He scarcely understood at first. He
rose, holding the marmalade spoon, and took her proffered hand
with abject humility. "Lord," he broke out, "if you aren't
enough--but there!"
"I see it all now." A brilliant inspiration had suddenly obscured
her humour. She sat down suddenly, and he sat down too. "You did
it," she said, "because you wanted to help me. And you thought I
was too Conventional to take help from one I might think my
social inferior."
"That was partly it," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
"How you misunderstood me!" she said.
"You don't mind?"
"It was noble of you. But I am sorry," she said, "you should
think me likely to be ashamed of you because you follow a decent
trade."
"I didn't know at first, you see," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
And he submitted meekly to a restoration of his self-respect. He
was as useful a citizen as could be,--it was proposed and
carried,--and his lying was of the noblest. And so the breakfast
concluded much more happily than his brightest expectation, and
they rode out of ruddy little Blandford as though no shadow of
any sort had come between them.
XXXVI
As they were sitting by the roadside among the pine trees
half-way up a stretch of hill between Wimborne and Ringwood,
however, Mr. Hoopdriver reopened the question of his worldly
position.
"Ju think," he began abruptly, removing a meditative cigarette
from his mouth, "that a draper's shopman IS a decent citizen?"
"Why not?"
"When he puts people off with what they don't quite want, for
instance?"
"Need he do that?"
"Salesmanship," said Hoopdriver.
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