But now it seemed the only possible name for a girl to have, the
only label that could even remotely suggest those feminine charms
which he found in this girl beside him. There was poetry in every
syllable of it. It was like one of those deep chords which fill
the hearer with vague yearnings for strange and beautiful things.
He asked for nothing better than to stand here repeating it.
'Elizabeth!'
'Bill, dear!'
That sounded good too. There was music in 'Bill' when properly
spoken. The reason why all the other Bills in the world had got
the impression that it was a prosaic sort of name was that there
was only one girl in existence capable of speaking it properly,
and she was not for them.
'Bill, are you really fond of me?'
'Fond of you!'
She gave a sigh. 'You're so splendid!'
Bill was staggered. These were strange words. He had never thought
much of himself. He had always looked on himself as rather a
chump--well-meaning, perhaps, but an awful ass. It seemed
incredible that any one--and Elizabeth of all people--could look
on him as splendid.
And yet the very fact that she had said it gave it a plausible
sort of sound. It shook his convictions. Splendid! Was he? By
Jove, perhaps he was, what? Rum idea, but it grew on a chap.
Filled with a novel feeling of exaltation, he kissed Elizabeth
eleven times in rapid succession.
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