“Here is one to Mrs. Loring Chatterton; and not unconnected with it, one
to yourself.”
“One to me?” she inquired, looking up. “Why to me? What mood did that
exemplify?”
“I think, Millicent,” I replied, “that I must have felt rather a regard
for you that evening.”
She bowed ironically.
“It is nice to be thought well of,” she replied, “even if the regard
does stop at the posting point. It was a wet night, I suppose; or the
servants had gone to bed?”
“The fires of the heart, Millicent,” I answered, in pompous periods, at
which she only laughed, “are not quenched by rain. Yon gutters that run
so musically could no more----”
“'Oh, Captain Shaw!’” she sang softly, “'type of true love kept
under----’”
I leaned back, tapping the letter with the ends of my fingers, and
signified my willingness to wait until her operatic fervour should have
spent itself.
“It must have been ferverish,” she said, still laughing. “Did it take
you long to write?”
“About eight years, Millicent,” I replied.
“And not to be posted after all? Never mind; I suppose I shall see it in
the biography. I declare I’m almost curious, Rollo. Tell me, is it----?”
She paused, and looked fairly and quietly at me, with an odd smile on
her lips.
“It is,” I replied, returning her gaze. “Would you care to read it,
Millicent?”
She rose and went to the window. A cold grey light that heralded the
passing of the shower filled the room. The heavens were relenting, and
already a corner of the leaden pall had lifted. Millicent would probably
take the opportunity to leave.
“Would you care to read it?” I repeated, looking over my shoulder.
She faced round suddenly.
“No, Rollo,” she said, “I should not.”
“You are probably right,” I replied. “Proposal is a venerable formality;
but the inevitable scene----”
She walked back from the window and stood before me, dignified in her
heterogeneous attire and perfectly serious.
“I thought you knew better than that, Rollo,” she said. “I don’t think
there would be any scene, and, anyway, I’m not in my first season, you
know.” She smiled the same queer smile. “But if you think that I should
be interested in such a matter merely as an--experiment in mood--you
wrong me, Rollo; and if, on the other hand, I am to take it in the
plainer sense, I should like something less warmed up and out of date.
You can hardly call it fervid, can you?”