"I was very lonely, Eleanor, when I saw you. I have not got a friend in London!..." He omitted to remember the existence of Hinde. "I come from Ireland!..."
"And I had not been in London more than a day when I saw you. I fell in love with you at once!..."
"It's true. After you'd gone back to your office, I went for a long walk, but all the time, I was thinking of you, and I hurried back to the shop at teatime, hoping I'd see you. And you were there, looking lovelier than you looked in the middle of the day. Do you remember?"
"Yes," she said. "You looked so ridiculous!..."
"Perhaps I did, but I didn't care how I looked so long as I was near you. I felt miserable and lonely, and you were the only person in London I knew!..."
"I knew your name, and I was in love with you. That was enough. I tried to speak to you, but you would not let me. I asked you to be friends with me, and you got up and walked away. I felt ashamed of myself because I thought I had frightened you, and I hurried out of the shop and followed you so that I might tell you how sorry I was and how much I loved you, but I lost you at your office, and the man at the lift nearly had a fight with me!..."
"Then it _was_ you who had been asking for me? He told me that a suspicious character had been hanging about the hall, enquiring for me. I thought it might be you!"
"You behave suspiciously. You speak to people whom you do not know, and you follow them in the street!..."
There was a silence for a few moments, and then she turned to the door and inserted the key in the lock.
"Well, please go away now," she said. "You can't do any good here!..."
"Let me come in and tell your father and mother I want to marry you!"
She opened the door and gazed at him as if she could not believe her ears.
"This is a residential club for women," she said. "I have no parents, I think you're the silliest man I've ever encountered. Please go away! You'll get me talked about!..."
He stared blankly at the glass panels of the door for a few moments and then went down the steps into the street, and as he did so, he saw a light suddenly illuminate the room immediately above the pillared portico. He stared up at it, and saw that the window was open, and while he looked, he saw Eleanor come to it and begin to draw it down.