"Nothing but Inferior quality being sent out from my Nurseries. My
terms are Cash with order only."
In matters of commerce this Dutchman appears to be maintaining his
country's reputation.
* * * * *
=THE ANNIVERSARY.=
It began as quite an ordinary day. I read my paper at breakfast and
Kathleen poured out the coffee. She wore that little frown between her
eyebrows that means that she is thinking out the menu for lunch and
dinner and hoping that Nurse hasn't burnt Baby's porridge again. This
is married life.
Then I started in a hurry for the office, hurling a "Good-bye, dear"
through the open window as I passed. The 9.15 leaves little time for
affection. That too is married life.
It was the sweetbriar hedge that made me decide to miss the 9.15. It
clutched hold of me suddenly and told me that the sky was very blue
and the woods very green, and that the office was an absurd thing on
such a day.
I went slowly back home round the outside of the garden wall. Someone
was singing in the garden. I stopped and whistled a tune. A face
appeared over the wall--rather an attractive face.
"Hello!" it said; "someone I knew a long time ago used to whistle that
tune outside my garden."
"Hello!" I said; "come out for a walk?"
"I can't come out at the bidding of young men on the highway. It isn't
done."
"Never mind. Come out."
"Have I ever been introduced to you?"
"Introductions went out years ago. Come by the side gate."
She came. She held a shady hat in her hand and walked on tip-toe.
"Sh!" she cautioned; "no one must see me. I have a reputation, you
know. I don't want the Vicar to denounce me from the pulpit on Sunday
in front of Baby."
"I will be quite frank with you," she went on, holding out her left
hand with a dramatic flourish; "I am married--I have a husband."
I gave a hollow groan; then, with a manly effort, I mastered my
emotion.
"I hope he's nice to you," I said.
"No, he isn't. He grouches off to the office in the morning and
grouches back in the evening and reads newspapers. He's just grouched
off now."
"The callous brute!" I hissed through my teeth.
"There's worse than that," she said darkly.
"No!"
"Yes. To-day, to-day is an anniversary, and he forgot it." The manner
was that of MADAME BERNHARDT.
"Anniversaries," I said reassuringly, "are difficult to remember. They
accumulate so."
"Are you defending him?" she protested.
"Er--no," I said hastily. "The man's an unmitigated scoundrel. He
ought to be divorced or something. What anniversary was it?"
"Our wedding-day," she said with a sob in the voice.
"Heavens!" I said. "Oh, the dastardly ruffian!"
"_You_ wouldn't forget your wedding-day, would you?"
"_Never!_" I said hoarsely.
"You're quite rather nice," she sighed.
"You're adorable," I said readily.
"How lovely! My husband never says things like that." And she leant
against my shoulder.
We got on rather well after that. We had lunch in an inn garden, where
you could smell lavender and sweet peas and roses and where there were
box hedges turned under magical spells into giant birds. We discovered
a stream in a wood with hart's-tongue fern growing along its banks. I
picked her armfuls of wild roses.
"It's to make up," I said, "because your brute of a husband forgot
your wedding-day."
"I'd love to be married to you," she said brazenly.