ENGAGED
"I couldn't help noticing her face," said Coote. . . . "You know, my dear Kipps, this is better than a legacy."
"I don't deserve it," said Kipps.
"You can't say that."
"I don't. I can't 'ardly believe it. I can't believe it at all. No!"
There followed an expressive stillness.
"It's wonderful," said Kipps. "It takes me like that."
Coote made a faint blowing noise, and so again they came for a time on silence.
"And it began—before your money?"
"When I was in 'er class," said Kipps, solemnly.
Coote, speaking out of a darkness which he was illuminating strangely with efforts to strike a match, said that it was beautiful. He could not have wished Kipps a better fortune. . . .
He lit a cigarette, and Kipps was moved to do the same, with a sacramental expression. Presently speech flowed more freely.
Coote began to praise Helen and her mother and brother. He talked of when "it" might be, he presented the thing as concrete and credible. "It's a county family, you know," he said. "She is connected, you know, with the Beaupres family—you know Lord Beaupres."
"No!" said Kipps, "reely!"
"Distantly, of course," said Coote. "Still———"
He smiled a smile that glimmered in the twilight.
"It's too much," said Kipps, overcome. "It's so all like that."
221
