Part 44

“She’ll have forgotten your very name,” remarked Mrs. Hilary.

I opened the door, but a thought struck me. I turned round and observed:

“I dare say her hair’s just as soft as ever. Still--I’ll lunch some other day.”

A VERY FINE DAY

“I see nothing whatever to laugh at,” said Mrs. Hilary coldly, when I had finished.

“I did not ask you to laugh,” I observed mildly. “I mentioned it merely as a typical case.”

“It’s not typical,” she said, and took up her embroidery. But a moment later she added:

“Poor boy! I’m not surprised.”

“I’m not surprised either,” I remarked. “It is, however, extremely deplorable.”

“It’s your own fault. Why did you introduce him?”

“A book,” I observed, “might be written on the Injustice of the Just. How could I suppose that he would--?”

By the way, I might as well state what he--that is, my young cousin George--had done. Unless one is a genius, it is best to aim at being intelligible.

Well, he was in love; and with a view of providing him with another house at which he might be likely to meet the adored object, I presented him to my friend Lady Mickleham. That was on a Tuesday. A fortnight later, as I was sitting in Hyde Park (as I sometimes do), George came up and took the chair next to me. I gave him a cigarette, but made no remark. George beat his cane restlessly against the leg of his trousers.

“I’ve got to go up tomorrow,” he remarked.

“Ah, well, Oxford is a delightful town,” said I.

“D----d hole,” observed George.

I was about to contest this opinion when a victoria drove by.

A girl sat in it, side by side with a portly lady.

“George, George!” I cried. “There she is--Look!”

George looked, raised his hat with sufficient politeness, and remarked to me:

“Hang it, one sees those people everywhere.”

I am not easily surprised, but I confess I turned to George with an expression of wonder.

“A fortnight ago--” I began.

“Don’t be an ass, Sam,” said George, rather sharply. “She’s not a bad girl, but--” He broke off and began to whistle. There was a long pause. I lit a cigar, and looked at the people.

“I lunched at the Micklehams’ today,” said George, drawing a figure on the gravel with his cane. “Mickleham’s not a bad fellow.”

“One of the best fellows alive,” I agreed.

“I wonder why she married him, though,” mused George; and he added, with apparent irrelevance, “It’s a dashed bore, going up.” And then a smile spread over his face; a blush accompanied it, and proclaimed George’s sense of delicious wickedness. I turned on him.

“Out with it!” I said.