“Is there a row about me?”
“Is there what!” Reggie’s manner became solicitous. “I say, my dear old sportsman, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad tidings and what not, if you know what I mean, but didn’t you know there was a certain amount of angry passion rising and so forth because of you? At the castle, I mean. I don’t want to seem to be discussing your private affairs, and all that sort of thing, but what I mean is… Well, you don’t expect you can come charging in the way you have without touching the family on the raw a bit. The daughter of the house falls in love with you; the son of the house languishes in chokey because he has a row with you in Piccadilly; and on top of all that you come here and camp out at the castle gates! Naturally the family are a bit peeved. Only natural, eh? I mean to say, what?”
George listened to this address in bewilderment. Maud in love with him! It sounded incredible. That he should love her after their one meeting was a different thing altogether. That was perfectly natural and in order. But that he should have had the incredible luck to win her affection. The thing struck him as grotesque and ridiculous.
“In love with me?” he cried. “What on earth do you mean?”
Reggie’s bewilderment equalled his own.
“Well, dash it all, old top, it surely isn’t news to you? She must have told you. Why, she told me!”
“Told you? Am I going mad?”
“Absolutely! I mean absolutely not! Look here.” Reggie hesitated. The subject was delicate. But, once started, it might as well be proceeded with to some conclusion. A fellow couldn’t go on talking about his iron-shots after this just as if nothing had happened. This was the time for the laying down of cards, the opening of hearts. “I say, you know,” he went on, feeling his way, “you’ll probably think it deuced rummy of me talking like this. Perfect stranger and what not. Don’t even know each other’s names.”
“Mine’s Bevan, if that’ll be any help.”
“Thanks very much, old chap. Great help! Mine’s Byng. Reggie Byng. Well, as we’re all pals here and the meeting’s tiled and so forth, I’ll start by saying that the mater is most deucedly set on my marrying Lady Maud. Been pals all our lives, you know. Children together, and all that sort of rot. Now there’s nobody I think a more corking sportsman than Maud, if you know what I mean, but–this is where the catch comes in–I’m most frightfully in love with somebody else. Hopeless, and all that sort of thing, but still there it is. And all the while the mater behind me with a bradawl, sicking me on to propose to Maud who wouldn’t have me if I were the only fellow on earth. You can’t imagine, my dear old chap, what a relief it was to both of us when she told me the other day that she was in love with you, and wouldn’t dream of looking at anybody else. I tell you, I went singing about the place.”
George felt inclined to imitate his excellent example. A burst of song was the only adequate expression of the mood of heavenly happiness which this young man’s revelations had brought upon him. The whole world seemed different. Wings seemed to sprout from Reggie’s shapely shoulders. The air was filled with soft music. Even the wallpaper seemed moderately attractive.
He mixed himself a second whisky and soda. It was the next best thing to singing.
“I see,” he said. It was difficult to say anything. Reggie was regarding him enviously.
“I wish I knew how the deuce fellows set about making a girl fall in love with them. Other chappies seem to do it, but I can’t even start. She seems to sort of gaze through me, don’t you know. She kind of looks at me as if I were more to be pitied than censured, but as if she thought I really ought to do something about it. Of course, she’s a devilish brainy girl, and I’m a fearful chump. Makes it kind of hopeless, what?”