take pleasure in repeating her name. “How do you suppose?” “You know what I’d like.” He came nearer to her, and put his hands upon her shoulders. Although Elsie was short, he was very little taller. She shut her eyes and put her head back, her exposed throat throbbing visibly. She could feel his breath upon her face, when suddenly she ducked her head, twisting out of his grasp, and cried wildly: “No, no! It isn’t right--I oughtn’t to let you! Oh, Mr. Williams, I’d rather not have the brooch, though it’s lovely. But I can’t be a bad girl!” He had taken a step backwards in his disconcerted amazement. “What on earth----Why, Elsie, you don’t think there’s any harm in a kiss, do you?” “I don’t know,” she muttered, half crying. “But you make me feel so--so helpless, somehow, Mr. Williams.” Purest instinct was guiding her, but no subtlety of insight could have better gauged the effect of her implication upon the little solicitor’s vanity. He drew himself up, and expanded the narrow width of his chest. “You’re not frightened of me, little girl, are you?” “I--I don’t know,” faltered Elsie. “I can assure you that you needn’t be. Why, I--I--I’m very fond of you, surely you know that?” Elsie felt rather scornful of the lameness of his speech. She saw that he was afraid of his own impulses, and the knowledge encouraged her. “Here, Mr. Williams,” she said rather tremulously, holding out the turquoise brooch. He closed her hand over it. “Keep it. Are you fond of jewellery?” “Yes, very.” “It’s natural, at your age. I’d like to give you pretty things, Elsie, but you mustn’t be such a little prude.” “Mother always told me that one shouldn’t take a present--not a valuable present--from a man, without he was a relation or--or else----” She stopped. “Or else what?” “He’d asked one to marry him,” half whispered Elsie. Williams recoiled so unmistakably that for a sickening instant she was afraid of having gone too far. Genuine tears ran down her face, and she did not know what to say. “Don’t cry,” said the solicitor dryly. “I’d like you to keep the brooch, and you can thank me in your own time, and your own way.” “Oh, how good you are!” She was relieved that he said no more to her that day. She wore the brooch on the following morning, and fingered it very often. Williams eyed her complacently. She began to notice that he was taking some pains with his own appearance, occasionally wearing a flower in his coat, and discarding the crêpe band round his arm. She even suspected, from a certain smell noticeable in the small office, that he was trying the effect of a hair-dye upon his scanty strands of hair. Elsie mocked him inwardly, but felt excited and hopeful.