"For, in spite of appearances," I debated with myself, "it is barely possible that the handkerchief was not hers. She may have borrowed it or have got it by mistake, somehow. In which case, it is only reasonable to suppose that she will miss it, and ask me if I saw it; on the contrary, if the handkerchief is hers, she will naturally understand, when I return the book without it, that I have feloniously detained this airy gewgaw as a souvenir, as, so to speak, a _gage d"amour_. And, in that event, she ought to be very much pleased and a bit embarra.s.sed; and she will preserve upon the topic of handkerchiefs a maidenly silence. Do you know, Robert Etheridge Townsend, there is about you the making of a very fine logician?"
Then I consulted my watch, and subsequently grimaced. "It is also barely possible," said I, "that Margaret may not come at all. In which case--Margaret! Now, isn"t that a sweet name? Isn"t it the very sweetest name in the world? Now, really, you know, it is queer her being named Margaret--extraordinarily queer,--because Margaret has always been my favourite woman"s name. I daresay, unbeknownst to myself, I am a bit of a prophet."
3
But she did come. She was very much surprised to see me.
"You!" she said, with a gesture which was practically tantamount to disbelief. "Why, how extraordinary!"
"You rogue!" I commented, internally: "you know it is the most natural thing in the world." Aloud I stated: "Why, yes, I happened to notice you forgot your book yesterday, so I dropped in--or, to be more accurate, climbed up,--to return it."
She reached for it. Our hands touched, with the usual result to my pulses. Also, there were the customary manual tinglings.
"You are very kind," was her observation, "for I am wondering which one of the two he will marry."
"Forman tells me he has no notion, himself."
"Oh, then you know Justus Miles Forman! How nice! I think his stories are just splendid, especially the way his heroes talk to photographs and handkerchiefs and dead flowers--"
Afterward she opened the book, and turned over its pages expectantly, and flushed a proper shade of pink, and said nothing.
And then, and not till then, my heart consented to resume its normal functions. And then, also, "These iron spikes--" said its owner.
"Yes?" she queried, innocently.
"--so humpy," I complained.
"Are they?" said she. "Why, then, how silly of you to continue to sit on them!"
The result of this comment was that we were both late for luncheon.
4
By a peculiar coincidence, at twelve o"clock the following day, I happened to be sitting on the same wall at the same spot. Peter said at luncheon it was a queer thing that some people never could manage to be on time for their meals.
I fancy we can all form a tolerably accurate idea of what took place during the next day or so.
It is scarcely necessary to retail our conversations. We gossiped of simple things. We talked very little; and, when we did talk, the most ambitiously preambled sentences were apt to result in nothing more prodigious than a wave of the hand, and a pause, and, not infrequently, a heightened complexion. Altogether, then, it was not oppressively wise or witty talk, but it was eminently satisfactory to its makers.
As when, on the third morning, I wished to sit by Margaret on the bench, and she declined to invite me to descend from the wall.
"On the whole," said she, "I prefer you where you are; like all picturesque ruins, you are most admirable at a little distance."
"Ruins!"--and, indeed, I was not yet twenty-six,--"I am a comparatively young man."
As a concession, "In consideration of your past, you are tolerably well preserved."
"--and I am not a new brand of marmalade, either."
"No, for that comes in gla.s.s jars; whereas, Mr. Townsend, I have heard, is more apt to figure in family ones."
"A pun, Miss Beechinor, is the base coinage of conversation tendered only by the mentally dishonest."
"--Besides, one can never have enough of marmalade."
"I trust they give you a sufficiency of it in the nursery?"
"Dear me, you have no idea how admirably that paternal tone sits upon you! You would make an excellent father, Mr. Townsend. You really ought to adopt someone. I wish you would adopt _me_, Mr. Townsend."
I said I had other plans for her. Discreetly, she forbore to ask what they were.
5
"Avis--"
"You must not call me that."
"Why not? It"s your name, isn"t it"
"Yes,--to my friends."
"Aren"t we friends--Avis?"
"We! We have not known each other long enough, Mr. Townsend."
"Oh, what"s the difference? We are going to be friends, aren"t we--Avis?"
"Why--why, I am sure I don"t know."
"Gracious gravy, what an admirable colour you have, Avis! Well,--I know.
And I can inform you, quite confidentially, Avis, that we are not going to be--. friends. We are going to be--"
"We are going to be late for luncheon," said she, in haste.
"Good-morning, Mr. Townsend."
6
Yet, the very next day, paradoxically enough, she told me:
"I shall always think of you as a very, very dear friend. But it is quite impossible we should ever be anything else."
"And why, Avis?"
"Because--"