Ann snatched the book from his hands and flung it away. It soared up, clearing the gallery rails, and fell with a thud on the gallery floor. She stood facing him with sparkling eyes. Then she moved away.
“I beg your pardon,” she said stiffly. “I lost my temper.”
“It’s your hair,” said Jimmy soothingly. “You’re bound to be quick-tempered with hair of that glorious red shade. You must marry some nice, determined fellow, blue-eyed, dark-haired, clean-shaven, about five foot eleven, with a future in business. He will keep you in order.”
“Mr. Crocker!”
“Gently, of course. Kindly-lovingly. The velvet thingummy rather than the iron what’s-its-name. But nevertheless firmly.”
Ann was at the door.
“To a girl with your ardent nature some one with whom you can quarrel is an absolute necessity of life. You and I are affinities. Ours will be an ideally happy marriage. You would be miserable if you had to go through life with a human doormat with ‘Welcome’ written on him. You want some one made of sterner stuff. You want, as it were, a sparring-partner, some one with whom you can quarrel happily with the certain knowledge that he will not curl up in a ball for you to kick, but will be there with the return wallop. I may have my faults–” He paused expectantly. Ann remained silent. “No, no!” he went on. “But I am such a man. Brisk give-and-take is the foundation of the happy marriage. Do you remember that beautiful line of Tennyson’s–‘We fell out, my wife and I’? It always conjures up for me a vision of wonderful domestic happiness. I seem to see us in our old age, you on one side of the radiator, I on the other, warming our old limbs and thinking up snappy stuff to hand to each other–sweethearts still! If I were to go out of your life now, you would be miserable. You would have nobody to quarrel with. You would be in the position of the female jaguar of the Indian jungle, who, as you doubtless know, expresses her affection for her mate by biting him shrewdly in the fleshy part of the leg, if she should snap sideways one day and find nothing there.”
Of all the things which Ann had been trying to say during this discourse, only one succeeded in finding expression. To her mortification, it was the only weak one in the collection.
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
“I am.”
“I won’t!”
“You think so now, because I am not appearing at my best. You see me nervous, diffident, tongue-tied. All this will wear off, however, and you will be surprised and delighted as you begin to understand my true self. Beneath the surface–I speak conservatively–I am a corker!”
The door banged behind Ann. Jimmy found himself alone. He walked thoughtfully to Mr. Pett’s armchair and sat down. There was a feeling of desolation upon him. He lit a cigarette and began to smoke pensively. What a fool he had been to talk like that! What girl of spirit could possibly stand it? If ever there had been a time for being soothing and serious and pleading, it had been these last few minutes. And he talked like that!
Ten minutes passed. Jimmy sprang from his chair. He thought he had heard a footstep. He flung the door open. The passage was empty. He returned miserably to his chair. Of course she had not come back. Why should she?
A voice spoke.
“Jimmy!”
He leaped up again, and looked wildly round. Then he looked up. Ann was leaning over the gallery rail.
“Jimmy, I’ve been thinking it over. There’s something I want to ask you. Do you admit that you behaved abominably five years ago?”
“Yes!” shouted Jimmy.
“And that you’ve been behaving just as badly ever since?”
“Yes!”
“And that you are really a pretty awful sort of person?”
“Yes!”
“Then it’s all right. You deserve it!”
“Deserve it?”
“Deserve to marry a girl like me. I was worried about it, but now I see that it’s the only punishment bad enough for you!” She raised her arm.
“Here’s the dead past, Jimmy! Go and bury it! Good-night!”