The Foolish Lovers Part 48

he told himself ... but the congestion of the streets made such intimacies impossible. They were constantly being separated by the hurrying foot-pa.s.sengers, and so they could only speak in short, dull sentences. He brought her at last to the quiet tea-shop where he ordered tea and home-made bread and honey!...

"Eleanor," he said, when the waitress had taken his order and had departed to fulfil it, "it's no good, you telling me that you can't go out with me. You must, my dear. I want to marry you!..."

"But it's absurd," she expostulated. "How can you possibly talk like that when we're such strangers to each other!"

"You're no stranger to me. I've loved you for two months now. I've hardly ever had you out of my mind. I was nearly demented mad when I lost you. I used to go and hang about that office of yours day after day in the hope that you'd come out!... And if ever I get the chance, I'll break that liftman's neck for him. He insulted me the day I asked him what office you were in. He called me a Nosey Parker!"

She laughed at him. "But that was right, wasn't it?" she said. "You wouldn't have him give information about me to any man who chooses to ask for it?"

"He should have known that I was all right. A child could have seen that I wasn't just playing the fool. But you're mebbe right. I'll think no more about him. Do you know what happened last night?"

"No."

He told her of his relationship with the _Daily Sensation_.

"Then you've lost your work?" she said.

He nodded his head, and they did not speak again for a few moments. The waitress had brought the tea and bread and honey, and they waited until she had gone.

"I'm so sorry," she said.

"It doesn't bother me," he replied. "I only told you to show you how much I love you. I'm not codding you, Eleanor. You matter so much to me that I'd sacrifice any job in the world for you. I told Clotworthy that ... he's the editor of the paper ... I told him I'd rather be your husband than have his job a hundred times over. And so I would. Will you marry me, Eleanor?"

"I've never met anyone like you before!..."

"I daresay you haven't but I'm not asking you about that. Will you marry me? We can fix the whole thing up in no time at all. I looked it up in a book this morning, and it says you can get married after three weeks' notice. If I give notice the morrow, we can be married in a month from to-day!"

"Oh, stop, stop," she said. "Your mind is running away with you. I spoke to you for the first time last night!..."

"Beg your pardon," he said, "you spoke to me the first day we met. I handed you your letter!..."

"Oh, but that doesn't count. That was nothing. I really only spoke to you last night, and I don't know you. I'm not in love with you ... no, please be sensible. How can I possibly love you when I don't know you!..."

"I love you, don't I?" he demanded.

"You say so!"

"Well, if I love you, you can love me, can't you. That's simple enough!"

She pa.s.sed a cup of tea to him. "Do all Irishmen behave like this?" she said.

"I don't know and I don't care. It's the way I behave. I know my mind queer and quick, Eleanor, and when I want a thing, I don't need to go humming and hahhing to see whether I'm sure about it. I want you. I know that for a fact, and there's no need for me to argue about it.

I'll not want you any more this day twelvemonth than I want you now, and I won't want you any less. Will you marry me?"

"No!"

"How long will it be before you will marry me, then?"

She threw her hands with a gesture of comical despair. "Really," she said, "you're unbelievable. You seem to think that I must want to marry you merely because you want to marry me. I take no interest whatever in you!..."

"No, but you will!"

She shrugged her shoulders. "It isn't any use talking," she said. "Your mind is made up!..."

"It is. I want to marry you, Eleanor, and I'm going to marry you. I have a lot to do in the world yet, but that's the first thing I've got to do, and I can't do anything else till I have done it. So you might as well make up your mind to it, and save a lot of time arguing about it when it's going to happen in the end!"

She pushed her cup away, and rose from her seat. "I'm going home," she said. "This conversation makes me feel dizzy!"

"There's no hurry," he exclaimed.

She spoke coldly and deliberately, "It's not a question of hurry," she replied. "It's a question of desire, I _wish_ to go home. Your conversation bores and annoys me!"

"Why?"

"Because you treat me as if I were not human, and had no desires of my own. I'm to marry you, of whom I know absolutely nothing, merely because you want me to marry you. I don't know whether you are a gentleman or not. You have a very funny accent!..."

"What's wrong with my accent?" he demanded.

"I don't know. It's just funny. I've never heard an accent like that before, and so I can't tell whether you're a gentleman or not. If you were an Englishman, I should know at once, but it's different with Irish people. Your very queer manners may be quite the thing in Ireland!"

He put out his hand to her, but she drew back. "Sit down," he said.

"Just for a minute or two till I talk to you. I'll let you go then!"

She hesitated. Then she did as he asked her. "Very well!" she said primly.

"Listen to me, Eleanor, I know very well that my behaviour is strange to you. It's strange to me. Till last night we'd never exchanged a dozen words. I know that. But I tell you this, if you live to be a hundred and have boys by the score, you'll never have a man that'll love you as I love you. I'm in earnest, Eleanor. I'm not codding you.

I'm not trying to humbug you. I love you. I'm desperate in love with you!..."

She leant forward a little, moved by his sincerity. "But," she said, and then stopped as if unable to find words, adequate to her meaning.

"There's no buts about it," he replied. "I love you. I don't know why I love you, and I don't care whether I know or not. All I know is that the minute I saw you, I loved you. I wanted to see you again, and I schemed to make you talk to me!..."

"Yes, and very silly your schemes were. Asking me if I wanted the _Graphic_ back again!..."

"You remember that, do you?" he asked.

"Well, it was so obvious and so stupid," she answered.

"Listen. Tell me this. Do you believe me when I tell you I love you?

It's no use me telling you if you don't believe me!"

"It's so difficult to say!..."

"Do you believe me," he insisted. "Do I look like a man that would tell lies to a girl like you. Answer me that, now?"

She raised her eyes, and gazed very straightly at him. "No," she said; "I don't think you would. I ... I think you mean what you say!..."

"I do, Eleanor. As true as G.o.d's in heaven, I do. Will you not believe me?"