"Handsome, wicked eyes," she said to it lightly. "The only wicked things about you, you unsophisticated infant-in-arms!" Then she said, "You and your sculpturing!... _Just_ like a baby with its box of bricks. Besides, I don"t suppose you"ll ever have a penny. One doesn"t marry a man because one may like the _look_ of him. No, boy."
She flicked the snapshot aside. There was conscientious carelessness in the flick.
Then she took out the leather-cased ink-bottle from her dressing-bag, and some paper.
She wrote: "MY DEAR HUGO----"
Then she stopped and thought--"Maudie and Hilary Smith will be pleased with me. So will the cousins, the opulent cousins who"ve always been kind about clothes they"ve finished wearing, and invitations to parties where they want another girl to brighten things up. You can give some bright parties for _them_ now, Leslie! Good Reason Number Ninety-nine for saying "Yes.""
She took up her pen.
"Nothing," she murmured, "_Nothing_ will ever kill the idea that _the girl who isn"t married is the girl who hasn"t been asked_. Nothing will ever spoil the satisfaction of that girl when showing that she _has_!"
She wrote down the date, which she had forgotten.
"Poor Monty would be so much more decorative for "show" purposes. But I explained quite frankly to Hugo that it would be his money I"d want!"
She wrote, "_After thinking it well over_----"
Then again she meditated.
"Great things, reasons! The reason why so many marriages aren"t a success is because they haven"t _enough_ "reasons why" behind them. Now, how far had I got with mine--ah, yes. Reason Number a Hundred: I"m twenty-six; I shall never been any better-looking than I am now. Not unless I"m better-dressed. Which (Reason a Hundred and One) I should be if I married Hugo. Reason a Hundred and Two: my old lady won"t live for ever, and I should never get a better job than hers. Except his. Reason Number a Hundred and Two and a Half: I do quite like him. He doesn"t expect anything more, so there"s the other half-reason for taking him.
Reason a Hundred and Four: _he"s_ never disapproved of me. Whereas Monty always likes me against his better judgment. Much nicer for me, but annoying for a husband. I should make Hugo an excellent wife." She added this half-aloud (to the snapshot).
"I should never shock _him_. Never bore him. Never interfere with him.
Never make him look silly--any sillier than he can"t help looking with that hair and that necktie he will wear. Leslie would have the sense, when she wasn"t amusing him at the moment, to retire to her _own rooms_ (Reason a Hundred and Five for marrying well), and to stay there until she was fetched. Reason a----"
Here, in the full flow of her reasoning, Miss Long cast suddenly and rather violently down her pen, and tore the sheet with Hugo"s name in it into tiny strips that she cast into the empty fireplace.
"I can"t _think_ to write a good letter to-day!" she excused herself to herself as she got up from her chair. "I"m tired.... It was all that talking from Taffy last night. Bother the child. _Bother_ her. _It"s unsettling!_--Bother _all_ engaged girls. (_And all the people shall say Amen._) I wonder where they went to?... I shall ring up somebody to take me on the river, I think. Plenty of time to say "Yes" to Hugo later."
The letter to Hugo, between the lines of which there had come the vision of an engaged girl"s happy face, remained, for the present, unfinished.
Leslie went to the telephone.
"O-o-o Chelsea," she called. "I want to speak to Mr. Scott, please."
She thought, "This shall be my last free Sunday, and I"ll have it in peace!"
In Richmond Park the gra.s.s was doubly cool and green beneath the shade both of the oaks and of the breast-high bracken where Gwenna and Paul Dampier sat, eating the fruit and cake that they had bought on the way, and talking with long stretches of contented silence.
They were near enough actually to London and the mult.i.tude. But town and people seemed far away, out of their world to-day.
Gwenna"s soft, oddly-accented voice said presently into the warm stillness, "You"ll take me up this afternoon?"
"Up?" he said idly. "Where to?"
"Up flying, of course."
"No, I don"t think so," said the young Airman quietly, putting his chin in his hand as he lay in his favourite att.i.tude, chest downwards in the gra.s.s, looking at her.
"Not flying? Not this afternoon?"
"Don"t think so, Little Thing."
"Oh, you"re lazy," she teased him, touching a finger to his fair head and taking it quickly back again. "You don"t want to move."
"Not going to move, either; not until I"ve got to."
She sighed, not too disappointed.
Here in the dappled shade and the solitude with him it was heavenly enough; even if she did glance upward at the peeps of sapphire-blue through the leaves and wonder what added rapture it would be to soar to those heights with her lover.
"D"you know how many times you"ve put me off?" she said presently, fanning the midges away from herself with her broad white hat. "Always you"ve said you"d take me flying with you, Paul. And always there"s been something to stop it. Let"s settle it now. Now, when will you?"
"Ah," he said, and flung the stone of the peach he"d been eating into the dark green jungle of bracken ahead of them. "Good shot. I wanted to see if I could get that k.n.o.b on that branch."
She moved nearer to him and said coaxingly, "What about next Sunday?"
"Hope it"ll be as fine as this," he said, smiling at her. "I"d like all the Sundays to be just like this one. Can"t think what I did with all the ripping days before this, Gwenna."
She said, "I meant, what about your taking me up next Sunday?"
"Nothing about it," he said, shaking his head. There was a little pause.
He crossed his long legs in the gra.s.s and said, "Not next Sunday. Nor the Sunday after that. Nor any Sunday. Nor any time. I may as well tell you now. You aren"t ever coming flying," said the young aviator firmly to his sweetheart. "I"ve settled _that_."
The cherub face of the girl looked blankly into his. "But, Paul! No flying? Why? Surely--It"s safe enough now!"
"Safe enough for me--and for most people."
"But you"ve taken Miss Conyers and plenty of girls flying."
"Girls. Yes."
"And you _promised_ to take me!"
"That was ages ago. That was when you were a girl too."
"Well, what am I now, pray?"
"Don"t you know? Not "_a_ girl." _My_ Girl!" he said.
Then he moved. He knelt up beside her. He made love to her sweetly enough to cause her to forget all else for a time. And presently, flushed and shy and enraptured, she brought out of her vanity-bag the tiny white wing that was to be his mascot, and she safety-pinned it inside the breast of his old grey jacket.
"That ought to be fastened somewhere to the P.D.Q.," he suggested. But she shook her head. No. It was not for the P.D.Q. It was for him to wear.
Then she saw him weighing in his hand her own mascot, the little mother-of-pearl heart with the silver chain.