The Girl on the Boat Part 45

The unreasonableness of this struck Eustace.

"But I can't. I'm in bed. Where could I go?"

"I hate you!"

"Oh, don't say that!"

"You're still in love with her!"

"Nonsense! I never was in love with her."

"Then why were you going to marry her?"

"Oh, I don't know. It seemed a good idea at the time."

"Oh! Oh! Oh!"

Eustace bent a little further over the end of the bed and patted her hair.

"Do have some barley-water," he said. "Just a sip!"

"You _are_ in love with her!" sobbed Jane.

"I'm _not_! I love _you_!"

"You don't!"

"Pardon _me_!" said Eustace firmly. "I've loved you ever since you gave me that extraordinary drink with Worcester sauce in it on the boat."

"They why didn't you say so before?"

"I hadn't the nerve. You always seemed so--I don't know how to put it--I always seemed such a worm. I was just trying to get the courage to propose when I caught the mumps, and that seemed to me to finish it. No girl could love a man with three times the proper amount of face."

"As if that could make any difference! What does your outside matter? I have seen your inside!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean...."

Eustace fondled her back hair.

"Jane! Queen of my soul! Do you really love me?"

"I've loved you ever since we met on the Subway." She raised a tear-stained face. "If only I could be sure that you really loved me!"

"I can prove it!" said Eustace proudly. "You know how scared I am of my mother. Well, for your sake I overcame my fear, and did something which, if she ever found out about it, would make her sorer than a sunburned neck! This house. She absolutely refused to let it to old Bennett and old Mortimer. They kept after her about it, but she wouldn't hear of it. Well, you told me on the boat that Wilhelmina Bennett had invited you to spend the summer with her, and I knew that, if they didn't come to Windles, they would take some other place, and that meant I wouldn't see you. So I hunted up old Mortimer, and let it to him on the quiet, without telling my mother anything about it!"

"Why, you darling angel child," cried Jane Hubbard joyfully. "Did you really do that for my sake? Now I know you love me!"

"Of course, if mother ever got to hear of it...!"

Jane Hubbard pushed him gently into the nest of bedclothes, and tucked him in with strong, calm hands. She was a very different person from the girl who so short a while before had sobbed on the carpet. Love is a wonderful thing.

"You mustn't excite yourself," she said. "You'll be getting a temperature. Lie down and try to get to sleep." She kissed his bulbous face. "You have made me so happy, Eustace darling."

"That's good," said Eustace cordially. "But it's going to be an awful jar for mother!"

"Don't you worry about that. I'll break the news to your mother. I'm sure she will be quite reasonable about it."

Eustace opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

"Lie back quite comfortably, and don't worry," said Jane Hubbard. "I'm going to my room to get a book to read you to sleep. I shan't be five minutes. And forget about your mother. I'll look after her."

Eustace closed his eyes. After all, this girl had fought lions, tigers, pumas, cannibals, and alligators in her time with a good deal of success. There might be a sporting chance of victory for her when she moved a step up in the animal kingdom and tackled his mother. He was not unduly optimistic, for he thought she was going out of her cla.s.s; but he felt faintly hopeful. He allowed himself to drift into pleasant meditation.

There was a scrambling sound outside the door. The handle turned.

"Hullo! Back already?" said Eustace, opening his eyes.

The next moment he opened them wider. His mouth gaped slowly like a hole in a sliding cliff. Mrs. Horace Hignett was standing at his bedside.

-- 3

In the moment which elapsed before either of the two could calm their agitated brains to speech, Eustace became aware, as never before, of the truth of that well-known line--"Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away." There was certainly little hope of peace with loved ones in his bedroom. Dully, he realised that in a few minutes Jane Hubbard would be returning with her book, but his imagination refused to envisage the scene which would then occur.

"Eustace!"

Mrs. Hignett gasped, hand on heart.

"Eustace!" For the first time Mrs. Hignett seemed to become aware that it was a changed face that confronted hers. "Good gracious! How stout you've grown!"

"It's mumps."

"Mumps!"

"Yes, I've got mumps."

Mrs. Hignett's mind was too fully occupied with other matters to allow her to dwell on this subject.

"Eustace, there are men in the house!"

This fact was just what Eustace had been wondering how to break to her.

"I know," he said uneasily.

"You know!" Mrs. Hignett stared. "Did you hear them?"

"Hear them?" said Eustace, puzzled.