to deliver to you in the event of her not being h’able to see you
before dinner personally, your lordship.”
“Right ho. Thanks.”
He started to go upstairs, opening the envelope as he went. What
could the girl be writing to him about? Surely, she wasn’t going to
start sending him love-letters, or any of that frightful rot? Deuced
difficult it would be to play up to that sort of thing!
He stopped on the first landing to read the note, and at the opening
line his jaw fell. The envelope fluttered to the ground.
“Oh, my sainted aunt!” he moaned, clutching at the banisters. “Now,
I am in the soup!”
CHAPTER XXI
LOATHSOME GIFTS
There are doubtless men so constructed that they can find themselves
accepted suitors without any particular whirl of emotion. King
Solomon probably belonged to this class, and even Henry the Eighth
must have become a trifle blase in time. But, to the average man,
the sensations are complex and overwhelming. A certain stunned
feeling is perhaps predominant. Blended with this is relief, the
relief of a general who has brought a difficult campaign to a
successful end, or of a member of a forlorn hope who finds that the
danger is over and that he is still alive. To this must be added a
newly born sense of magnificence. Our suspicion that we were
something rather out of the ordinary run of men is suddenly
confirmed. Our bosom heaves with complacency, and the world has
nothing more to offer.
With some, there is an alloy of apprehension in the metal of their
happiness, and the strain of an engagement sometimes brings with it
even a faint shadow of regret. “She makes me buy things,” one swain,
in the third quarter of his engagement, was overheard to moan to a
friend. “Two new ties only yesterday.” He seemed to be debating
with himself whether human nature could stand the strain.
But, whatever tragedies may cloud the end of the period, its
beginning at least is bathed in sunshine.
Jimmy, regarding his lathered face in. the glass as he dressed for
dinner that night, marveled at the excellence of this best of all
possible worlds.
No doubts disturbed him. That the relations between Mr. McEachern
and himself offered a permanent bar to his prospects, he did not
believe. For the moment, he declined to consider the existence of
the ex-constable at all. In a world that contained Molly, there was
no room for other people. They were not in the picture. They did not
exist.
To him, musing contentedly over the goodness of life, there entered,
in the furtive manner habitual to that unreclaimed buccaneer, Spike
Mullins. It may have been that Jimmy read his own satisfaction and
happiness into the faces of others, but it certainly seemed to him
that there was a sort of restrained joyousness about Spike’s
demeanor. The Bowery boy’s shuffles on the carpet were almost a
dance. His face seemed to glow beneath his crimson hair.
“Well,” said Jimmy, “and how goes the world with young Lord Fitz-
Mullins? Spike, have you ever been best man?
“What’s dat, boss?”
“Best man at a wedding. Chap who stands by the bridegroom with a
hand on the scruff of his neck to see that he goes through with it.
Fellow who looks after everything, crowds the money on to the
minister at the end of the ceremony, and then goes off and mayries
the first bridesmaid, and lives happily ever.”
Spike shook his head.
“I ain’t got no use for gittin’ married, boss.”
“Spike, the misogynist! You wait, Spike. Some day, love will awake
in your heart, and you’ll start writing poetry.”
“I’se not dat kind of mug, boss,” protested the Bowery boy. “I ain’t
got no use fer goils. It’s a mutt’s game.”
This was rank heresy. Jimmy laid down the razor from motives of
prudence, and proceeded to lighten Spike’s reprehensible darkness.
“Spike, you’re an ass,” he said. “You don’t know anything about it.
If you had any sense at all, you’d understand that the only thing
worth doing in life is to get married. You bone-headed bachelors
make me sick. Think what it would mean to you, having a wife. Think