Will Warburton

"You passed me as I stood on the bridge. I saw you go into the Gardens, and I said to myself how pleasant it would be if I could have ventured to join you in your walk. You knew me--as your grocer. For me to have approached and spoken, would have been an outrage. That day I had villainous thoughts."

Crash, shop disguise, Rosamund chase, and Kew shame fuse into a proposal that must confess class outrage before love can speak — so plot scores 88.

Bertha raised her eyes; just raised them till they met his, then bent her head again. "We thought your name was really Jollyman," she said, in a half-apologetic tone. "Of course you did. A good invention, by the bye, that name, wasn't it?" "Very good indeed," she answered, smiling.

Bertha's calm half-apology against Will's nervous confession — clear eyes against shamefaced invention — individuates the romance, so cast scores 87.

Again came springtime, and, as he stood behind the counter, Warburton thought of all that was going on in the world he had forsaken. Amusements for which he had never much cared haunted his fancy; feeling himself shut out from the life of grace and intellect, he suffered a sense of dishonour…

Forty-eight chapters; crash and proposal accelerate, but seasonal counter grind dilates the middle to social-comedy tempo, so pace scores 84.

The sea-wind in his hair, his eyes agleam with the fresh memory of Alpine snows, Will Warburton sprang out of the cab, paid the driver a double fare, flung on to his shoulder a heavy bag and ran up, two steps at a stride, to a flat on the fourth floor of the many-tenanted building hard by Chelsea Bridge.

Kinetic verbs and Alpine gleam without ornamental pause — late comic energy exact — so prose scores 88.

feeling himself shut out from the life of grace and intellect, he suffered a sense of dishonour, as though his position resulted from some personal baseness, some crime. He numbered the acquaintances he had dropped, and pictured them as men…

Chelsea flat, sugar office, counter, Kew bridge — class visibility as London topography, so world scores 87.

His rat-tat-tat brought to the door a thin yellow face, cautious in espial, through the narrow opening. "Is it you, sir?"

Double fare and cautious yellow face establish kinetic arrival and household dependence before the crash — so hook scores 86.

You knew me--as your grocer. For me to have approached and spoken, would have been an outrage… It was foolish, no doubt, to dream that an educated girl might marry a grocer…

Shopkeeping as both honourable labour and social outrage — class-disguise comedy without detective plot — so innov scores 90.

"That she should have no higher ambition! Poor Bertha!" "We can't all achieve ambitions," cried Franks from the other end of the room. "Not every girl can marry a popular portrait-painter." "A great artist!" exclaimed his wife, with emphasis.

After the grocer proposal arc, the last frame is Rosamund's pity for Bertha's shopkeeper match — ironic sealed smile on class ambition — so ending scores 86.