“Not at all. Be perfectly frank and straightforward. Say you are sorry to go against her wishes–”
“Wishes,” murmured Reggie, scribbling industrially on the back of the marriage licence.
“–But you know that all she wants is your happiness–”
Reggie looked doubtful.
“I’m not sure about that last bit, old thing. You don’t know the mater!”
“Never mind, Reggie,” put in Alice. “Say it, anyhow. Mr. Bevan is perfectly right.”
“Right ho, darling! All right, laddie–‘happiness’. And then?”
“Point out in a few well-chosen sentences how charming Mrs. Byng is…”
“Mrs. Byng!” Reggie smiled fatuously. “I don’t think I ever heard anything that sounded so indescribably ripping. That part’ll be easy enough. Besides, the mater knows Alice.”
“Lady Caroline has seen me at the castle,” said his bride doubtfully, “but I shouldn’t say she knows me. She has hardly spoken a dozen words to me.”
“There,” said Reggie, earnestly, “you’re in luck, dear heart! The mater’s a great speaker, especially in moments of excitement. I’m not looking forward to the time when she starts on me. Between ourselves, laddie, and meaning no disrespect to the dear soul, when the mater is moved and begins to talk, she uses up most of the language.”
“Outspoken, is she?”
“I should hate to meet the person who could out-speak her,” said Reggie.
George sought information on a delicate point.
“And financially? Does she exercise any authority over you in that way?”
“You mean has the mater the first call on the family doubloons?” said Reggie. “Oh, absolutely not! You see, when I call her the mater, it’s using the word in a loose sense, so to speak. She’s my step-mother really. She has her own little collection of pieces of eight, and I have mine. That part’s simple enough.”
“Then the whole thing is simple. I don’t see what you’ve been worrying about.”
“Just what I keep telling him, Mr. Bevan,” said Alice.
“You’re a perfectly free agent. She has no hold on you of any kind.”
Reggie Byng blinked dizzily.
“Why, now you put it like that,” he exclaimed, “I can see that I jolly well am! It’s an amazing thing, you know, habit and all that. I’ve been so accustomed for years to jumping through hoops and shamming dead when the mater lifted a little finger, that it absolutely never occurred to me that I had a soul of my own. I give you my honest word I never saw it till this moment.”
“And now it’s too late!”
“Eh?”
George indicated Alice with a gesture. The newly-made Mrs. Byng smiled.
“Mr. Bevan means that now you’ve got to jump through hoops and sham dead when I lift a little finger!”
Reggie raised her hand to his lips, and nibbled at it gently.
“Blessums ‘ittle finger! It shall lift it and have ‘ums Reggie jumping through….” He broke off and tendered George a manly apology. “Sorry, old top! Forgot myself for the moment. Shan’t occur again! Have another chicken or an eclair or some soup or something!”
Over the cigars Reggie became expansive.
“Now that you’ve lifted the frightful weight of the mater off my mind, dear old lad,” he said, puffing luxuriously, “I find myself surveying the future in a calmer spirit. It seems to me that the best thing to do, as regards the mater and everybody else, is simply to prolong the merry wedding-trip till Time the Great Healer has had a chance to cure the wound. Alice wants to put in a week or so in Paris….”
“Paris!” murmured the bride ecstatically.
“Then I would like to trickle southwards to the Riviera…”
“If you mean Monte Carlo, dear,” said his wife with gentle firmness, “no!”
“No, no, not Monte Carlo,” said Reggie hastily, “though it’s a great place. Air–scenery–and what not! But Nice and Bordighera and Mentone and other fairly ripe resorts. You’d enjoy them. And after that… I had a scheme for buying back my yacht, the jolly old Siren, and cruising about the Mediterranean for a month or so. I sold her to a local sportsman when I was in America a couple of years ago. But I saw in the paper yesterday that the poor old buffer had died suddenly, so I suppose it would be difficult to get hold of her for the time being.” Reggie broke off with a sharp exclamation.