It was all dashed romantic, don’t you know, but there are limits.
“Voules, you’re sacked,” I said.
“Who cares?” he said. “Think I was going to stop on now I’m a gentleman of property? Come along, Emma, my dear. Give a month’s notice and get your ‘at, and I’ll take you to dinner at Ciro’s.”
“And you, Mr. Lattaker,” said the Count, “may I conduct you to the presence of my high-born master? He wishes to show his gratitude to his preserver.”
“You may,” said George. “May I have my hat, Mr. Sturgis?”
There’s just one bit more. After dinner that night I came up for a smoke, and, strolling on to the foredeck, almost bumped into George and Stella. They seemed to be having an argument.
“I’m not sure,” she was saying, “that I believe that a man can be so happy that he wants to kiss the nearest thing in sight, as you put it.”
“Don’t you?” said George. “Well, as it happens, I’m feeling just that way now.”
I coughed and he turned round.
“Halloa, Reggie!” he said.
“Halloa, George!” I said. “Lovely night.”
“Beautiful,” said Stella.
“The moon,” I said.
“Ripping,” said George.
“Lovely,” said Stella.
“And look at the reflection of the stars on the——”
George caught my eye. “Pop off,” he said.
I popped.
DOING CLARENCE A BIT OF GOOD
Have you ever thought about—and, when I say thought about, I mean really carefully considered the question of—the coolness, the cheek, or, if you prefer it, the gall with which Woman, as a sex, fairly bursts? I have, by Jove! But then I’ve had it thrust on my notice, by George, in a way I should imagine has happened to pretty few fellows. And the limit was reached by that business of the Yeardsley “Venus.”
To make you understand the full what-d’you-call-it of the situation, I shall have to explain just how matters stood between Mrs. Yeardsley and myself.
When I first knew her she was Elizabeth Shoolbred. Old Worcestershire family; pots of money; pretty as a picture. Her brother Bill was at Oxford with me.
I loved Elizabeth Shoolbred. I loved her, don’t you know. And there was a time, for about a week, when we were engaged to be married. But just as I was beginning to take a serious view of life and study furniture catalogues and feel pretty solemn when the restaurant orchestra played “The Wedding Glide,” I’m hanged if she didn’t break it off, and a month later she was married to a fellow of the name of Yeardsley—Clarence Yeardsley, an artist.
What with golf, and billiards, and a bit of racing, and fellows at the club rallying round and kind of taking me out of myself, as it were, I got over it, and came to look on the affair as a closed page in the book of my life, if you know what I mean. It didn’t seem likely to me that we should meet again, as she and Clarence had settled down in the country somewhere and never came to London, and I’m bound to own that, by the time I got her letter, the wound had pretty well healed, and I was to a certain extent sitting up and taking nourishment. In fact, to be absolutely honest, I was jolly thankful the thing had ended as it had done.
This letter I’m telling you about arrived one morning out of a blue sky, as it were. It ran like this:
“MY DEAR OLD REGGIE,—What ages it seems since I saw anything of
you. How are you? We have settled down here in the most perfect old
house, with a lovely garden, in the middle of delightful country.
Couldn’t you run down here for a few days? Clarence and I would be
so glad to see you. Bill is here, and is most anxious to meet you
again. He was speaking of you only this morning. Do come.
Wire your train, and I will send the car to meet you.
—Yours most sincerely,
ELIZABETH YEARDSLEY.
“P.S.—We can give you new milk and fresh eggs. Think of that!
“P.P.S.—Bill says our billiard-table is one of the best he has