"It's only a murmur now," I said when I reached the consulting-room,
"only a mere whisper, but----"
The doctor tapped me vigorously. Being very absent-minded I said, "Come
in," the first time.
"You were rejected for this, I suppose?" he said.
"No, cow-hocked or spavined, I forget which," I said. "This hadn't
started then."
The rite was quite a lengthy one, and at the conclusion the heartsmith
said, "M--yes, there is a slight murmuring, certainly."
He wrote me out a prescription, and I felt the murmur myself distinctly
when parting with three of the greater Bradburys and three shillings.
On the way home I ran into Beatrice.
"Well, old thing," she said, "what's the matter? I saw you coming out of
Dr. Cox's."
"Yes," I said. "I've got a heart murmur. I don't know what the poor
things been trying to say, but it's been murmuring like anything all the
morning."
"Perhaps you're in love," she suggested.
"By Jove, I never thought of that. I wonder," I said, "if it's anything
to do with you. If this were not such a public place you might like to
put your head against my top left-hand waistcoat pocket and listen.
Perhaps it's saying something about you."
"Have you taken to writing poetry about me?" she said. "That's always a
sign."
"Now I come to think of it," I said, "I did feel a bit broody the other
day, and hatched a line or two, but I can't say for certain that I had
you in my mind. The lines ran like this:--
"Oh, glorious female, like a goddess decked,
No wonder that we crawl on bended knee--"
"Rotten," said Beatrice. "You couldn't have been thinking of me. I'm not
a female."
"You have the right plumage for the hen-bird," I said. "However, what
did me was 'decked.' I could only think of three rhymes, 'wrecked,'
'flecked' and 'stiff-necked.' You're not any of those by any chance?"
"There's 'circumspect', suggested Beatrice.
"Ah! Come and have lunch," I said, "and we'll talk it over. Some place
where I can hold your hand and really find out if you are the cause of
it all."
"Do you think I ought to?" she said.
"Good heavens! Of course you ought," I said. "It's most important. My
heart's only murmuring now, but it may start shouting soon, and a silly
ass I shall look walking about in the street with a heart yelling
'Beatrice' at the top of its voice."
As regards meat and drink I consider that Beatrice overdid it for a
war-time lunch. She didn't give me any time to hold her hand, she was so
busy.
"It's curious," I said, as I watched the amount of food that was going
her way, "but my heart seems to have stopped murmuring altogether."
"Has it?" she said. "Oddly enough, mine's begun."
"Your luncheon has overstrained you," I said.