"You make me feel all shivery. You talk as if you expected him to die right off."

"We've all had sentence of capital punishment p.r.o.nounced against us, and, though we don't know when it will be put into execution, in such a case as his it's possible to guess that it mayn't be very long postponed."

"Rodney! I don't like to hear you talk like that. He's fond of asking me questions about you; I hate telling lies; if we were engaged, and he were in one of his cross-examining moods, I might find myself in a fix."

He played with his knife while a waiter was bringing another course.

"Consider something else. Let me put a hypothetical case. Suppose a girl were to make a dead set at me, I might like to be able to tell her that I'm engaged already."

"Who's the girl?"

"The girl, like the case, is hypothetical; but I can conceive of circ.u.mstances in which I should like to feel that we were engaged."

"You've changed your mind. A short time ago you were all the other way."

"I've been considering matters. Say, for example, that your father puts his foot down, and that we don't see each other again for an indefinite period. Do you not think that then I should not like to feel that we were engaged?"

"You can feel that we're engaged all you want to, without our setting it down in black and white. Aren't you as sure of me as if I were your wife already? Don't you know that if circ.u.mstances permitted I would become your wife? Do you wish me to understand that I'm not as sure of you?"

"Gladys, you're a goose. So far as I'm concerned, I'm inclined to the opinion that I'd like you to be my wife to-night."

"It's you who are the goose. As if we didn't understand each other far too well to render it necessary to have things placed on a ceremonious footing. We can do without formulas."

CHAPTER VII

MARY

On the Sunday Rodney Elmore kept his engagement with the third young woman, with the punctiliousness on which, in such matters, he prided himself. He went down to Brighton on the Pullman, Limited, and was met at the station by Mary Carmichael. He exclaimed, at sight of her:

"You angel!--to come and meet me!"

"I'm not quite sure that I did come to meet you, in the strict sense.

I'd nothing to do; I've always a feeling that the queerest lot of people come by this train, the oddest sort of week-enders--didn't you notice how the platform reeked of perfume?--so that its arrival's generally worth seeing. Besides, between ourselves, I'd a kind of notion that Tom might come by it. If he had I should have ignored you utterly, and should have explained that something within told me he was coming, and that was why I was here. Wouldn't he have been enraptured?"

As he listened--and, in his observant way, took in the details of her appearance--Rodney was conscious, not for the first time, of how beneficent Providence had been in making girls in such variety.

Stella, emblematic of the domestic virtues; Gladys, for physical pleasure; Mary, suggestive of the arch in the sky, which, though a man may walk for many days, he shall never find the end of. To his thinking she was as many-tinted as a rainbow; as beautiful, as elusive. He doubted if the average man were her husband whether he would have any but the dimmest comprehension of her at the finish; she had a knack of surprising even him. He had known her a good long time, yet he admitted to himself that in many respects she was still wholly beyond his comprehension, and he prided himself, not without reason, on his gift for understanding persons of the opposite s.e.x.

They went down towards the Hove lawns in a fly, and were still in Queen's Road when she said:

"So you've done it at last."

He turned towards her as if a trifle startled.

"Done what?"

"Asked Stella to be your wife."

"How on earth do you know that?"

"My simple-minded babe, aren't I the very dearest friend Stella has in the world? And didn't she, directly you left her yesterday afternoon, send me a telegram conveying the news? Do you think she would keep it a moment longer than she could help from me, especially as she is perfectly well aware that I've been on tip-toe for it for goodness alone knows how long? And aren't I expecting a letter of at least half a dozen pages to-morrow morning to tell me all about it? I wired my congratulations to her at once, and I almost wired them to you; then I thought I'd keep them till you came this morning. My congratulations, Rodney, dear."

He was more taken aback than he would have cared to own. What an idiot he had been! Had he had his senses about him he would have given Stella to understand that the new relationship between them must be kept private till it suited him to make it public. That she should have telegraphed to Mary the moment he had left her! Could anything be more awkward? If to Mary, why not to others? To her mother, her father, her brother, her cousins, and her aunts; and she had crowds of dearest friends. Possibly by now the news was known to fifty people; they would spread it over the face of the land. Had he foreseen such a state of things he would have torn his tongue out rather than have said what he did in Regent's Park. Imbecile that he was; he had forgotten altogether that that was just the tale a girl of a sort loves to tell. Had he had his wits about him he might have known that she would be all eagerness to proclaim her happiness to her friends.

To have had a private understanding with Stella might have been fun.

He might have lied to her; played the traitor; done as he pleased--it would not have mattered if her heart was broken so long as she suffered in silence. But the affair a.s.sumed quite a different complexion if her confounded relations were to have their parts in it.

He would have to endure all kinds of talkee-talkee from her mother.

That oaf Tom might want to thrust his blundering foot into what was no concern of his. Worst of all, there was her father. Rodney was quite certain that he would want to regularise the position at once; that he himself would be helpless in his hands. Mr. Austin would require a clear statement of his intentions; having got it, he would see that it was adhered to. Being opposed to long engagements, he would want to fix the wedding day--and he would fix it. Rodney was uncomfortably conscious that he had made such a conspicuous a.s.s of himself that, being delivered into her father's strong hands, almost before he knew it he might find himself the husband of Stella Austin.

He shuddered at the thought--a fact which was observed by the young lady at his side.

"Whatever is the matter? You shook the fly! You haven't thanked me for my congratulations, nor do you seem so elated as I expected. You know I'm not sure that it was quite nice of you to propose to another girl on the very day before the one on which you knew you were coming down to me. For all you could tell, I was expecting you to propose to me."

"If I'd only thought there was the slightest chance, wouldn't I have loved to."

"I suppose for the sake of practice."

"Well--there are girls with whom one would like to practice love-making."

"That's a nice thing to say, and you an engaged man of less than four-and-twenty hours' standing. There's a taximeter--stop him! Pay the driver of this silly old cab and let's get into the taxi."

The transfer was effected, the driver of the "silly old cab"

expressing himself on the subject with some frankness. When they were in the taxi the lady set forth the idea which had been in her mind.

"I don't want to go on to the horrid lawns and see the stupid people in their ugly dresses; I can't take you to aunt's house, because, as you know, she's away, and I don't want the servants to talk; I don't want to lunch at either of the hotels, because I hate them all; I do want to go where we can be all by ourselves, so I suggest the Devil's d.y.k.e. This taxi will romp up; it's the most vulgar place I know, so we go where we please and do as we choose--everybody does up there."

So it was the Devil's d.y.k.e. The taxi did "romp up." They had lunch at the hotel, and afterwards went out on to the downs, Rodney carrying a rug which he had borrowed from the hotel over his arm. They had not to go far over the slopes before they had left the few people who were up there behind, and were as much alone as if they had the world to themselves. Rodney spread the rug on the gra.s.s at the bottom of one of those little hollows shaped like cups which are to be found thereabouts by those who seek. On it they reclined; the gentleman lit a cigar, the lady a cigarette. They were as much at home with each other as either could desire. Their conversation was frankness itself.

"When I feel like liking it," observed the lady, "this is just the sort of thing I do like. You're engaged, and I'm engaged, so we ought to be nice to each other. Do you mind my kissing you?"

"Not a bit."

She leaned over and kissed him on the lips, he removing his cigar to enable her to do it. Then she blew her cigarette smoke in his face and laughed. He said nothing; he was thinking that there was a good deal to be said for being on such terms with three nice girls. After all, there might be something in the Mohammedan's idea of paradise. She was silent for a moment; then inquired:

"Why did you ask Stella after all? Because you knew she'd like you to?"

He considered his reply.

"No; not altogether. Of course, at the beginning I never meant to, then all of a sudden I felt as if I had to. I had a sort of feeling that it would be such fun."

"And was it fun?"

"Distinctly; I wouldn't mind going through it all over again."

"Wouldn't you? Now you'll have to marry her."