Comedies of Courtship Part 9

"I should rather think it was," said Charlie. "The jolliest I've ever seen." It was evident that he did not refer to the scenery.

"Oh, you promised you wouldn't," cried Dora reproachfully.

"Well, then, I'll promise again," he replied, smiling amiably.

"What must I think of you, when only a week or so ago----? Oh, and what must you think of me to suppose I could? Oh, Mr. Ellerton!"

"Like to know what I think of you?" inquired Charlie, quite unperturbed by this pa.s.sionate rebuke.

"Certainly not," said she, with dignity, and turned away. A moment later, however, she attacked him again.

"And you've done nothing," she said indignantly, "but suggest to papa interesting places to stop at on the way, and things he ought to see in Paris. Yes, and you actually suggested going home by sea from Ma.r.s.eilles. And all the time you knew it was vital to me to get home as soon as possible. To me? Yes, and to you _last week_. Shall I tell you something, Mr. Ellerton?"

"Please," said Charlie. "Whisper it in my ear," and he offered his head in fitting proximity.

"I shouldn't mind who heard," she declared. "I despise you, Mr.

Ellerton."

Charlie was roused to a protest.

"For downright unfairness give me a girl!" said he. "Here have I taken the manly course! After a short period of weakness--I admit that--I have conquered my feelings; I have determined not to distress Miss Travers by intruding upon her; I have overcome the promptings of a cowardly despair; I have turned my back resolutely on a past devoid of hope. I am, after a sore struggle, myself again. And my reward, Miss Bellairs, is to be told that you despise me. Upon my honor, you'll be despising Simon Stylites next."

"And you wrote and told Miss Travers you were coming!"

"All right. I shall write and toll her I'm not coming. I shall say, Miss Bellairs, that it seems to me to be an undignified thing----"

"To do what I'm going to do? Thank you, Mr. Ellerton."

"Oh, I forgot."

"The irony of it is that you persuaded me to do it yourself."

"I was a fool; but I didn't know you so well then."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything."

"You didn't know yourself, I'm afraid," she remarked. "You thought you were a man of some--some depth of feeling, some constancy, a man whose--whose regard a girl would value, instead of being----"

"Just a poor devil who worships the ground you tread on."

Dora laughed scornfully.

"Second edition!" said she. "The first dedicated to Miss Travers."

And then Charlie (and it is thing's like these which shake that faith in human nature that we try to cling to) said in a low but quite distinct voice:

"Oh, d----n Miss Travers!"

Dora shot--it almost looked as if something had shot her, as it used, in old days, Miss Zazel--up from her seat.

"I thought I was talking to a _gentleman_," said she, "I suppose you'll use that--expression--about me in a week."

"In a good deal less, if you treat me like this," said Charlie, and his air was one of hopeless misery.

We all recollect that Anne ended by being tolerably kind to wicked King Richard. After all, Charlie had the same excuse.

"I don't want to be unkind," said Dora more gently.

"I'll do anything in the world to please you."

"Then make papa go straight to Paris, and straight on from Paris," said Dora, using her power mercilessly.

"Oh, I say, I didn't mean that, Miss Bellairs."

"You said you'd do anything I liked."

Charlie looked at her thoughtfully.

"I suppose you've no pity?" he inquired.

"For you? Not a bit,"

"You probably don't know how beautiful you are?"

"Don't be foolish, and--and impertinent."

She was standing opposite to him. With a sudden motion, he sprang forward, fell on one knee, seized her ungloved hand, covered it with kisses, sprang up, and hastened away, crying as he went:

"All right. I'll do it."

Dora stood where he left her. First she looked at her hand, then at Charlie's retreating back, then again at her hand. Her cheek was flushed and she trembled a little.

"John never did that," she said, "at least, not without asking. And even then, not quite like that."

She walked on slowly, then stopped and exclaimed:

"I wonder if he ever did that to Mary Travers."

And her last reflection was:

"Poor boy. He must be--oh, dear me!"

When Charlie reached the tennis-courts, he was, considering the moving scene through which he had pa.s.sed, wonderfully calm. In fact he was smiling and whistling. Espying Sir Roger Deane, he went and sat down by him.

"Roger," said he, "I'm going with you and the Bellairs' to-morrow."