Kipps. H. G. Wells
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his intention of going on with wood-carving when the summer was over, and once he added "If——"
She considered herself extremely delicate not to press for the completion of that "if——"
After that talk there was an interval of languid wood-carving and watching Miss Walshingham.
Then presently there came a bustle of packing, a great ceremony of hand-shaking all round by Miss Collis and the maiden lady of ripe years, and then Kipps found himself outside the class-room, on the landing with his two friends. It seemed to him he had only just learnt that this was the last class of all. There came a little pause, and the freckled girl suddenly went back into the class-room, and left Kipps and Miss Walshingham alone together for the first time. Kipps was instantly breathless. She looked at his face with a glance that mingled sympathy and curiosity, and held out her white hand.
"Well, good-bye, Mr. Kipps," she said.
He took her hand and held it. "I'd do anything," said Kipps, and had not the temerity to add, "for you." He stopped awkwardly. He shook her hand and said, "Good-bye."
There was a little pause.
"I hope you will have a pleasant holiday," she said.
"I shall come back to the class next year, anyhow," said Kipps valiantly, and turned abruptly to the stairs.
"I hope you will," said Miss Walshingham.
He turned back towards her. "Reelly?" he said.
"I hope everybody will come back."
"I will—anyhow," said Kipps. "You may count on that," and he tried to make his tones significant.
They looked at one another through a little pause.
"Good-bye," she said.
Kipps lifted his hat. She turned towards the class-room.
"Well?" said the freckled girl, coming back towards her.
"Nothing," said Helen. "At least—presently." And she became very energetic about some scattered tools on a desk.
The freckled girl went out and stood for a moment at the head of the stairs. When she came back she looked very hard at her friend. The incident struck her as important—wonderfully important. It was unassimilable, of course, and absurd, but there it was, the thing that is so cardinal to a girl, the emotion, the subservience, the crowning triumph of her sex. She could not help feeling that Helen took it, on the whole, a little too hardly.
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