"Of anything dreadful?" asked Dolly.
"Of paying you p.r.o.nounced attentions," said I gravely.
"That," said Dolly with equal gravity, "would be very regrettable. It would be unjust to me--and very insulting to her, Mr. Carter."
"It would be the finest testimonial to her," I cried.
"And you"ll spend the evening thinking of her?" asked Dolly.
"I shall go through the evening," said I, "in the best way I can." And I smiled contentedly.
"What"s her husband?" asked Dolly suddenly.
"Her husband," I rejoined, "is nothing at all."
Dolly, receiving this answer, looked at me with a pathetic air.
"It"s not quite fair," she observed. "Do you know what I"m thinking about, Mr. Carter?"
"Certainly I do, Lady Mickleham. You are thinking that you would like to meet me for the first time."
"Not at all. I was thinking that it would be amusing if you met me for the first time."
I said nothing. Dolly rose and walked to the window. She swung the ta.s.sel of the blind and it b.u.mped against the window. The failing sun caught her ruddy brown hair. There were curls on her forehead, too.
"It"s a grand world," said I. "And, after all, one can grow old very gradually."
"You"re not really old," said Dolly, with the fleetest glance at me. A glance should not be over-long.
"Gradually and disgracefully," I murmured.
"If you met me for the first time--" said Dolly, swinging the ta.s.sel.
"By Heaven, it should be the last!" I cried, and I rose to my feet.
Dolly let the ta.s.sel go, and made me a very pretty curtsey.
"I am going to another party tonight," said I, nodding my head significantly.
"Ah!" said Dolly.
"And I shall again," I pursued, "spend my time with the prettiest woman in the room."
"Shall you?" asked Dolly, smiling.
"I am a very fortunate fellow," I observed. "And as for Mrs. Hilary, she may say what she likes."
"Oh, does Mrs. Hilary know the Other Lady?"
I walked toward the door.
"There is," said I, laying my hand on the door, "no Other Lady."
"I shall get there about eleven," said Dolly.
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
Unfortunately it was Sunday; therefore the gardeners could not be ordered to shift the long row of flower pots from the side of the terrace next the house, where Dolly had ordered them to be put, to the side remote from the house, where Dolly now wished them to stand. Yet Dolly could not think of living with the pots where they were till Monday. It would kill her, she said. So Archie left the cool shade of the great trees, where Dolly sat doing nothing, and Nellie Phaeton sat splicing the gig whip, and I lay in a deck chair with something iced beside me. Outside the sun was broiling hot and poor Archie mopped his brow at every weary journey across the broad terrace.
"It"s a burning" shame, Dolly," said Miss Phaeton. "I wouldn"t do it if I were him."
"Oh, yes, you would, dear," said Dolly. "The pots looked atrocious on that side."
I took a long sip from my gla.s.s, and observed in a meditative tone:
"There but for the grace of woman, goes Samuel Travers Carter."
Dolly"s lazy lids half lifted. Miss Phaeton mumbled (Her mouth was full of twine):
"What DO you mean?"
"Nemo omnibus horis sapit," said I apologetically.
"I don"t know what that means either."
"Nemo--everybody," I translated, "sapit--has been in love--omnibus--once--horis--at least."
"Oh, and you mean she wouldn"t have you?" asked Nellie, with blunt directness.
"Not quite that," said I. "They--"
"THEY?" murmured Dolly, with half-lifted lids.
"THEY," I pursued, "regretfully recognized my impossibility. Hence I am not carrying pots across a broad terrace under a hot sun."
"Why did they think you impossible?" asked Miss Phaeton, who takes much interest in this sort of question.
"A variety of reasons: for one, I was too clever, for another, too stupid; for others, too good--or too bad; too serious--or too frivolous; too poor or--"
"Well, no one objected to your money, I suppose?" interrupted Nellie.
"Pardon me. I was about to say "or not rich enough.""
"But that"s the same thing."
"The ant.i.thesis is certainly imperfect," I admitted.