The dejected droop of her mouth gave answer.
"Well, then, I concocted a plot. Old Wyvern helped me--Professor Wyvern, you know. I thought that if I took his cat, his beloved Rose, and lay low with her for a bit, he would--"
"Oh, _George!_"
"Well?"
"Nothing--finish."
"--He would be certain to offer a reward. And I guessed he wouldn"t mind what he paid. So I thought I"d take the cat and hang on till he offered L500, or till I thought he"d be so glad to get the Rose back that he"d do what I want out of pure grat.i.tude. Then I"d bring it back and get the money--say I"d found it, you see, and--and--wait a bit-- for heaven"s sake don"t speak yet." George saw his Mary was bursting with words; as he judged the look in her eyes they were words he had reason to fear. Shirking their hurt, he hurried along. "Don"t speak yet. Get the money, and then we"d save up and pay him back and then tell him. There!"
She burst out: "But, George--how _could_ you? Oh, it"s wrong--it"s _awful!_ Why, do you know what people would call you? They"d say you"re a--yes, they"d say you"re a--"
He s.n.a.t.c.hed the terrible word from her lips with a kiss.
"They"d say I was a fool if I let Marrapit do me out of what is my own. That"s the point, Mary. It"s my money. I"m only trying to get what is my own. I felt all along you would see that; otherwise--" He hesitated. He was in difficulties. Manlike, he suddenly essayed to shoot the responsibility upon the woman. "--Otherwise I wouldn"t have done it," he ended.
His Mary had the wit to slip from the net, to dig him a vital thrust with the trident: "If you thought that, why didn"t you tell me?"
The thrust staggered him; set him bl.u.s.tering: "Tell you! Tell you! How could I tell you? I did it on the spur of the moment."
"You could have written. Oh, Georgie, it"s wrong. It _is_ wrong."
He took up the famous s.e.x attack. "Wrong! Wrong! That"s just like a woman to say that! You won"t listen to reason. You jump at a thing and shut your eyes and your ears."
"I _will_ listen to reason. But you haven"t _got_ any reason. If you had, why didn"t you tell me before you did it?"
He continued the s.e.x a.s.sault; flung out a declamatory hand. "There you go! Why didn"t I tell you? I"ve told you why. I tell you I did it on the spur of the moment--"
But she still struggled. "Yes, that"s just it. You didn"t think. Now that you are thinking you must see it in its proper light. You _must_ see it"s wrong."
"I don"t. I don"t in the least."
"Well, why are you getting in such a state about it?"
"I"m not getting in a state!"
"You are." His Mary fumbled at her waist-belt. "You are. You"re-- saying--all sorts--of--things. You--said--I--was--just--like--a-- woman." Out came this preposterous Mary"s pocket handkerchief; into it went Mary"s little nose.
George sprang to her. "Oh, Mary! Oh, I say, don"t cry, old girl!"
The nose came out for a minute, a very shiny little nose. "I can"t help crying. This is an--an _awful_ business." The shiny little nose disappeared again.
George tried to pull away the handkerchief, tried to put his face against hers. A bony little shoulder poked obstinately up and prevented him. He burst out desperately. "Oh, d.a.m.n! Oh, what a beast I am! I"m always making you cry. Oh, d.a.m.n! Oh, Mary! I can"t do anything right. I"ve had an awful time these days--and I was longing to see you,--and now I"ve called you names and been a brute."
His Mary gulped the tears that were making the shiny little nose every minute more shiny. Never could she bear to hear her George accuse himself. Upon a tremendous sniff, "You haven"t been a brute," she said, "--a bit. It"s my--my fault for annoying you when I don"t properly understand. Perhaps I don"t understand."
He put an arm about her. "You don"t, Mary. Really and truly you don"t.
Let me tell you. Don"t say a word till I"ve done. I"ll tell you first why I"ve brought the Rose here. You see, I can"t keep her anywhere else. I"m being chased about all over England. Bill and that infernal detective are after me now, and I simply must hide the beastly cat where it will be safe. Well, it"s safest here--here, right under their noses, where n.o.body will ever look because everyone thinks it miles away by now. I can"t stop near it, because I must be away on this clue they think I"ve got--especially now I"ve got mixed up with the detectives: see? So I want you just to come up from the house every day and feed the cat. You"ll be perfectly safe, and it can"t be for very long. You would do that, wouldn"t you? Oh, Mary, think what it means to us!"
She polished the shiny little nose: "I"d do anything that would help you. But, Georgie, it"s not _right_; it"s _wrong_. Oh, it is wrong! I don"t care _what_ you say."
"But you haven"t heard what I"ve got to say."
"I have. I"ve been listening for hours."
"No, no, Mary. No, I haven"t explained yet. You"re too serious about it. It isn"t a bit serious. It"s only a frightful rag. And n.o.body will suffer, because he"ll get his money back. And, think--think what it means. Now, do listen!"
She listened, and her George poured forth a flood of arguments that were all mixed and tangled with love. She could not separate the two.
This argument that he was right was delectably sugared with the knowledge that the thing was done for her; that delicious picture of the future, when it was swallowed, proved to be an argument in favour of his purpose. Love and argument, argument and love--she could not separate them, and they combined into a most exquisite sweetmeat. The arm her George had about her was a base advantage over her. How doubt her George was right when against her she could feel his heart! How be wiser than he when both her hands were in that dear brown fist?
She was almost won when with a "So there you are!" he concluded. She had been won if she had much longer remained beneath the drug of his dear, gay, earnest words.
But when he ceased she came to. The little awakening sigh she gave was the little fluttering sigh of a patient when the anesthetic leaves the senses clear.
She looked at her George. Horrible to dim the sparkling in those dear eyes, radiant with excitement, with love. Yet she did it. The goody- goody little soul of her put its hands about the little weakness of her and held it tight.
She said: "I do, _do_ see what you mean, Georgie. But I do, _do_ think it"s wrong."
And then the little hands and the brown fist changed places. For she put one hand below the fist, and with the other patted as she gave her little homily--goody-goody little arguments, Sunday-school little arguments, mother-and-child little arguments. And very timidly she concluded: "You are not angry, Georgie, are you?"
This splendid George of hers gave her a tremendous kiss. "You"re a little saint; you"re a little idiot; you"re a little angel; you"re a little goose," he told her. "But I love you all the more for it, although I"d like to shake you. I _would_ like to shake you, Mary.
You"re ruining the finest joke that ever was tried; and you"re ruining our only chance of marrying; and goodness only knows what"s going to happen now."
She laughed ever so happily. It was intoxicating to bend this dear George; intoxicating to have the love that came of bending him.
"But I _am_ right, am I not?" she asked.
George said: "Look here, saint and goose. I"m simply not going to chuck the thing and all our happiness like this. I"ll make a bargain.
Saint and goose, we"ll say you are right, but you shall have one night to think over it. One night. And this afternoon you will go to Professor Wyvern and tell him everything and hear what he thinks about it--what an outsider thinks: see? Yes, that"s it. Don"t even spend a night over it. Have a talk with Professor Wyvern, and if you still think I ought to chuck it, write to me at once, and to-morrow I"ll come down and creep in unto my uncle with the cat, and say: "Uncle, I have sinned." There, Mary, that"s agreed, isn"t it?"
"That"s agreed," she joined. "Yes, that"s fair."
He looked at his watch. "I must cut. I must catch the one-thirty train. I must calm Bill and the "tec. in case you--Mary, _do_ weigh whatever Wyvern says, won"t you?"
She promised; gave her George her hope that the Professor would make her see differently.
"That"s splendid of you!" George cried. "Saint and goose, that"s sweet of you. Mary, I"m sure he will. Look here, I must fly; come half-way to the station. The cat"s all right here. Pop up and feed her this afternoon."
They pressed the door behind them; hurried down the path.
It was precisely as they turned from the lane into the high-road, that Mrs. Major, a cat beneath her arm, went bounding wildly through the copse towards Herons" Holt.
CHAPTER IV.
George Has A Shot At Paradise.