A Safety Match Part 13

"And I did so want to give you all a treat before I went! Well, we must do without the nuts and chocolates, and----"

Nicky rose to her feet, swelling with sudden inspiration.

"Daph, what's the matter with running along to this millionaire young man of yours and touching _him_ for a trifle?" she inquired triumphantly.

Daphne hesitated. True, to-morrow she would be a rich man's wife, able to afford unlimited gingerbeer. But the idea of asking a man for money did not appeal to her. Pride of poverty and maidenly reserve make an obstinate mixture. Yet the flushed and eager faces of Nicky and Tony, the polite deprecations of the selfless Stiffy, and the studied indifference of Cilly and Ally, were hard to resist.

"I wonder if he would mind," she said doubtfully.

"Mind? Oh, no. Why should he?" urged the chorus respectfully.

"Have a dart for it, anyhow," said Nicky.

Daphne descended from the gate.

"Righto!" she said. "After all, it's our last afternoon together, and I _should_ like to do you all proud. I'll chance it. The rest of you can start down to the Den and collect sticks, while I run along to the house and ask him. Nicky, you had better come with me to carry down saucepans and things. Come on--I'll race you!"

Three minutes later, Sir John Carr, smoking a meditative cigar upon the lawn, was aware of a sudden scurry and patter in the lane outside.

Directly after this, with a triumphant shriek, the small figure of his future sister-in-law shot through the garden-gate, closely followed by that of his future wife. Mr Dawks, faint yet pursuing, brought up the rear.

The compet.i.tors flung themselves down on the gra.s.s at his feet, panting.

"We have been having a race," explained Daphne rather gratuitously.

"I won!" gasped Nicky. "Daph has the longest legs," she continued, "but I have the shortest skirts. Now, my children, I must leave you.

Wire in!" she concluded, in a hoa.r.s.e and penetrating whisper to Daphne.

Her short skirts flickered round the corner of the house, and she was gone. Daphne was left facing her _fiance_.

"I say," she began rather constrainedly--"don't get up; I'm not going to stay--do you think you could lend me a little money? I--I'll pay you back in a day or two," she added with a disarming smile. "The fact is, we are going to make toffee down in the Den, and I wanted to get a few extra things, just to give them all a real treat to finish up with, you know. Will you--Jack?"

Juggernaut looked up at her with his slow scrutinising smile.

"What sort of extra things?" he inquired.

"Oh!"--Daphne closed her eyes and began to count on her fingers--"buns, and chocolates, and nuts, and gingerbeer. And I wanted to give Ally a packet of cigarettes. (After all, he's eighteen, and he does love them so, and they are only ten for threepence.) And if you could run to it, I should like to get a few bananas as well," she concluded with a rush, laying all her cards on the table at once.

Juggernaut leaned back in his chair and looked extremely judicial.

"What will all this cost?" he inquired.

"One and eleven," said Daphne. "Jack, you _dear_! We _shall_ have a time!"

Juggernaut had taken a handful of change out of his pocket.

"One and eleven," he said; "I wonder, Daphne, if you will be able to purchase an afternoon of perfect happiness for that sum in a year's time."

He handed over the money.

"May I have a receipt?" he asked gravely.

Daphne took his meaning, and kissed him lightly. She lingered for a moment, anxious not to appear in a hurry to run away.

"Is there anything else?" inquired Sir John at length.

Daphne ran an inward eye over the possibilities of dissipation.

"No, I don't think so," she said. "Thanks ever so much! We shall be back about six. So long, old man. Don't go to sleep in this hot sun."

She flitted away across the lawn, jingling the money in her hand. At the gate she turned and waved her hand. Juggernaut's eyes were fixed upon her, but he did not appear to observe her salutation. Probably he was in a brown study about something.

Daphne was half-way down to the Den before it occurred to her that it would have been a graceful act--not to say the barest civility--to invite the donor of the feast to come and be present thereat. But she did not go back.

"It would bore him so, poor dear!" she said to herself; "and--and us, too!"

Next day they were married.

BOOK TWO.

FLICKERINGS.

CHAPTER NINE.

A HORSE TO THE WATER.

"And how is her ladyship?" inquired Mrs Carfrae.

"Her ladyship," replied Sir John Carr, "is enjoying life. What good bread-and-b.u.t.ter you always keep."

They were sitting in Mrs Carfrae's tiny drawing-room in Hill Street.

Mrs Carfrae was a little old lady in a wheeled chair. Her face was comparatively youthful, but her hair was snowy white. She spoke with what English people, to whom the pure Highland Scots of Inverness and the guttural raucousness of Glasgow are as one, term "a Scotch accent."

"I am glad you like my bread-and-b.u.t.ter," she said; "but I fancy you get as good at your wife's tea-table."

"I don't often see my wife's tea-table," confessed Juggernaut. "She is out a good deal, and as a rule it is more convenient for me to have my tea sent into my study."

"Where you grumble at it, I'll be bound. I ken husbands. So her ladyship is out a good deal? Well do I mind the first time I caught her in, the besom! That was nearly three years ago. I am not a payer of calls, as you know; but I felt that I must be the very first to greet your wife, Johnny boy. So the day after I knew you had settled in, I had myself bundled into the carriage, and off I went to Grosvenor Street. I told Maxwell to ring the bell and inquire if her ladyship was at home. The door was thrown open immediately--rather prematurely, in fact. I heard a sound like the cheep of a frightened mouse, and I saw a grand silk skirt and a pair of ankles scuttering up the staircase. I knew fine what had happened. I was her first caller: and though the child was sitting in her new drawing-room waiting for me and those like me, her courage had failed at the sound of the bell, and she was galloping up the stair out of the way when the man opened the door. Poor la.s.sie! I did exactly the same thing at her age."

"Did you go in?"