"Supposing," he said, "supposing we two were to get married?"
"Marry?" cried Miss Million in her shrillest Putney-kitchen voice. "Me?
You?"
She flung up her little, dark head and let loose a shriek of laughter--half-indignant laughter at that.
Then, recovering herself, she turned upon the young man who had proposed to her in this quite unconventional fashion and began to--well! there"s no expression for it but one of her own. She began to "go for him."
"I don"t call it very funny," she declared sharply, "to go making a joke of a subject like that to a young lady you haven"t known above a half an hour hardly."
"I wasn"t thinking about the humourousness of the proposition, Cousin Nellie!" protested Mr. Hiram P. Jessop steadily. "I meant it perfectly seriously."
Miss Million gazed at him from the chair opposite.
Her cousin met that challenging, distrustful gaze unflinchingly. And in his own grey eyes I noticed a mixture of obstinacy and of quite respectful admiration. Certainly the little thing was looking very pretty and spirited.
Every woman has her "day." It"s too bad that this generally happens at a time when n.o.body calls and there"s not a soul about to admire her at her best. The next evening, when she"s got to wear a low-cut frock and go out somewhere, the chances are a hundred to one that it will be her "day off," and that she will appear a perfect fright, all "salt-cellars" and rebellious wisps of hair.
But to proceed with Miss Million, who was walking off with one man"s admiration by means of the added good looks she had acquired by being in love with another man. Such is life.
"You mean it seriously?" she repeated.
"I do," he said, nodding emphatically. "I certainly do."
Miss Million said: "You must be barmy!"
"Barmy?" echoed her American cousin. "You mean----"
"Off your onion. Up the pole. Wrong in your "ead--head," explained Miss Million. "That"s what you must be. Why, good gracious alive! The idea!
Proposing to marry a girl the first time you ever set eyes on her.
Smith, did you ever----"
"I never had to sit in the room before while another girl was being proposed to," I put in uncomfortably. "If you don"t mind, Miss, I think I had better go now, and allow you and Mr. Jessop to talk this over between yourselves."
"Nothing of the kind, Miss Smith, nothing of the kind," put in the suitor, turning to me as I stood ready to flee to scenes less embarra.s.sing. "You"re a nice, well-balanced, intell"gent sort of a young lady yourself. I"d just like to have your point of view about this affair of my cousin arranging to marry me----"
"I"m not arranging no such thing," cried Miss Million, "and don"t mean to!"
"See here; you"d far better," said Mr. Hiram P. Jessop, in his kindly, reasonable, shrewd, young voice. "Look at the worry and discomfort and argument and inconvenience about the money that she"d avoid"--again turning to Miss Million"s maid--"if she agreed to do so."
"Then, again," he went on, "what a much more comfortable situation for a young lady of her age and appearance if she could go travelling around with a husky-looking sort of husband, with a head on his shoulders, rather than be trapesing about alone, with nothing but a young lady of a lady"s-maid no older or fitter to cope with the battles of life than she is herself. A husband to keep away the sordid and disagreeable aspects of life----"
Here I remembered suddenly the visit of that detective who wanted to search Miss Million"s boxes at the Cecil. I thought to myself: "Yes! if we only had a husband. I mean if she had! It would be a handy sort of thing to be able to call in next time we were suspected of having taken anybody"s rubies!"
And then I remembered with a shock that I hadn"t yet had time to break it to my mistress that we had been suspected--were probably still suspected--by that awful Rattenheimer person!
Meanwhile Miss Million"s cousin and would-be husband was going on expatiating on the many advantages, to a young lady in her position, of having a real man to look after her interests----
"All very true. But I don"t know as I"m exactly hard up for a husband,"
retorted Miss Million, with a little simper and a blush that I knew was called up by the memory of the blue, black-lashed eyes of a certain Irish scamp and scaramouch who ought to be put in the stocks at Charing Cross as an example to all nice girls of the kind of young man whom it is desirable to avoid and to snub. Miss Million added: "I don"t know that I couldn"t get married any time I wanted to."
"Sure thing," agreed her cousin gravely. "But the question is, how are you going to know which man"s just hunting you for the sake of Uncle Sam"s dollars? Making love to the girl, with his eyes on the pork factory?"
"Well, I must say I think that comes well from you!" exclaimed Miss Million. "You to talk about people wanting to marry me for my money, when you"ve just said yourself that you"ve set your heart on those dollars of Uncle Sam"s for your old aeroplane machine! You"re a nice one!"
"I"m sincere," said the young American, in a voice that no one could doubt. "I want the dollars. But I wouldn"t have suggested marrying them--if I hadn"t liked the little girl that went with them. I told you right away when I came into this room, Cousin Nellie, that I think you"re a little peach. As I said, I like your pretty little frank face and the cunning way you fix yourself up. I like your honesty. No beating about the bush."
He paused a second or so, and then went on.
""You must be barmy," says you. It appeared that way to you, and you said it. That"s my own point of view. If you mean a thing, say it out.
You do. I like that. I revere that. And in a charming little girl it"s rare," said the American simply. "I like your voice----"
Here I suppressed a gasp, just in time. He liked Million"s voice! He liked that appalling c.o.c.kney accent that has sounded so much more ear-piercing and nerve-rasping since it has been a.s.sociated with the clothes that--well, ought to have such a very much prettier sort of tone coming out of them!
He liked it. Oh, he must be in love at first sight--at first sound!
"Plenty of these young English girls talk as if it sprained them over each syllable. You"re brisk and peart and alive," he told her earnestly.
"I think you"ve a lovely way of talking."
Miss Million was taking it all in, as a girl does take in compliments, whether they are from the right man or from the wrong one. That is, she looked as if every word were cream to her. Only another woman could have seen which remark she tossed aside in her own mind as "just what he said," and which tribute she treasured.
I saw that what appealed to Miss Million was "the lovely way of talking"
and "the cunning way she"d fixed herself up." In fact, the two compliments she deserved least.
Oh, how I wished she"d say "Yes, thank you," at once to a young man who would certainly be the solution of all my doubts and difficulties as far as my young mistress was concerned! He"d look after her. He"d spoil her, as these Americans do spoil their adored womenkind!
All her little ways would be so "noo," as he calls it, to him, that he wouldn"t realise which of them were--were--were the kind of thing that would set the teeth on edge of, say, the Honourable Jim Burke.
He--Mr. Hiram P. Jessop--would make an idol and a possession of his little English wife. That conscienceless Celt would make a banking-account of her--nothing else.
Oh, yes! How I wished she"d take her cousin and be thankful----
But here was Miss Million shaking her little dusky head against the gay-coloured cushions.
"I"m sure it"s very kind of you to say all this," she told him in a rather mollified tone of voice, "but I"m afraid we can"t arrange things the way you"d like. A girl can"t sort of make herself like people better than other people, just because it might "appen to be convenient."
"Other people," repeated the young American quickly. "Am I to take it that there is some one else that you prefer, Cousin Nellie?"
His cousin Nellie"s very vivid blush seemed to be enough answer for him.
He rose, saying slowly: "Why, that"s a pity. That makes me feel real out of it. Still----" He shrugged the broad shoulders under the light-grey padded coat. "As you say, it can"t be helped. I congratulate whoever it is that----"
"Ow, stop! Gracious alive, there isn"t any one to be congratulated yet,"
broke in Miss Million. "Me and--the gentleman haven"t gone and definitely made up our minds about anything, up to now; but--well. As you say, it"s better to have anything "out.""
"If you haven"t definitely made up your mind," said the young American, just as he took his leave, "I shan"t definitely take "No" for my own answer."
And he"s gone off now to put up at an hotel in Lewes, so that he can come over to call at the "Refuge" each day of the week that Miss Million says we are going to stay here. He thinks, I know, that after all he will "get round her" to like him.