Carnival Part 31

"I suppose I must have."

"Is that why you made us see Irene home first--so that you could be alone with me?"

"I suppose so. Any more questions? You're worse than my sister, and she'd ask the tail off a cat."

"Hum!"

"Cheer up, Puzzled w.i.l.l.y."

"Have you ever--er--well, insisted on having the person you wanted before?"

"No, I've not. Not like that. I can't make myself out sometimes. I don't understand myself. I do a thing all of a sudden and the next minute I couldn't tell anybody why I done it."

"I might have thought you were running after me," said Maurice.

"Who cares? If you did, it wouldn't matter to me. If I wanted you to make a fool of yourself, you'd make a fool of yourself."

"But supposing I made a fool of you?" asked Maurice, slightly nettled.

"I don't think you could."

"But I might. After all, I may be as attractive to women as you are to men. Perhaps we've both met our match. I admit you fascinate me. From the first moment I saw you, I wanted you. I told you that. And you?"

"I wanted you," said Jenny simply.

"It is love at first sight. And yet, do you know, I had an instinct to make you not like me."

"You couldn't."

"Couldn't I?" said Maurice, breathless. The heavy air of the coffee-shop vibrated with unheard pa.s.sionate melodies.

"No," said Jenny, gazing full at the young lover opposite, while Eros shook his torch, and the gay deep eyes, catching the warm light, shone as they had never shone for any man before. "But why did you try to make me not like you?"

"I felt afraid," said Maurice. "I'm not very old, but I've made two girls unhappy, and I had a presentiment that you would be the revenge for them."

"I've made boys unhappy," said Jenny. "And I thought you were sent to pay me out."

"But I shall always love you," said Maurice, putting his hand across the little table and clasping her fingers close.

"So shall I you."

"We're lucky, aren't we?"

"Rather."

"I feel sorry for people who aren't in love with you. But don't let's talk here any more. Let's go back to my rooms," he suggested.

"I've got to be in the theater by half-past seven."

"I know, but we've plenty of time. It's only just half-past five."

"Where do you live?"

"Westminster. Looking over the river. I've got a largish studio. Quite a jolly room. I share the floor below with a friend."

"What's he like?"

"Castleton? Funny chap. I don't expect you'd care for him much. Women don't usually. But don't let's talk about Castleton. Let's talk about Jenny and Maurice."

Outside the fumes of the coffee-shop were blown away by soft autumnal breezes.

"We'll dash it in a taxi. Look, there's a salmon-colored one. What luck!

We must have that. They're rather rare. Taxi! Taxi!"

The driver of the favored hue pulled up beside the pavement.

"Four-twenty-two Grosvenor Road, Westminster."

"I wonder," said Maurice, glancing round at Jenny and taking her slim gloved hand in his. "I wonder whether taxis will ever be as romantic as hansoms. They aren't yet somehow. All the same, there's a tremendous thrill in tearing through this glorious September weather. Oh, London,"

he shouted, bouncing in excitement up and down on the springy cushions, "London, you're wonderful."

Jenny shook his hand as a nurse reproves a child.

"Keep still," she commanded. "The man'll think you're potty."

"But I am potty. You're potty. The world's potty, and we're in love. My sweet and lovely Jenny, I'm in love with you.

"There was a young lady called Jenny, Whose eyes, some men said, were quite squiny."

"Oh, Maurice, you _are_ awful," she protested.

But, Apollo urging him, Maurice would finish:

"When they said: 'You're our fate,'

She replied, 'It's too late.'

So they went away sad and grew skinny."

"Lunatic!" she said. "And don't talk about getting thin. Look at me.

Nothing but skin and grief."

"Nonsense," said Maurice, and went on rhyming:

"There was a young lady said: 'What!

My figure is going to pot.'"

And then two more lines that will have to be filled in like your figure, and then:

"They all of them said: 'No it's not.'"