"Day-day!" said Dorothy, from the divan.

"She's a crack-a-jack!" exclaimed young Nisbet, after she had gone.

"Mercy!" said Dorothy. "I never knew you to be so enthusiastic over any one before. If you have any intention of falling in love with Aunt Helen, I feel it to be my duty, as a friend and well-wisher, to warn you in advance that there isn't the most remote show in the world for you."

"Oh, it's not that!" protested young Nisbet with that stupendous earnestness which made people want to hug him. "Why, Mrs. Wynyard would have me talked to a standstill in two or seven minutes! Imagine me trying to make love to a dame like that! She'd lose me so quick you couldn't see me for the dust. Besides"--

"Besides what?" asked Dorothy with an elaborate air of unconcern, as he hesitated.

Young Nisbet was quite crimson now, and twitched at the creases in his trousers where they pa.s.sed over his knees, and turned in his toes excessively.

"There's somebody else in the running!" he blurted out desperately.

There! It was out--a part of it, at least--not at all, to be sure, in anything even remotely resembling one of the thousand manners he had proposed to himself as effective, during long hours of wakefulness, when there was nothing in the world but his crowding thoughts and the ticking of his clock--but still, out! The ice was broken. It was impossible that she should not understand. The rest would be easier.

Alas for young Nisbet! He was, as he himself acknowledged, not "up on women!"

"Somebody else?" repeated Dorothy. "How ever did you find that out? She only told _me_ about it twenty minutes ago."

Alas, alas, for young Nisbet! He had thought his feet upon the beach at last, whereas they had but touched a sand-bar in pa.s.sing over. The under-tow of embarra.s.sment was worse than ever now, and threatened to drag him down.

"Oh, I don't mean Mrs. Wynyard. I wasn't talking of her--that is, I was, at first--but afterwards--anyhow, I'm not talking of her now! When I say there's somebody else, I mean--I mean"--

"I am going out for a moment, Dorothy--just over to the _doctor's_.

_How_ de do, Mr. Nisbet? _Wretched_ weather, _isn't_ it? Natalie's with your father, my dear, and _I'll_ be back _almost_ immediately.

Er--_ahem_!"

Mrs. Rathbawne went through a kind of rudimentary calisthenic exercise, which consisted of squaring her shoulders and drawing in her chin. It was accompanied by a meaning glance at her daughter, and was designed as an inconspicuous subst.i.tute for the frank injunction to "sit up straight, my dear," upon which Dorothy had finally placed a ban.

"And _won't_ you feed the gold-fish, my dear?" she added. "I've been _so_ occupied, and the poor things haven't had a _crumb_ for three days. I've just told Thomas to take a plate of bread in at _once_. I'm sure Mr.

_Nisbet_ won't mind: get him to _help_ you. Er--_ahem_! And I'll be back in about fifteen minutes, or so."

For a time there was silence in the big, warm conservatory. Young Nisbet had taken the dish from Dorothy's hands, and, after seating himself on the low marble parapet surrounding the pool, devoted his energies to feeding the gold-fish. He was thinking that it was all to be done over again, and that it was harder than ever, if such a thing were possible, to do. What was there about those few words which seemed to choke him?

For the moment, he took refuge in a commonplace question.

"Is it one of your duties to feed these persons?"

Dorothy laughed shortly, like a little chord of music.

"No--it's the Mater's peculiar privilege," she answered. "She adores the stupid little beasts. Don't give them such large pieces, Mr. Nisbet. She feeds them regularly herself,--or did, until Dad began to require so much of her time. But lately, the house has been so upset, and she has been doing such a lot of going out, and coming in"--

"Yes," put in young Nisbet dryly, "I've noticed the coming in part."

"So Natalie has been doing it for her," went on Dorothy, more rapidly.

"I suppose Natalie herself hasn't had the time, these last three days.

They _are_ hungry, aren't they? _Don't give them such large pieces, Mr.

Nisbet!_ Don't you see the poor things have only b.u.t.ton-holes for mouths?"

There was another long pause, before either spoke again.

"What defeats me about your mother," said young Nisbet slowly, "is the way she manages to come in just at the wrong moment. At interruption, she's the most star performer I've ever run up against. You don't mind my saying that, do you? I'm not throwing any asparagus. I wouldn't be disrespectful about her for the world. But really, for chopping into a conversation, she's a dazzler!"

"She _is_ a little inopportune at times," admitted Dorothy.

"Inopportune? Yes,--she's all of that. When she marches in, I feel exactly as if the boat had gybed, and the boom come over and knocked me into thirty fathoms of water. Lord!"

"Why, how ridiculous!" said Dorothy. "There's nothing about the Mater to be afraid of. She's the dearest, most innocent old thing in the world!

She just blunders along like that, and n.o.body is less aware of her mistakes than she is. And, after all, why shouldn't she interrupt us, so long as we're not saying anything in particular? And if we _were_ saying--anything in particular, we could always pick up the conversation where we dropped it."

"That's just what I find it so hard to do!" confessed young Nisbet. "I'm a stupid sort of lout, you know, Miss Rathbawne. I've never had half a chance to practice talking to dames, and where other lads fuss like experts, I just can't make good. I foozle every stroke. I'm an a.s.s--that's all!"

"You're nothing of the sort!" said Dorothy indignantly. "You're an extremely attractive young man!"

"As good as the average in some ways, perhaps. But--how can I explain what I mean?--there always comes a day when a chap wants to be more, wants to be the best ever, in every way! That's the proposition I'm up against now. I seem to be just a bundle of misfits, and--and--oh, shucks! my line of talk is all crooked, and I can't tell you what the trouble is, but"--

"Your liver's out of kilter," interpolated Dorothy.

"No, sir!" protested young Nisbet. "Nothing is ever out of kilter inside me! If I'm nothing else, I'm blue-ribbon boy on the health question. No, it's something I want, and that I'm pretty sure I can't get."

"I know perfectly well what it is," said Dorothy, "and you haven't even asked for it!"

Young Nisbet looked up suddenly.

"Do you mean?"--he stammered, "do you mean?"--

Outside, the front door slammed, and Mrs. Rathbawne's voice became audible, inquiring Dorothy's whereabouts of the butler. The girl laughed.

"There's the Mater back again," she said. "Oh, Mr. _Nisbet_!"

For young Nisbet had dropped dish and bread-crumbs into the pool with a great splash, electrifying the gold-fish into unheard-of activity, and had risen, at the same moment, to his feet. He stood before her, his honest face blazing, his hands outstretched.

"I love you!" he said. "Will you marry me?"

And whether or not he received an audible reply to this question he never knew,--only she was in his arms, and gold-fish might feast or starve, for all he cared about them. The wide doors of perfect bliss swung open before him, and young Nisbet pa.s.sed within.

He was gazing ruefully into the water, as Mrs. Rathbawne entered. For the first time in his experience, her presence did not embarra.s.s him.

"I've dropped a dish into your pool, Mrs. Rathbawne," he said, "and scared the gold-fish into blue conniption fits. Look how they are scurrying around. I hope I haven't done them any harm."

"Oh, no," answered Mrs. Rathbawne placidly. "They are getting _so_ fat that I should _think_ a little exercise, _now_ and again, would be _good_ for them. We _might_ drop a dish into the pool every week or so, Dorothy, just to stir them up."

"It might go for a while," said young Nisbet, "but any old football player like myself, Mrs. Rathbawne, will tell you that you can't work the same trick more than just a certain number of times."

"Interruption, for example!" added Dorothy, and laughed across at him, deliciously, with her eyes.