Our Elizabeth Part 18

CHAPTER XVI

I should like to begin this chapter by saying it's the unexpected that always happens. As that, however, would be too trite a remark, I will only say that William was the last person on earth I should have suspected of falling in love with Gladys Harringay.

She is, indeed, exceedingly pretty in a fluffy kind of way and most men like to flirt with her, but they do not let their attentions develop into anything serious. Perhaps you know the sort of girl she is. She makes a dead set at every eligible man she meets and concentrates on him to such an extent that he ends by losing interest in her altogether--actually avoiding her, in fact. Man is like that, I've observed. I suppose it's the primitive instinct of the hunter which still lurks in him and makes him desire to stalk down his quarry instead of its stalking him. Gladys didn't seem aware of this supreme fact, and (though she affected the giddy airs of eighteen) she was getting perilously near the age when the country considers a woman is wise and staid enough to vote, yet she still remained unwed.

Never for a moment did it occur to me, when I asked her to dine with us one evening, that she would go for William. Still less did I think that he would take even the faintest interest in such a vapid creature.

But, as I wanted to say before, it's the unexpected that always happens.

William was looking unusually nice that evening. His eyes had a far-away, rather haunted expression, due to his wearing sock-suspenders for the first time, but, of course, Gladys didn't know that. He seemed like one of the strong, silent heroes of fiction. I can testify that he was silent--perhaps because Gladys did all the talking--and he looked unusually strong. They sat together most of the evening, and she only left his side to go to the piano to sing one of her 'stock'

French chansons. Even then she directed it entirely at William.

'_Mamman, dites-moi, ce qu'on sent quand on aime Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?_'

she warbled, rolling her r's and looking so fixedly at William that he seemed quite uneasy--he might, indeed, have been more uneasy had his French been equal to following the words of the song. Modern languages, however, like modern writers, do not appeal to him. They must be as dead as mutton before they can awaken his interest. If you want to see him roused to a perfect frenzy of enthusiasm you should see him arguing with Henry as to the comparative dramatic values of Homeric hexameters and Ionian iambics.

But to return to Gladys--or rather Gladys and William, for they remained inseparable for the remainder of the evening. He even accompanied her home, for I saw him dart forward (in his patent leather boots, too, which demanded slow movement on his part), when she rose to go, and hurry out to act as her escort.

A few days later he called in to see us for the sole purpose of inquiring about her. He pretended he wanted to borrow Ruskin's _Munera Pulveris_, but as he went away without the volume we saw how feeble was that pretext.

'With regard to--er--Miss Harringay,' he began, almost as soon as he arrived, 'I must say I consider her a remarkable young lady.'

'She _is_,' I said grimly.

'Would you believe it,' he went on, addressing himself to Henry, 'she is actually a Dr. Johnson enthusiast.'

'Nonsense!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Henry.

'It's a fact. Isn't it unusual in one so young and--er--tender and timid that she recalls Keats' dissertation on woman, "she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats for man's protection."'

'Oh, so she's been bleating, has she?' I said cruelly.

'It makes it all the more astonis.h.i.+ng that she should have leanings toward the study of serious literature.'

'Who told you she had?'

'She told me so herself.'

'Do you mean to tell me you believe it?'

He looked puzzled. 'Why should she say that if it isn't true? She could have no object in making such a statement. As a matter of fact, I found out quite by accident, when she unconsciously quoted a pa.s.sage from the great master.'

I began to see light. So that was why Gladys had come up in such haste the day following her introduction to William to borrow _Johnson's Aphorisms_. Oh, hapless, artless William!

'I see now that you were quite right when you once remarked that you feared you had lost your reason with your beard,' I remarked severely.

'Do let things grow again before it is too late.'

'Let what grow?' he asked.

'Everything. Moustache, beard and general air of fuzziness. It's the best protection you can have, my poor fellow.'

He departed rather abruptly after that, seeming somewhat annoyed. I could not understand what was making him so unusually touchy.

'Surely,' I said to Henry, 'even William isn't so blind as to let himself be taken in by that little noodle of a Gladys.'

'Of course he isn't,' replied Henry vehemently, 'do you think a chap is ever deceived by anything like that? He hates to be pounced on, so to speak. Do you know, my dear, that one of the things that first attracted you to me was your complete indifference to myself.'

'Indeed, Henry?' I said, with lowered eyes and modest mien.

'Yes. If you remember I was editing the _Gazette_ at the time I first met you, and although you, as one of my contributors, often came up to the office to see me, we remained for a long time on a purely business footing.'

It is true Henry was an unconscionable time in coming to the point.

'Entirely business-like,' I acquiesced.

'When you called to see me to discuss a gross misstatement in one of your articles (which you refused to acknowledge until I had sent for you to put the matter clearly before you), you did not conduct yourself like so many other girls who came to discuss their work with me. You did not attempt to engage in a mild flirtation, make eyes, bend over me as I glanced through the ma.n.u.script----'

'Oh, bad, bad girls,' I murmured. 'Do women behave like that with you, Henry?'

'They _did_, my dear. I am speaking of the time before I was married.'

I smiled. What a comfort it is to have a Scotsman for a husband! He is so solid and reliable regarding the opposite s.e.x.

'You, however, employed none of these wiles,' he continued, 'and were almost studiously cold and business-like. For a long time I thought I should never interest you in myself--in fact, I know I took you very much by surprise when I made you an offer, didn't I?'

'I was rather surprised, Henry,' I said, smiling at his retreating form as he went out of the room. Then I turned to Marion, who happened to be present. 'Why, of course,' I commented, 'that makes it all the more serious about William.'

'What are you talking about?' she asked in a puzzled tone.

'If Henry was deceived so easily----'

'Deceived! Oh, Netta!'

'Well, I mean, dear, I'd decided to marry Henry before the episode of the misstatement in my article he just mentioned. I--I--put the misstatement in on purpose to arouse a controversy between us.'

'Netta, how terrible!'

'Why terrible, Marion? I knew Henry would make an excellent husband.

Am I not a suitable wife for him?'

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'Am I not a suitable wife for Henry?']

'You are just perfect, dear--but you might have been otherwise.'

'That's exactly what I'm driving at, Marion. Gladys is an "otherwise."

If I deceived Henry, how much easier is it for her to deceive William?

No, she shan't marry him. He'd be wretched.'