"Half of it certainly was--irksome."
"Which half?" asked Jeannette suspiciously.
"I have no conscientious scruples about matrimony in the abstract,"
parried Chilminster.
"But I have. I object altogether to the paragraph. I resent it."
"Then you did not insert it?"
"I insert it? _I?_" flamed Jeannette. She drew herself up as haughtily as a pretty woman can under the disadvantage of being seated in a yielding easy chair. "Do you mean to a.s.sert, Lord Chilminster, that I----?"
She was interrupted by the entrance of the butler.
"Luncheon is served, my lord," he announced.
"You will take off your coat?"
Lord Chilminster turned to Miss Urmy, and advanced a step in antic.i.p.ation. The butler--with a well-trained butler"s promptness--was behind her, and before she could frame a word of objection, the fur-lined garment had slipped from her shoulders.
Thus must martyrs have marched to the stake, was one of Jeannette"s bewildered reflections as she preceded her host out of the room, and, as in a dream, found herself a few minutes later facing him across the luncheon table. Outwardly, the meal proceeded in well-ordered calm. Lord Chilminster made no further reference to the debatable topic; only talked lightly and pleasantly on a variety of non-committal subjects.
As the lady"s host that, of course, was the only att.i.tude he could adopt; but the fact remains that he did so _de bonne volonte_. Perhaps because, so far, he had scored more points than his opponent in the morning"s encounter; perhaps, also, because of her undeniable good looks, his irritation, due to the circ.u.mstances that had prompted that encounter, began to lessen with _truites en papilotte_, was almost forgotten in face of a _mousse de volaille_, and entirely vanished among _asperges vertes mousseline_.
Miss Jeannette L. Urmy, with her veil lifted, and relieved of her voluminous coat, was, he had to admit, distractingly pretty; not at all the type he had pictured as the original of the name. Young, pretty, and charming women (he was convinced that _au fond_ she was charming) ought to have no obstinate prejudices against marriage. He even ventured to think that Miss Urmy"s mind had become obscured on that point by those--well, indiscreet lines in the _Morning Post_. They had upset him; then why not her? They were so--premature.
As for Jeannette, in spite of Lord Chilminster"s effortless ease, her powers of conversation were frozen. She was reduced to monosyllables, and she ate in proportion. It was a humiliating experience to be accepting the hospitality of the enemy; one, moreover, that made it awkward for her to prolong hostilities. Having broken bread in his tents (a Puritan strain was responsible for the ill.u.s.tration) she felt disarmed. Besides, she was rather ashamed of her maladroitness in mistaking Lord Chilminster for a common motor-man. It argued _gaucherie_. Perhaps he thought her unconventional call a violation of good taste--considered her forward! He had plainly shown his annoyance about that obnox--that embarra.s.sing paragraph, and that fact spiked most of her batteries. He might, after all, prove to be quite----
"Do you mind if I smoke?"
Lord Chilminster"s voice startled her out of her reverie. The servants had noiselessly retired, and they were alone.
"I--I feel ready to sink through the floor," she rejoined inconsequently.
He returned his cigarette case to his pocket, looking quite concerned.
"I"m so sorry. I ought not to have----"
"No, no. Please smoke. It isn"t that," stammered Jeannette.
"It"s the _Morning Post_?"
Jeannette evaded his eye.
"Yes; it does put us in rather a tight place," mediated Chilminster.
Nothing was said for a moment.
"Engaged!" he murmured.
Jeannette raised her eyes and noted his reflective att.i.tude.
"Who can have put it in?" he went on.
"I can"t imagine."
"And why?"
"It does seem strange," admitted Jeannette in a detached tone.
"It"s not as if we were----"
"No," she interposed hurriedly.
"Well, what ought we to do about it? Of course, we can contradict it, but----"
"But what?" she asked, filling his pause.
"I hate advertis.e.m.e.nt--that is, _unnecessary_ advertis.e.m.e.nt,"
Chilminster corrected himself. "It would make us--I mean me--look so--so vacillating."
He looked up rather suddenly, and just missed Jeannette"s eyes by the thousandth of a second.
What could he mean? she asked herself, while her heart pumped boisterously. Was he magnanimous enough to be thinking of accepting a compromising situation to save her? What he had said sounded very unselfish. Of course, she couldn"t allow him to. What a pity he was not an American--or something quite ordinary. Then she might----
"There"s nothing for it but to write to the paper, I suppose?" he said ruefully.
"I--I suppose not." The comment was dragged from Jeannette in a tone as unconsciously reluctant as his was rueful.
Chilminster sighed. "It"s so rough on you."
Jeannette felt a consuming anxiety to know whether his sympathy was occasioned by the announcement or the suggested denial of it.
"And on you, too," she admitted. "What were you thinking--how did you propose to phrase it?"
"I?" he asked apprehensively. "To be quite frank. I haven"t got as far as that. Never wrote to the papers in my life," he added pusillanimously.
"But _I_ can"t," argued Jeannette. Her determination of two hours ago had vanished into the Ewigkeit.
Chilminster had an inspiration. "What do you say if we do it together?"
While she digested this expedient he fetched paper and pencil, and then sat gazing at the ceiling for inspiration.
"Well?" she queried at the end of a minute.
"How ought one to begin these things?" asked the desperate man.
Jeannette cogitated deeply. "It"s so difficult to say what one wants to a stranger in a letter, isn"t it?" she hesitated. "Wouldn"t a telegram do?"
"By Jove! Yes; and simply say: "Miss Urmy wishes to deny----""