§2
"the acceptance of an invitation is in the eyes of diners out, a binding obligation which only ill–health, family bereavement, or some all–important reason justifies its being set on one side or otherwise evaded"—
and then he had lapsed into gloomy thoughts.
That afternoon he had had a serious talk with Helen.
He had tried to express something of the change of heart that had happened to him. But to broach the real state of the matter had been altogether too terrible for him. He had sought a minor issue. "I don't like all this Seciety," he had said.
"But you must see people," said Helen.
"Yes, but―. It's the sort of people you see." He nerved himself. "I didn't think much of that lot at the Enegram Tea."
"You have to see all sorts of people if you want to see the world," said Helen.
Kipps was silent for a space and a little short of breath.
"My dear Arthur," she began, almost kindly, "I shouldn't ask you to go to these affairs if I didn't think it good for you, should I?"
Kipps acquiesced in silence.
"You will find the benefit of it all when we get to London. You learn to swim in a tank before you go out into the sea. These people here are good enough to learn upon. They're stiff and rather silly and dreadfully narrow and not an idea in a dozen of them, but it really doesn't matter at all. You'll soon get Savoir Faire."
He made to speak again, and found his powers of verbal expression lacking. Instead he blew a sigh.
"You'll get used to it all very soon," said Helen helpfully….
As he sat meditating over that interview and over the vistas of London that opened before him, on the little flat, and teas and occasions and the constant presence of Brudderkins and all the bright prospect of his new and better life, and how he would never see Ann any more, the housemaid entered with a little package, a small, square envelope to "Arthur Kipps, Esquire."
"A young woman left this, Sir," said the housemaid, a little severely.
"Eh?" said Kipps; "what young woman?" and then suddenly began to understand.
"She looked an ordinary young woman," said the housemaid coldly.
"Ah!" said Kipps. "That's orlright."
He waited till the door had closed behind the girl, staring at the envelope in his hand, and then, with a curious feeling of increasing tension, tore it open. As he did so, some quicker sense than sight or touch told him its contents. It was Ann's half sixpence. And, besides, not a word!
Then she must have heard him―!
She had kept the half sixpence all these years!
He was standing with the envelope in his hand, trying to get on from that last inference, when Coote became audible without.
Coote appeared in evening dress, a clean and radiant Coote, with large, greenish, white gloves and a particularly large white tie, edged with black. "For a third cousin," he presently explained. "Nace, isn't it?" He could see Kipps was pale and disturbed and put this down to the approaching social trial. "You keep your nerve up, Kipps, my dear chap, and you'll be all right," said Coote, with a big, brotherly glove on Kipps' sleeve.