CHAPTER VII.

MISS NORAH RECEIVES TWO GENTLEMEN

Mr Purchase came first, with Mr Carter close on his heels. I stood about the centre of the room, as prim as you please, just wondering. Each of them had some flowers in his hand, Mr Purchase red roses, and Mr Carter pink. Somehow those young men scarcely ever came to the house without bringing roses. No matter what the season, you might be almost positive that they would have, at any rate, half-a-dozen rosebuds. In their time Doris and Audrey must have had enough flowers to make a good-sized haystack. No one ever brings me any.

They came into the room with a sort of look of expectation on their faces. When they perceived me they gave a look round, and when they saw I was alone their expression changed entirely. It was comical. A friendly, free and easy smile took its place.

“Hullo, Norah!” exclaimed Mr Purchase. “Nobody here?”

It was not a very civil way of greeting one; but I knew that it was not intended to bear quite the construction which might be put on it. Both boys had a way of addressing me as Norah, especially when I was alone with them, though they always dignify the others with the prefix “Miss.” I observed that most men, when they condescended to notice me at all, were more than a trifle unceremonious in their fashion of speech. Often I did not altogether like it. It was not pleasant to hear a man speak to your sister as if she were a duchess, and then to you as if you were a mixture of a cousin and a housemaid. But somehow from these two I did not mind it so much as from others. It was, perhaps, because they always meant to be friendly, and were never actually rude.

However, I suppose that just then I was feeling a little superior, so I put my nose up in the air, and was nasty.

“I am sorry that there is no one here--at least, no one of the slightest consequence.”

I fancy that both my words and my manner took them both aback. I believe that Mr Purchase nearly started.

“I say, it isn’t fair to trip up a chap like that. I’m sure----”

Of what he was sure I shall probably never know, because when he had got as far as that, for the first time he really looked at me. When he did he did not exactly start. But his expression changed quite as suddenly as it had done before, and in a more surprising manner. I never saw such a look upon a person’s face. And not the least curious part of it was that I was conscious that a precisely similar change had taken place in Mr Carter’s countenance.

They are neither of them bad-looking, only Mr Carter is brown, and Mr Purchase black; and I am inclined to think that a dark, intellectual face mirrors its owner’s emotions in an almost uncanny degree, although, when I began to grasp the details of Mr Carter’s physiognomy, I was not sure that your brown-haired people are very far behind. The amazement and delight which had all at once come into Mr Carter’s blue eyes was positively bewildering. He was a little behind his friend, and I suspect him of having had no desire to come to the front while I was the only person there, yet, all in an instant he had passed him, and planted himself in front of me.

“Miss Norah, here are some flowers.”

He held out the pink roses with an air which set me all of a flutter.

“I see there are. You always bring such pretty roses. Audrey is very lucky.”

“They are for you.”

“For me?”

Before he could answer, Mr Purchase was at his side, with his flowers extended.

“May I hope, Miss Norah, that you will do me the honour to accept mine. They are not so pretty, perhaps, as others, and are far from being worthy your acceptance, yet I hope that, of your kindness, you will not refuse.”

I had never had such a speech addressed to me in all my life by anyone; and now that it should come from Jack Purchase, of all people in the world. Small wonder that for the moment the only thing I was fit for was to gasp. I looked from one to the other like a sort of gaping idiot, and I certainly had abundant excuse for looking nothing better. There, within six inches of me on one side was Basil Carter, holding out the pink roses which, I was convinced, he had brought for Audrey; and within five-and-a-half inches of me on the other side was Mr Purchase, protruding, in a most suggestive style, the red roses I was perfectly sure he had brought for Doris.

“It isn’t fair of you to laugh at me,” I managed to get out at last.

“Laugh!” cried Mr Carter, with an air of the most innocent surprise. “How laugh? I hope you do not think that I am laughing at you? I should not dare.”

Should not dare! That was awfully good, considering how he had laughed at me times without number, as he knew as well as I did.

“I don’t know what you call it then, pretending to offer me those flowers.”

“Pretending! Miss Norah, I beg you will not call it pretence, when it is my earnest hope that you will receive them from my hands.”

“You know perfectly well that you brought them for Audrey.”

Before he could speak Mr Purchase spoke for him.

“My dear Basil, Miss Norah is quite correct; you yourself confided to me that they were designed for Miss Audrey. If, however, Miss Norah, you will deign to accept these red roses they will have reached their proper destination.”

“It isn’t fair of you, Mr Purchase; as if I didn’t know that they were meant for Doris.”

This time it was Mr Carter who interposed.

“That certainly is the case, my dear Jack. You are yourself aware that at your request I this morning ordered some red roses for Miss Doris O’Brady, and that these are they.”

“A man is at liberty to change his mind.”

“Under certain circumstances.”

“A fact of which I avail myself to beg your acceptance of these roses, Miss Norah.”

“I would entreat Miss Norah to extend her condescension to these poor buds of mine.”

“My dear Basil, you are merely imitative.”

“The imitation comes from you. It was I who first besought Miss Norah to take pity on my poor roses.”

“Really, Basil, you must excuse me, but you force me to point out once more--as Miss Norah has done already--that you brought those flowers for Miss Audrey. It’s no use pretending that you didn’t.”

“I pretend nothing; let me advise you also to avoid pretence. Is there any valid reason why we should not join in requesting Miss Norah’s acceptance of both our little nosegays?”

“Not a bad idea, if Miss Norah will only so far honour us.”

“Not if I know it; I haven’t quite lost my senses, even if you have.”

They seemed startled, even hurt. Mr Purchase, in particular, shivered almost as if I had struck him.

“Do you think that I wish to get into trouble by accepting other people’s property?”

“You scarcely state the case correctly, Miss Norah, if you will forgive my saying so. Up to the present moment the nosegays are our property--ours.”

“Then, so far as I am concerned, they will continue to remain your property--and, in any case, I should decline to accept what was originally intended for another.”

“Then all that remains for me is to throw my poor flowers out of the window.”

“The fireplace is good enough for mine.”

Off strode Mr Purchase towards the window and Mr Carter towards the fireplace. I stopped them.

“How can you be so ridiculous?”

“It is to avoid being made ridiculous that I propose to deposit them in the gutter. If you will not deign to overlook their too obvious unworthiness, then let them suffer the extremity of shame, and be the sharers of my humiliation.”

“I want nothing which you despise, so here go my rosebuds into the grate.”

Off they strode again; again I stopped them.

“Rather than that you should behave in that foolish and wicked way--treating those lovely flowers so cruelly--I will take both your nosegays. Though, mind you, if you don’t understand, I do--my doing so is the height of absurdity.”

Before I had finished speaking both of them came rushing at me, and there was I standing with Doris’ red roses in my right hand and Audrey’s pink in my left. I scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry, the situation was so surprising. What those two girls would say when they appeared upon the scene--as I momentarily expected that they would do--I did not even dare to think. And those two boys allowed me no chance to collect my thoughts, and try to see my way out of the muddle into which they were getting me. They kept on chattering, one against the other, and making the muddle worse with every word they uttered.

Mr Purchase began, speaking with an absurdly cock-a-doodle air, as if I had done him the greatest possible favour by consenting to hold Doris’ flowers for a moment or so, for that was really as far as I intended my acquiescence to go.

“Now, Miss Norah, that you have made me supremely happy by accepting my now rich roses----”

“And mine,” interposed Mr Carter.

“And yours--really, we are not likely to forget it, my dear Basil. Would you allow me to speak a few words without interruption? I should thank you so much if you would. This morning, Miss Norah, I took a box for this evening’s performance at the Gaiety Theatre----”

Again there came an interruption from Mr Carter.

“When you say that you took a box I presume you mean that you went through the mechanical operation of having it booked in your name. I paid for half of it.”

“My dear Basil, once more you are interrupting me. You appear to be incapable of allowing me to conclude a sentence. If you only would, you would find that I should explain everything to your most perfect satisfaction. Miss Norah, as Basil puts it, we took a box, and I shall be only too delighted if you will share my half of it.”

“I hope, Miss Norah, that you will share mine.”

“Basil, you are really trying. I invite Miss Norah, and before she has an opportunity of saying Yes or No, you cap my invitation with one of your own.”

“I presume, my dear fellow, that I am at liberty to invite whom I please. It was only owing to the accident of your having the glibbest tongue that my invitation did not come first.”

“Come, Basil, you are behaving like a schoolboy. I tell you what we’ll do--I’ll purchase your share of the box.”

“I decline to sell.”

“Then I will get another for myself--I imagine that another is to be had--and that I trust, Miss Norah, you will do me the honour of sharing with me.”

“I hope, Miss Norah, that you will not be so cruel. I beg that you will honour mine.”

They were beginning to look at each other in a way which made me almost apprehensive. The trouble was, that I rather wanted to go to the Gaiety. I hardly ever get a chance of going to a theatre; the others are always going. A piece was there just then to which all the world was crowding, and, for once in a way, I was more than willing to go with the crowd. That made the invitation rather tempting. But, under the circumstances, I was hardly goose enough to own it. Instead I endeavoured to induce them to conduct themselves like reasonable beings, which, until then, I had always supposed they were.

“Why are you two behaving this afternoon in such an excessively ridiculous manner? First you ask me to make two shares of myself in one box, and then to divide myself between two boxes. I don’t quite see how you can reasonably expect me to do either. I am not a divisible quantity.”

They both began at me again.

“You entirely misunderstand me, Miss Norah. So far from wishing you to divide yourself, I am piteously anxious that you should only honour my box.”

“Since Jack talks of taking another box, so far from dividing yourself--which the powers forbid!--all you have to do is to share with me the whole of mine.”

I held up the two nosegays--to calm them, if I could.

“One moment--if you’ll be so very kind. I should like you two to offer some at least plausible explanation of the extraordinary fashion in which you are treating me this afternoon. And, in the first place, I would call your attention to two or three simple questions. Have you ever hinted at giving me even the shadow of a shade of a flower? You know very well that no such idea has ever entered your heads. Why, then, do you all at once insist on thrusting on me the roses which you brought for Audrey and Doris, for whom you have been in the habit of bringing bushels of flowers? Have either of you ever even dimly suggested taking me to a theatre? You are aware that no such notion has ever entered your wildest dreams. Why, then, are you almost quarrelling in your apparent endeavours to compel me to occupy a box which you know as well as I do was intended for my two sisters? I happen to be cognisant of the fact that you as good as promised to take them to the Gaiety, and I have little doubt that you have caused them to anticipate the fulfilment of your promise this very evening. Can you for one moment suppose that I shall consent to take the places which they are expecting to fill? I should be sorry to be forced to think that you are not the sort of persons I had taken you to be. I have not a lofty opinion of the generality of men, for reasons; but I had believed you to be a little above the average.”

Instead of showing the least sign of being ashamed of themselves, they commenced to accuse each other in the most brazen manner. Mr Carter commenced.

“What you say, Miss Norah, is correct--as it always is. You know, Jack, that only this morning you told me that you were going to ask Miss Doris to share your half of the box; it was for that especial purpose you took it.”

“Did you not give me an assurance that you proposed to ask Miss Audrey to go with you?”

“My dear Jack, you informed me as far back as yesterday that you had as good as invited Miss Doris to accompany you, and that she had practically consented.”

“My memory is not at fault, my good fellow. I perfectly well remember that three days ago you remarked to me that you had mentioned the Gaiety Theatre to Miss Audrey; that she had expressed a wish to go there, and that, to all intents and purposes, you had undertaken to take her. After that you will yourself admit that, in common decency, there is nothing more to be said.”

“Come, Jack, I don’t want to chop phrases with you. You know I hate that kind of thing.”

“Not more than I do.”

“Then, if that’s the case, I’ll make a proposition, the perfect fairness of which must commend it to you. Let me have five minutes’ private and uninterrupted conversation with Miss Norah--I am convinced, Miss Norah, that in less time than that I shall succeed in making clear to you a good deal that at present seems dark!--and after that you can have ten minutes’ talk all to yourself.”

“I accept your proposition--with one proviso; that you let me have the first five minutes; then, afterwards, you can have twenty.”

“What kind of a way to treat a friend do you call this, Jack? You persist in taking the words out of my mouth, and adopting them as your own.”

“Basil, I must beg of you that you will not talk nonsense.”

“Nonsense! Really, Jack, that’s good, as coming from you! I talk nonsense! I don’t wish to enter into argument--least of all with you; but this is too much.”

“Listen to me!”

Considering that Mr Carter’s face was so very close to Mr Purchase’s, and that he was not speaking in the gentlest tone of voice, one could hardly see how he could help but listen. Their demeanour was marked by so much--I will call it, eagerness--that I was seriously beginning to inquire of myself if the temperature of the room was not getting a trifle warm. What was the exciting cause I was at a loss to determine; yet it did seem incredible that such lifelong friends should wrangle about nothing. If the cause of the heat was me--which seemed more incredible still--I could only declare that I was conscious of no sane reason why it should be.

I was almost on the point of inquiring if either of them suffered from intermittent attacks of softening of the brain, when the door opened, and in came Audrey and Doris. I sincerely hoped that they had been long enough in dressing. They might find that they had been just a trifle too long.