Round the Corner in Gay Street Part 39

"Why? I 'm not tired."

"But I want to be near you. I 've done nothing all the evening but envy the men who could get about and do things for you."

"You 'll soon be walking off at your usual breakneck pace," said s.h.i.+rley, the colour coming back with a rush into cheeks which had been pale since Olive went.

"To the office--yes--your office. I can hardly wait. But I wonder sometimes if I can keep my wits and do my work there."

"Why not?"

"Don't you know why?"

s.h.i.+rley's little moist ball of a handkerchief was all at once being clutched very tight in her fingers. She shook her head.

"I think you do. I think you must know why I 'm half out of my head with the prospect of being manager of the new house of Townsend & Son."

"I 'm glad that you like the prospect," said s.h.i.+rley, in the lowest of voices, and looking anywhere but at Peter.

"Are you? Do _you_ like it?"

"Very much."

Peter forgot his crutches, and one of them fell with a rattle at s.h.i.+rley's feet. She would have bent to pick it up, but he prevented her, and laboriously reached for it himself.

"I 'm not going," said Peter, deliberately, "to let you wait on me, when all in life I want is the chance to serve you--all my life."

"It would be a very poor partners.h.i.+p," said s.h.i.+rley, in a half-whisper, after a minute--and Peter's heart stopped beating--"if the serving were all on one side"--and Peter's heart went thumping on again, though not in proper rhythm.

"Partners.h.i.+p! _Is_ it a partners.h.i.+p, s.h.i.+rley?"

She nodded. But she moved three steps out of reach. Peter made a hasty movement, and both crutches slipped down to the floor with a crash, and slid away off the edge of the porch to the ground. Peter glared after them. Then he looked at s.h.i.+rley, standing there, rose-cheeked, her tear-wet eyes now full of laughter.

"Oh, _please_ get them for me, dear!" he pleaded. "Or--no--never mind the crutches! Just--_come here_!"