Part 9

And soon you will find that the sun and the wind And the Djinn of the Garden, too, Have lightened the Hump, Cameelious Hump, The Hump that is black and blue.

His instructions include digging with a hoe and a shovel also, but I could omit that. The sun and wind were what I needed.

I took the upper road. In certain moods I preferred it to the path along the cliff. I walked fast. The exercise was soothing.

To reach my favorite clearing I had to take to the fields on the left and strike down hill in the direction of the sea. I hurried down the narrow path.

I broke into the clearing at a jog trot, and stood panting. And at the same moment, looking cool and beautiful in her white dress, Phyllis entered it from the other side. Phyllis--without the professor.

OF A SENTIMENTAL NATURE

XVII

She was wearing a Panama, and she carried a sketching block and camp stool.

"Good evening," I said.

"Good evening," said she.

It is curious how different the same words can sound when spoken by different people. My "good evening" might have been that of a man with a particularly guilty conscience caught in the act of doing something more than usually ignoble. She spoke like a somewhat offended angel.

"It's a lovely evening," I went on pluckily.

"Very."

"The sunset!"

"Yes."

"Er--"

She raised a pair of blue eyes, devoid of all expression save a faint suggestion of surprise, gazed through me for a moment at some object a couple of thousand miles away, and lowered them again, leaving me with a vague feeling that there was something wrong with my personal appearance.

Very calmly she moved to the edge of the cliff, arranged her camp stool, and sat down. Neither of us spoke a word. I watched her while she filled a little mug with water from a little bottle, opened her paint box, selected a brush, and placed her sketching block in position.

She began to paint.

Now, by all the laws of good taste, I should before this have made a dignified exit. When a lady shows a gentleman that his presence is unwelcome, it is up to him, as an American friend of mine pithily observed to me on one occasion, to get busy and chase himself, and see if he can make the tall timber in two jumps. In other words, to retire. It was plain that I was not regarded as an essential ornament of this portion of the Ware Cliff. By now, if I had been the perfect gentleman, I ought to have been a quarter of a mile away.

But there is a definite limit to what a man can do. I remained.

The sinking sun flung a carpet of gold across the sea. Phyllis's hair was tinged with it. Little waves tumbled lazily on the beach below. Except for the song of a distant blackbird running through its repertory before retiring for the night, everything was silent.

Especially Phyllis.

She sat there, dipping and painting and dipping again, with never a word for me--standing patiently and humbly behind her.

"Miss Derrick," I said.

She half turned her head.

"Yes?"

One of the most valuable things which a lifetime devoted to sport teaches a man is "never play the goose game." Bold attack is the safest rule in nine cases out of ten, wherever you are and whatever you may be doing. If you are batting, attack the ball. If you are boxing, get after your man. If you are talking, go to the point.

"Why won't you speak to me?" I said.

"I don't understand you."

"Why won't you speak to me?"

"I think you know, Mr. Garnet."

"It is because of that boat accident?"

"Accident!"

"Episode," I amended.

She went on painting in silence. From where I stood I could see her profile. Her chin was tilted. Her expression was determined.

"Is it?" I said.

"Need we discuss it?"

"Not if you do not wish."

I paused.

"But," I added, "I should have liked a chance to defend myself.... What glorious sunsets there have been these last few days. I believe we shall have this sort of weather for another month."

"I should not have thought that possible."

"The glass is going up," I said.

"I was not talking about the weather."

"It was dull of me to introduce such a worn-out topic."

"You said you could defend yourself."

"I said I should like the chance to do so."

"Then you shall have it."

"That is very kind of you. Thank you."

"Is there any reason for gratitude?"

"Every reason."

"Go on, Mr. Garnet. I can listen while I paint. But please sit down. I don't like being talked to from a height."

I sat down on the grass in front of her, feeling as I did so that the change of position in a manner clipped my wings. It is difficult to speak movingly while sitting on the ground. Instinctively, I avoided eloquence. Standing up, I might have been pathetic and pleading. Sitting down, I was compelled to be matter of fact.

"You remember, of course, the night you and Professor Derrick dined with us? When I say dined, I use the word in a loose sense."

For a moment I thought she was going to smile. We were both thinking of Edwin. But it was only for a moment, and then her face grew cold once more, and the chin resumed its angle of determination.

"Yes," she said.

"You remember the unfortunate ending of the festivities?"

"Well?"

"I naturally wished to mend matters. It occurred to me that an excellent way would be by doing your father a service. It was seeing him fishing that put the idea of a boat accident into my head. I hoped for a genuine boat accident. But those things only happen when one does not want them. So I determined to engineer one."

"You didn't think of the shock to my father."

"I did. It worried me very much."

"But you upset him all the same."

"Reluctantly."

She looked up and our eyes met. I could detect no trace of forgiveness in hers.

"You behaved abominably," she said.

"I played a risky game, and I lost. And I shall now take the consequences. With luck I should have won. I did not have luck, and I am not going to grumble about it. But I am grateful to you for letting me explain. I should not have liked you to go on thinking that I played practical jokes on my friends. That is all I have to say, I think. It was kind of you to listen. Good-by, Miss Derrick."

I got up.

"Are you going?"

"Why not?"

"Please sit down again."

"But you wish to be alone--"

"Please sit down!"

There was a flush on the fair cheek turned toward me, and the chin was tilted higher.

I sat down.

To westward the sky had changed to the hue of a bruised cherry. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and the sea looked cold and leaden. The blackbird had long since gone to bed.

"I am glad you told me, Mr. Garnet."

She dipped her brush in the water.

"Because I don't like to think badly of--people."

She bent her head over her painting.

"Though I still think you behaved very wrongly. And I am afraid my father will never forgive you for what you did."

Her father! As if he counted!

"But you do?" I said eagerly.

"I think you are less to blame than I thought you were at first."

"No more than that?"

"You can't expect to escape all consequences. You did a very stupid thing."

"Consider the temptation."

The sky was a dull gray now. It was growing dusk. The grass on which I sat was wet with dew.

I stood up.

"Isn't it getting a little dark for painting?" I said. "Are you sure you won't catch cold? It's very damp."

"Perhaps it is. And it is late, too."

She shut her paint box and emptied the little mug on the grass.

"You will let me carry your things?" I said.

I think she hesitated, but only for a moment. I possessed myself of the camp stool, and we started on our homeward journey. We were both silent. The spell of the quiet summer evening was on us.

"'And all the air a solemn stillness holds,'" she said softly. "I love this cliff, Mr. Garnet. It's the most soothing place in the world."

"I have found it so this evening."

She glanced at me quickly.

"You're not looking well," she said. "Are you sure you are not overworking yourself?"

"No, it's not that."

Somehow we had stopped, as if by agreement, and were facing each other. There was a look in her eyes I had never seen there before. The twilight hung like a curtain between us and the world. We were alone together in a world of our own.

"It is because I had displeased you," I said.

She laughed nervously.

"I have loved you ever since I first saw you," I said doggedly.

UKRIDGE GIVES ME ADVICE

XVIII

Hours after--or so it seemed to me--we reached the spot at which our ways divided. We stopped, and I felt as if I had been suddenly cast back into the workaday world from some distant and pleasanter planet. I think Phyllis must have had something of the same sensation, for we both became on the instant intensely practical and businesslike.

"But about your father," I said briskly. I was not even holding her hand.

"That's the difficulty."

"He won't give his consent?"

"I'm afraid he wouldn't dream of it."

"You can't persuade him?"

"I can in most things, but not in this. You see, even if nothing had happened, he wouldn't like to lose me just yet, because of Norah."

"Norah!"

"My sister. She's going to be married in October. I wonder if we shall ever be as happy as they will?"

I laughed scornfully.

"Happy! They will be miserable compared with us. Not that I know who the man is."

"Why, Tom, of course. Do you mean to say you really didn't know?"

"Tom! Tom Chase?"

"Of course."

I gasped.

"Well, I'm--hanged," I said. "When I think of the torments I've been through because of that wretched man, and all for nothing, I don't know what to say."

"Don't you like Tom?"

"Very much. I always did. But I was awfully jealous of him."

"You weren't! How silly of you."

"Of course I was. He was always about with you, and called you Phyllis, and generally behaved as if you and he were the heroine and hero of a musical comedy, so what else could I think? I heard you singing duets after dinner once. I drew the worst conclusions."

"When was that?"

"It was shortly after Ukridge had got on your father's nerves, and nipped our acquaintance in the bud. I used to come every night to the hedge opposite your drawing-room window, and brood there by the hour."

"Poor old boy!"

"Hoping to hear you sing. And when you did sing, and he joined in all flat, I used to scold. You'll probably find most of the bark worn off the tree I leaned against."

"Poor old man! Still, it's all over now, isn't it?"

"And when I was doing my very best to show off before you at tennis, you went away just as I got into form."

"I'm very sorry, but I couldn't know--could I? I thought you always played like that."

"I know. I knew you would. It nearly turned my hair white. I didn't see how a girl could ever care for a man who was so bad at tennis."

"One doesn't love a man because he's good at tennis."

"What _does_ a girl see to love in a man?" I inquired abruptly; and paused on the verge of a great discovery.

"Oh, I don't know," she replied, most unsatisfactorily.

And I could draw no views from her.

"But about father," said she. "What _are_ we to do?"

"He objects to me."

"He's perfectly furious with you."

"Blow, blow," I said, "thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind--"

"He'll never forgive you."

"As man's ingratitude. I saved his life--at the risk of my own. Why, I believe I've got a legal claim on him. Whoever heard of a man having his life saved, and not being delighted when his preserver wanted to marry his daughter? Your father is striking at the very root of the short-story writer's little earnings. He mustn't be allowed to do it."

"Jerry!"

I started.

"Again!" I said.

"What?"

"Say it again. Do, please. Now."

"Very well. Jerry!"

"It was the first time you had called me by my Christian name. I don't suppose you've the remotest notion how splendid it sounds when you say it. There is something poetical, something almost holy, about it."

"Jerry, please!"

"Say on."

"Do be sensible. Don't you see how serious this is? We must think how we can make father consent."

"All right," I said. "We'll tackle the point. I'm sorry to be frivolous, but I'm so happy I can't keep it all in. I've got you, and I can't think of anything else."

"Try."

"I'll pull myself together.... Now, say on once more."

"We can't marry without father's consent."

"Why not?" I said, not having a marked respect for the professor's whims. "Gretna Green is out of date, but there are registrars."

"I hate the very idea of a registrar," she said with decision. "Besides--"

"Well?"

"Poor father would never get over it. We've always been such friends. If I married against his wishes, he would--oh, you know--not let me come near him again, and not write to me. And he would hate it all the time he was doing it. He would be bored to death without me."

"Anybody would," I said.

"Because, you see, Norah has never been quite the same. She has spent such a lot of her time on visits to people that she and father don't understand each other so well as he and I do. She would try and be nice to him, but she wouldn't know him as I do. And, besides, she will be with him such a little, now she's going to be married."

"But, look here," I said, "this is absurd. You say your father would never see you again, and so on, if you married me. Why? It's nonsense. It isn't as if I were a sort of social outcast. We were the best of friends till that man Hawk gave me away like that."

"I know. But he's very obstinate about some things. You see, he thinks the whole thing has made him look ridiculous, and it will take him a long time to forgive you for that."

I realized the truth of this. One can pardon any injury to oneself, unless it hurts one's vanity. Moreover, even in a genuine case of rescue, the rescued man must always feel a little aggrieved with his rescuer when he thinks the matter over in cold blood. He must regard him unconsciously as the super regards the actor manager, indebted to him for the means of supporting existence, but grudging him the lime light and the center of the stage and the applause. Besides, everyone instinctively dislikes being under an obligation which he can never wholly repay. And when a man discovers that he has experienced all these mixed sensations for nothing, as the professor had done, his wrath is likely to be no slight thing.

Taking everything into consideration, I could not but feel that it would require more than a little persuasion to make the professor bestow his blessing with that genial warmth which we like to see in our fathers-in-law elect.

"You don't think," I said, "that time, the great healer, and so on--he won't feel kindlier disposed toward me--say in a month's time?"

"Of course, he _might_," said Phyllis; but she spoke doubtfully.

"He strikes me, from what I have seen of him, as a man of moods. I might do something one of these days which would completely alter his views. We will hope for the best."

"About telling father--"

"Need we tell him?" I asked.

"Yes, we must. I couldn't bear to think that I was keeping it from him. I don't think I've ever kept anything from him in my life. Nothing bad, I mean."

"You count this among your darker crimes, then?"

"I was looking at it from father's point of view. He will be awfully angry. I don't know how I shall begin telling him."

"Good heavens!" I cried, "you surely don't think I'm going to let you do that! Keep safely out of the way while you tell him? Not much. I'm coming back with you now, and we'll break the bad news together."

"No, not to-night. He may be tired and rather cross. We had better wait till to-morrow. You might speak to him in the morning."

"Where shall I find him?"

"He is certain to go to the beach before breakfast to bathe."

"Good. To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day. I'll be there."

* * * * *

"Ukridge," I said, when I got back, "can you give me audience for a brief space? I want your advice."

This stirred him like a trumpet blast. When a man is in the habit of giving unsolicited counsel to everyone he meets, it is as invigorating as an electric shock to him to be asked for it spontaneously.

"What's up, old horse?" he asked eagerly. "I'll tell you what to do. Get on to it. Bang it out. Here, let's go into the garden."

I approved of this. I can always talk more readily in the dark, and I did not wish to be interrupted by the sudden entrance of the hired retainer or Mrs. Beale. We walked down to the paddock. Ukridge lit a cigar.

"I'm in love, Ukridge," I said.

"What!"

"More--I'm engaged."

A huge hand whistled through the darkness and smote me heavily between the shoulder blades.

"Thanks," I said; "that felt congratulatory."

"By Jove! old boy, I wish you luck. 'Pon my word, I do. Fancy you engaged! Best thing in the world for you. Never knew what happiness was till I married. A man wants a helpmeet--"

"And this man," I said, "seems likely to go on wanting. That's where I need your advice. I'm engaged to Miss Derrick."

"Miss Derrick!" He spoke as if he hardly knew whom I meant.

"You can't have forgotten her! Good heavens, what eyes some men have! Why, if I'd only seen her once, I should have remembered her all my life."

"I know now. She came to dinner here with her father, that fat little buffer."

"As you were careful to call him at the time. Thereby starting all the trouble."

"You fished him out of the water afterwards."

"Quite right."

"Why, it's a perfect romance, old horse. It's like the stories you read."

"And write. But they all end happily. 'There is none, my brave young preserver, to whom I would more willingly intrust my daughter's happiness.' Unfortunately, in my little drama, the heavy father seems likely to forget his cue."

"The old man won't give his consent?"

"Probably not."

"But why? What's the matter with you? If you marry, you'll come into your uncle's money, and all that."

"True. Affluence stares me in the face."

"And you fished him out of the water."

"After previously chucking him in."

"What!"

"At any rate, by proxy."

I explained. Ukridge, I regret to say, laughed.

"You vagabond!" he said. "'Pon my word, old horse, to look at you, one would never have thought you'd have had it in you."

"I can't help looking respectable."

"What are you going to do about it? The old man's got it up against you good and strong, there's no doubt of that."

"That's where I wanted your advice. You're a man of resource. What would you do if you were in my place?"

Ukridge tapped me impressively on the shoulder.

"Marmaduke," he said, "there's one thing that'll carry you through any mess."

"And that is--"

"Cheek, my boy--cheek! Gall! Why, take my case. I never told you how I came to marry, did I? I thought not. Well, it was this way. You've heard us mention Millie's Aunt Elizabeth--what? Well, then, when I tell you that she was Millie's nearest relative, and it was her consent I had to gather, you'll see that it wasn't a walk-over."

"Well?" I said.

"First time I saw Millie was in a first-class carriage on the underground. I'd got a third-class ticket, by the way. We weren't alone. It was five a side. But she sat opposite me, and I fell in love with her there and then. We both got out at South Kensington. I followed her. She went to a house in Thurloe Square. I waited outside and thought it over. I had got to get into that house and make her acquaintance. So I rang the bell. 'Is Lady Lichenhall at home?' I asked. You note the artfulness? My asking for Lady Lichenhall made 'em think I was one of the upper ten--what?"

"How were you dressed?" I could not help asking.

"Oh, it was one of my frock-coat days. I'd been to see a man about tutoring his son. There was nothing the matter with my appearance. 'No,' said the servant, 'nobody of that name lives here. This is Lady Lakenheath's house.' So, you see, I had luck at the start, because the two names were a bit alike. Well, I got the servant to show me in somehow, and, once in, you can wager I talked for all I was worth. Kept up a flow of conversation about being misdirected and coming to the wrong house, and so on. Went away, and called a few days later. Called regularly. Met 'em at every theater they went to, and bowed, and finally got away with Millie before her aunt could tell what was happening, or who I was or what I was doing or anything."

"And what's the moral?" I said.

"Why, go in hard. Rush 'em. Bustle 'em. Don't give 'em a moment's rest."

"Don't play the goose game," I said with that curious thrill we feel when somebody's independent view of a matter coincides with one's own.

"That's it. Don't play the goose game. Don't give 'em time to think. Why, if I'd given Millie's aunt time to think, where should we have been? Not at Lyme Regis together, I'll bet."

"Ukridge," I said, "you inspire me. You would inspire a caterpillar. I will go to the professor--I was going anyhow--but now I shall go aggressively, and bustle him. I will surprise a father's blessing out of him, if I have to do it with a crowbar!"

I ASK PAPA

XIX

Reviewing the matter later, I see that I made a poor choice of time and place. But at the moment this did not strike me. It is a simple thing, I reflected, for a man to pass another by haughtily and without recognition, when they meet on dry land; but when the said man, being an indifferent swimmer, is accosted in the water and out of his depth, the feat becomes a hard one.

When, therefore, having undressed on the Cob on the following morning, I spied in the distance, as I was about to dive, the gray head of the professor bobbing on the face of the waters, I did not hesitate. I plunged in and swam rapidly toward him.

His face was turned in the opposite direction when I came up with him, and it was soon evident that he had not observed my approach. For when, treading water easily in his immediate rear, I wished him good morning in my most conciliatory tones, he stood not upon the order of his sinking, but went under like so much pig iron. I waited courteously until he rose to the surface once more, when I repeated my remark.

He expelled the last remnant of water from his mouth with a wrathful splutter, and cleared his eyes with the back of his hand.

"The water is delightfully warm," I said.

"Oh, it's you!" said he, and I could not cheat myself into believing that he spoke cordially.

"You are swimming splendidly this morning," I said, feeling that an ounce of flattery is often worth a pound of rhetoric. "If," I added, "you will allow me to say so."

"I will not," he snapped. "I--" Here a small wave, noticing that his mouth was open, walked in. "I wish," he resumed warmly, "as I said in me letter, to have nothing to do with you. I consider ye've behaved in a manner that can only be described as abominable, and I will thank ye to leave me alone."

"But, allow me--"

"I will not allow ye, sir. I will allow ye nothing. Is it not enough to make me the laughingstock, the butt, sir, of this town, without pursuing me in this manner when I wish to enjoy a quiet swim?"

His remarks, which I have placed on paper as if they were continuous and uninterrupted, were punctuated in reality by a series of gasps and puffings as he received and ejected the successors of the wave he had swallowed at the beginning of our little chat. The art of conducting bright conversation while in the water is not given to every swimmer. This he seemed to realize, for, as if to close the interview, he proceeded to make his way as quickly as he could toward the shore. Using my best stroke, I shot beyond him and turned, treading water as before.

"But, professor," I said, "one moment."

I was growing annoyed with the man. I could have ducked him but for the reflection that my prospects of obtaining his consent to my engagement with Phyllis would hardly have been enhanced thereby. No more convincing proof of my devotion can be given than this, that I did not seize that little man by the top of his head, thrust him under water, and keep him there.

I restrained myself. I was suave. Soothing, even.

"But, professor," I said, "one moment."