He sighed, and took another egg.
"And when I asked her to marry me I might have been asking her to take a tart; she didn"t seem to be interested in the least. She was most uncommon anxious to treat the thing in a business-like kind of way. I oughtn"t to have been so particular about saying I was a business man.
That was a mistake; I know it was."
He sighed again. He put down his knife and fork.
"By George, if she writes to say she loves me, I--I"d give a hundred pounds!"
He took the letter in his hands.
"I wonder if she does!"
In his anxiety he rose from his seat and began to pace the room, holding the letter tightly in his hand. He paused before the mantelshelf and regarded himself in the gla.s.s.
"Well, upon my word, I never thought that I should come to this--I never did. Here"s all the papers, and goodness knows what news from Paris, and I haven"t looked at one, and don"t want to neither, that"s the truth. If she"s only written to say she loves me, whether I want her to or don"t, I--I"d give a thousand pounds. Here goes! I can"t stand fooling here all day! Goodness knows what the state of things in the City may be."
He was about to tear the envelope open with his finger. He changed his mind.
"She may have written something on the flap. I"d better use a knife."
He used a knife. To see him use it, opening an envelope might have been the most delicate operation on earth.
"Now for it!" He heaved the greatest sigh of all. "By George, if it"s only to confess her love!"
He seated himself at the table with the letter spread out in front of him. It might have been as fragile as it was priceless to observe the ginger way in which he opened it and spread it out. Then he arrayed himself for its perusal with as much precision as though it were some formal and rather complicated revelation just to hand from the G.o.ds.
""Dear Mr. Ely" (I say! She might have said "Dear Fred," or even "Frederic"! "Dear Mr. Ely"! It"s rather a stiffish way of writing to the man you"re going to marry, don"t you know.) "Just a line with reference to what pa.s.sed between us yesterday. I have changed my mind.
I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment.
It is quite impossible for me to be your wife. The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead. Yours truly, Lily Truscott.""
Mr. Ely read this note through without, in his astonishment, being in the least able to grasp its meaning.
"What--what the blazes is all this!" He ploughed through it again.
""Dear Mr. Ely" (it"s evidently meant for me), "just a line with reference to what pa.s.sed between us yesterday"! (What pa.s.sed between us yesterday--what"s she mean? She hasn"t put a date; I suppose she means my asking her to be my wife. That"s a pretty good way of referring to it, anyhow.) "I have changed my mind!" (Oh, has she?
About what? It didn"t strike me she had a mind to change.) "I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment"! (If she had only told me what it was she thought it better to let me know, it would have been perhaps as well. If this is a love-letter, give me the other kind of thing.) "It is quite impossible for me to be your wife."
(What--what the blazes does she mean?) "The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead"!"
Mr. Ely"s jaw dropped, and he stared at the letter as though it were a ghost.
"Well--I"m--hanged!" The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead." That takes the cake!" Yours truly, Lily Truscott."--If that isn"t the sweetest thing in love-letters ever yet I heard of!"
Quite a curious change had come over Mr. Ely. If we may be forgiven a vulgarism which is most expressive--he seemed to have been knocked all of a heap. His head had fallen forward on his chest, one limp hand held Miss Truscott"s letter, the other dangled nerveless by his side.
"And I gave twenty pounds for an engagement-ring!"
They were the first words in which he gave expression to the strength of his emotion.
"Good Lord, if I had given him what he asked, and stumped up forty-five!"
The reflection sent a shudder all through his frame. The horror of the picture thus conjured up by his imagination had the effect of a tonic on his nerves, it recalled him to himself.
"I"ll have another read at this. There isn"t much of it, but what there is requires a good deal of digesting."
He pulled himself together, sat up in his chair, and had another read.
""Dear Mr. Ely" (yes, by George, dear at any price, I"ll swear! Like her impudence to call me "dear"! I wonder she didn"t begin it "Sir"), "just a line with reference to what pa.s.sed between us yesterday."
(That is, I think, about the coollest bit I ever heard of. Quite a casual allusion, don"t you know, to a matter of not the slightest importance to any one, especially me. That young woman"s graduated in an establishment where they teach "em how to go.) "I have changed my mind!" (That"s--that"s about two stone better than the other. She"s changed her mind! Holy Moses! About something, you know, about which we change our minds as easily and as often as we do our boots.) "I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment."
(She certainly has done that. Unless she had changed her mind before she had made it up, she could scarcely have let me know it sooner. She might have wired, to be sure! But perhaps she never thought of that.) "It is quite impossible for me to be your wife." (It is as well that the explanation follows immediately after, or echo would have answered "Why?") "The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead." I suppose there never was a larger amount of meaning contained in a smaller number of words. Among the remarkable women the world has seen the record"s hers; she is certainly unique."
Rising from his seat, he put the letter back in the envelope, and placed the envelope within his letter-case.
"I"ll take that letter up to Ash; I"ll have a word to say to him. I wonder if he knows what sort of a ward he"s got? That"s the best and truest girl alive; a woman whose word is just her bond; who, when she says a thing, sticks to it like glue. And to think that I spent twenty pounds on an engagement-ring!"
He put his hands into his trousers pockets. He balanced himself upon his toes and heels.
"Twenty pounds for an engagement-ring! I wonder how much Mr. Summers intends to pay?"
The reflection angered him.
"By George, I"ll let her know if she"s going to pitch me overboard quite so easily as that. I"ll make her marry me, or I"ll know the reason why."
When he left for the City his first business was to pay a visit to Mr.
Ash. He dismissed the cab at the corner of Throgmorton Street. He had not taken half a dozen steps along that rather narrow thoroughfare when a hand was laid upon his shoulder; turning, he saw Mr. Rosenbaum.
"My good friend, I have a little paper here for you."
And Mr. Rosenbaum deftly slipped a paper into his good friend"s hand.
"Rosenbaum! What"s this?"
"It"s a writ, my friend; a writ. You would not tell me the name of your solicitor, so I try personal service instead."
With a beaming smile and a nod of his head, Mr. Rosenbaum swaggered away. In a somewhat bewildered state of mind Mr. Ely stared after him, the paper in his hand.
"It never rains but it pours! Here"s two strokes of luck in a single day, and I"ve only just got out of bed!"
He opened the legal-looking doc.u.ment with which he had been so unexpectedly presented by his generous friend, and glanced at its contents. It was headed "Rosenbaum _v_. Ely," and, so far as he could judge from his hasty glance, it purported to relate to an action brought by Ruth Rosenbaum against Frederic Ely, to recover damages for breach of promise of marriage.
"Well! This is a pretty go!"
He could scarcely believe his eyes; the damages were laid at thirty thousand pounds! And he had already spent twenty pounds for an engagement-ring!
His first impulse was to tear the paper up and scatter the pieces in the street. His second--which he followed--was to place it in the inner pocket of his coat as a companion to his letter-case.
"Rosenbaum must be a greater fool even than I thought. Thirty thousand pounds! By George! One girl values me at a considerably higher figure than another does."
He found that Mr. Ash was still in his office, and alone; so, without troubling to have himself announced, he marched straight in.
"Hallo, Ely, here again! Anything settled about the date? Or is it something more tangible than love?"