I
In the Five Towns, and perhaps elsewhere, there exists a custom in
virtue of which a couple who have become engaged in the early summer
find themselves by a most curious coincidence at the same seaside
resort, and often in the same street thereof, during August. Thus it
happened to Denry and to Ruth Earp. There had been difficulties--there
always are. A business man who lives by collecting weekly rents
obviously cannot go away for an indefinite period. And a young woman
who lives alone in the world is bound to respect public opinion.
However, Ruth arranged that her girlish friend Nellie Cotterill, who had
generous parents, should accompany her. And the North Staffordshire
Railway's philanthropic scheme of issuing four-shilling tourist return
tickets to the seaside enabled Denry to persuade his mother and himself
that he was not absolutely mad in contemplating a fortnight on the
shores of England.
Ruth chose Llandudno, Llandudno being more stylish than either Rhyl or
Blackpool, and not dearer. Ruth and Nellie had a double room in a
boarding-house, No. 26, St. Asaph's Road (off the Marine Parade), and
Denry had a small single room in another boarding-house, No. 28, St.
Asaph's Road. The ideal could scarcely have been approached more
nearly.
Denry had never seen the sea before. As, in his gayest clothes, he
strolled along the esplanade or on the pier between those two girls in
their gayest clothes, and mingled with the immense crowd of
pleasure-seekers and money-spenders, he was undoubtedly much impressed
by the beauty and grandeur of the sea. But what impressed him far more
than the beauty and grandeur of the sea was the field for profitable
commercial enterprise which a place like Llandudno presented. He had
not only his first vision of the sea, but his first genuine vision of
the possibilities of amassing wealth by honest ingenuity. On the
morning after his arrival he went out for a walk and lost himself near
the Great Orme, and had to return hurriedly along the whole length of
the Parade about nine o'clock. And through every ground-floor window of
every house he saw a long table full of people eating and drinking the
same kinds of food. In Llandudno fifty thousand souls desired always to
perform the same act at the same time; they wanted to be distracted and
they would do anything for the sake of distraction, and would pay for
the privilege. And they would all pay at once.
This thought was more majestic to him than the sea or the Great Orme or
the Little Orme.
It stuck in his head because he had suddenly grown into a very serious
person. He had now something to live for, something on which to lavish
his energy. He was happy in being affianced, and more proud than happy,
and more startled than proud. The manner and method of his courtship
had sharply differed from his previous conception of what such an affair
would be. He had not passed through the sensations which he would have
expected to pass through. And then this question was continually
presenting itself: _What could she see in him_? She must have got a
notion that he was far more wonderful than he really was. Could it be
true that she, his superior in experience and in splendour of person,
had kissed him? _Him_! He felt that it would be his duty to live up to
this exaggerated notion which she had of him. But how?
II
They had not yet discussed finance at all, though Denry would have liked
to discuss it. Evidently she regarded him as a man of means. This became
clear during the progress of the journey to Llandudno. Denry was
flattered. But the next day he had slight misgivings, and on the day
following he was alarmed; and on the day after that his state resembled
terror. It is truer to say that she regarded him less as a man of means
than as a magic and inexhaustible siphon of money.
He simply could not stir out of the house without spending money, and
often in ways quite unforeseen. Pier, minstrels, Punch and Judy,
bathing, buns, ices, canes, fruit, chairs, rowboats, concerts, toffee,
photographs, char-a-bancs; any of these expenditures was likely to
happen whenever they went forth for a simple stroll. One might think
that strolls were gratis, that the air was free! Error! If he had had
the courage he would have left his purse in the house, as Ruth
invariably did. But men are moral cowards.
He had calculated thus: Return fare, four shillings a week. Agreed
terms at boarding-house, twenty-five shillings a week. Total expenses
per week, twenty-nine shillings,--say thirty!
On the first day he spent fourteen shillings on nothing whatever--which
was at the rate of five pounds a week of supplementary estimates! On the
second day he spent nineteen shillings on nothing whatever, and Ruth
insisted on his having tea with herself and Nellie at their
boarding-house; for which of course he had to pay, while his own tea was
wasting next door. So the figures ran on, jumping up each day.
Mercifully, when Sunday dawned the open wound in his pocket was
temporarily staunched. Ruth wished him to come in for tea again. He
refused. At any rate he did not come. And the exquisite placidity of
the stream of their love was slightly disturbed.
Nobody could have guessed that she was in monetary difficulties on her
own account. Denry, as a chivalrous lover, had assisted her out of the
fearful quagmire of her rent; but she owed much beyond rent. Yet, when
some of her quarterly fees had come in, her thoughts had instantly run
to Llandudno, joy, and frocks. She did not know what money was, and she
never would. This was, perhaps, part of her superior splendour. The
gentle, timid, silent Nellie occasionally let Denry see that she, too,
was scandalised by her bosom friend's recklessness. Often Nellie would
modestly beg for permission to pay her share of the cost of an
amusement. And it seemed just to Denry that she should pay her share.
And he violently wished to accept her money. But he could not. He
would even get quite curt with her when she insisted. From this it will
be seen how absurdly and irrationally different he was from the rest of
us.
Nellie was continually with them, except just before they separated for
the night. So that Denry paid consistently for three. But he liked
Nellie Cotterill. She blushed so easily, and she so obviously
worshipped Ruth and admired himself. And there was a marked vein of
common sense in her ingenuous composition.
On the Monday morning he was up early and off to Bursley to collect
rents and manage estates. He had spent nearly five pounds beyond his
expectation. Indeed, if by chance he had not gone to Llandudno with a
portion of the previous week's rents in his pockets, he would have been
in what the Five Towns call a fix.
While in Bursley he thought a good deal. Bursley in August encourages
nothing but thought. His mother was working as usual. His recitals to
her of the existence led by betrothed lovers at Llandudno were vague.
On the Tuesday evening he returned to Llandudno. And, despite the
general trend of his thoughts, it once more occurred that his pockets
were loaded with a portion of the week's rents. He did not know
precisely what was going to happen, but he knew that something was going
to happen; for the sufficient reason that his career could not continue
unless something did happen. Without either a quarrel, an
understanding, or a miracle, three months of affianced bliss with Ruth
Earp would exhaust his resources and ruin his reputation as one who was
ever equal to a crisis.
III
What immediately happened was a storm at sea. He heard it mentioned at
Rhyl, and he saw, in the deep night, the foam of breakers at Prestatyn.
And when the train reached Llandudno, those two girls in ulsters and
caps greeted him with wondrous tales of the storm at sea, and of wrecks,
and of lifeboats. And they were so jolly, and so welcoming, so plainly
glad to see their cavalier again, that Denry instantly discovered
himself to be in the highest spirits. He put away the dark and brooding
thoughts which had disfigured his journey, and became the gay Denry of
his own dreams. The very wind intoxicated him! There was no rain.
It was half-past nine, and half Llandudno was afoot on the Parade and
discussing the storm--a storm unparalleled, it seemed, in the month of
August. At any rate, people who had visited Llandudno yearly for
twenty-five years declared that never had they witnessed such a storm.
If the tide had not been out the Parade would have been uninhabitable.
The new lifeboat had gone forth, amid cheers, about six o'clock to a
schooner in distress near Rhos. And at eight o'clock a second lifeboat
(an old one which the new one had replaced and which had been bought for
a floating warehouse by an aged fisherman) had departed to the rescue of
a Norwegian barque, the _Hjalmar_, round the bend of the Little Orme.
"Let's go on the pier," said Denry. "It will be splendid."
He was not an hour in the town, and yet was already hanging expense!
"They 've closed the pier," the girls told him.
But when in the course of their meanderings among the excited crowd
under the gas-lamps they arrived at the pier-gates, Denry perceived
figures on the pier.
"They 're sailors and things, and the Mayor," the girls explained.
"Pooh!" said Denry, fired.
He approached the turnstile and handed a card to the official. It was
the card of an advertisement agent of the _Staffordshire Signal_, who
had called at Brougham Street in Denry's absence about the renewal of
Denry's advertisement.
"Press," said Denry to the guardian at the turnstile, and went through
with the ease of a bird on the wing.
"Come along," he cried to the girls.
The guardian seemed to hesitate.
"These ladies are with me," he said.
The guardian yielded.
It was a triumph for Denry. He could read his triumph in the eyes of
his companions. When she looked at him like that, Ruth was assuredly
marvellous among women. And any ideas derogatory to her marvellousness
which he might have had at Bursley and in the train were false ideas.
At the head of the pier beyond the pavilion there were gathered together
some fifty people. And the tale ran that the second lifeboat had
successfully accomplished its mission and was approaching the pier.
"I shall write an account of this for the _Signal_," said Denry, whose
thoughts were excusably on the Press.
"Oh, do!" exclaimed Nellie.
"They have the _Signal_ at all the newspaper shops here," said Ruth.
Then they seemed to be merged in the storm. The pier shook and trembled
under the shock of the waves, and occasionally, though the tide was very
low, a sprinkle of water flew up and caught their faces. The eyes could
see nothing save the passing glitter of the foam on the crest of a
breaker. It was the most thrilling situation that any of them had ever
been in.
And at last came word from the mouths of men who could apparently see as
well in dark as in daylight that the second lifeboat was close to the
pier. And then everybody momentarily saw it--a ghostly thing that
heaved up pale out of the murk for an instant and was lost again. And
the little crowd cheered.
The next moment a Bengal light illuminated the pier, and the lifeboat
was silhouetted with strange effectiveness against the storm. And some
one flung a rope. And then another rope arrived out of the sea and fell
on Denry's shoulder.
"Haul on there!" yelled a hoarse voice. The Bengal light expired.
Denry hauled with a will. The occasion was unique. And those few
seconds were worth to him the whole of Denry's precious life--yes, not
excluding the seconds in which he had kissed Ruth and the minutes in
which he had danced with the Countess of Chell. Then two men with
beards took the rope from his hands. The air was now alive with
shoutings. Finally there was a rush of men down the iron stairway to
the lower part of the pier, ten feet nearer the water.
"You stay here, you two!" Denry ordered, extremely excited.
"But Denry----"
"Stay here, I tell you!" All the male in him was aroused. He was off,
after the rush of men. "Half a jiffy!" he said, coming back. "Just take
charge of this, will you?" And he poured into their hands about twelve
shillings' worth of copper, small change of rents, from his pocket. "If
anything happened, that might sink me," he said, and vanished.
It was very characteristic of him, that effusion of calm sagacity in a
supreme emergency.
IV
Beyond getting his feet wet Denry accomplished but little in the dark
basement of the pier. In spite of his success in hauling on the thrown
rope, he seemed to be classed at once down there by the experts
assembled as an eager and useless person who had no right to the space
which he occupied. However, he witnessed the heaving arrival of the
lifeboat and the disembarking of the rescued crew of the Norwegian
barque, and he was more than ever decided to compose a descriptive
article for the _Staffordshire Signal_. The rescued and the rescuing
crews disappeared in single file to the upper floor of the pier, with
the exception of the coxswain, a man with a spreading red beard, who
stayed behind to inspect the lifeboat, of which indeed he was the
absolute owner. As a journalist Denry did the correct thing and engaged
him in conversation. Meanwhile, cheering could be heard above. The
coxswain, who stated that his name was Cregeen and that he was a
Manxman, seemed to regret the entire expedition. He seemed to be unaware
that it was his duty now to play the part of the modest hero to Denry's
interviewer. At every loose end of the chat he would say gloomily:
"And look at her now, I 'm telling ye!"
Meaning the battered craft, which rose and fell on the black waves.
Denry ran upstairs again, in search of more amenable material. Some
twenty men in various sou'westers and other headgear were eating thick
slices of bread and butter and drinking hot coffee, which with foresight
had been prepared for them in the pier buffet. A few had preferred
whiskey. The whole crowd was now under the lee of the pavilion, and it
constituted a spectacle which Denry said to himself he should refer to
in his article as "Rembrandtesque." For a few moments he could not
descry Ruth and Nellie in the gloom. Then he saw the indubitable form
of his betrothed at a penny-in-the-slot machine, and the indubitable
form of Nellie at another penny-in-the-slot machine. And then he could
hear the click-click-click of the machines, working rapidly. And his
thoughts took a new direction.
Presently Ruth ran with blithe gracefulness from her machine and
commenced a generous distribution of packets to the members of the
crews. There was neither calculation nor exact justice in her
generosity. She dropped packets on to heroic knees with a splendid
gesture of _largesse_. Some packets even fell on the floor. But she
did not mind.
Denry could hear her saying:
"You must eat it. Chocolate is so sustaining. There 's nothing like
it."
She ran back to the machines, and snatched more packets from Nellie, who
under her orders had been industrious; and then began a second
distribution.
A calm and disinterested observer would probably have been touched by
this spectacle of impulsive womanly charity. He might even have decided
that it was one of the most beautifully human things that he had ever
seen. And the fact that the hardy heroes and Norsemen appeared scarcely
to know what to do with the silver-wrapped bonbons would not have
impaired his admiration for these two girlish figures of benevolence.
Denry, too, was touched by the spectacle, but in another way. It was
the rents of his clients that were being thus dissipated in a very
luxury of needless benevolence. He muttered:
"Well, that's a bit thick, that is!"
But of course he could do nothing.
As the process continued, the clicking of the machines exacerbated his
ears.
"Idiotic!" he muttered.
The final annoyance to him was that everybody except himself seemed to
consider that Ruth was displaying singular ingenuity, originality,
enterprise, and goodness of heart.
In that moment he saw clearly for the first time that the marriage
between himself and Ruth had not been arranged in heaven. He admitted
privately then that the saving of a young woman from violent death in a
pantechnicon need not inevitably involve espousing her. She was without
doubt a marvellous creature, but it was as wise to dream of keeping a
carriage and pair as to dream of keeping Ruth. He grew suddenly
cynical. His age leaped to fifty or so, and the curve of his lips
changed.
Ruth, spying around, saw him and ran to him with a glad cry.
"Here!" she said. "Take these. They 're no good." She held out her
hands.
"What are they?" he asked.
"They 're the halfpennies."
"So sorry!" he said, with an accent whose significance escaped her, and
took the useless coins.
"We 've exhausted all the chocolate," said she. "But there 's
butterscotch left--it's nearly as good--and gold-tipped cigarettes. I
dare say some of them would enjoy a smoke. Have you got any more
pennies?"
"No!" he replied. "But I 've got ten or a dozen half-crowns. They 'll
work the machine just as well, won't they?"
This time she did notice a certain unusualness in the flavour of his
accent. And she hesitated.
"Don't be silly!" she said.
"I 'll try not to be," said Denry. So far as he could remember, he had
never used such a tone before. Ruth swerved away to rejoin Nellie.
Denry surreptitiously counted the half-pennies. There were eighteen.
She had fed those machines, then, with over a hundred and thirty pence.
He murmured, "Thick, thick!"
Considering that he had returned to Llandudno in the full intention of
putting his foot down, of clearly conveying to Ruth that his conception
of finance differed from hers, the second sojourn had commenced badly.
Still, he had promised to marry her, and he must marry her. Better a
lifetime of misery and insolvency than a failure to behave as a
gentleman should. Of course, if she chose to break it off... But he
must be minutely careful to do nothing which might lead to a breach.
Such was Denry's code.
The walk home at midnight, amid the reverberations of the falling
tempest, was marked by a slight pettishness on the part of Ruth, and by
Denry's polite taciturnity.
V
Yet the next morning, as the three companions sat together under the
striped awning of the buffet on the pier, nobody could have divined, by
looking at them, that one of them at any rate was the most uncomfortable
young man in all Llandudno. The sun was hotly shining on their bright
attire and on the still turbulent waves. Ruth, thirsty after a
breakfast of herrings and bacon, was sucking iced lemonade up a straw.
Nellie was eating chocolate, undistributed remains of the night's
benevolence. Denry was yawning, not in the least because the proceedings
failed to excite his keen interest, but because he had been a journalist
till three A.M. and had risen at six in order to despatch a
communication to the editor of the _Staffordshire Signal_ by train.
The girls were very playful. Nellie dropped a piece of chocolate into
Ruth's glass, and Ruth fished it out, and bit at it.
"What a jolly taste!" she exclaimed.
And then Nellie bit at it.
"Oh! It's just lovely!" said Nellie softly.
"Here, dear!" said Ruth. "Try it."
And Denry had to try it, and to pronounce it a delicious novelty (which
indeed it was) and generally to brighten himself up. And all the time
he was murmuring in his heart, "This can't go on."
Nevertheless he was obliged to admit that it was he who had invited Ruth
to pass the rest of her earthly life with him, and not _vice versa_.
"Well, shall we go on somewhere else?" Ruth suggested.
And he paid yet again. He paid and smiled, he who had meant to be the
masterful male, he who deemed himself always equal to a crisis. But in
this crisis he was helpless.
They set off down the pier, brilliant in the brilliant crowd. Everybody
was talking of wrecks and lifeboats. The new lifeboat had done nothing,
having been forestalled by the Prestatyn boat; but Llandudno was
apparently very proud of its brave old worn-out lifeboat which had
brought ashore the entire crew of the _Hjalmar_, without casualty, in a
terrific hurricane.
"Run along, child," said Ruth to Nellie, "while uncle and auntie talk to
each other for a minute."
Nellie stared, blushed, and walked forward in confusion. She was
startled. And Denry was equally startled. Never before had Ruth so
brazenly hinted that lovers must be left alone at intervals. In justice
to her it must be said that she was a mirror for all the proprieties.
Denry had even reproached her, in his heart, for not sufficiently
showing her desire for his exclusive society. He wondered, now, what
was to be the next revelation of her surprising character.
"I had our bill this morning," said Ruth.
She leaned gracefully on the handle of her sunshade, and they both
stared at the sea. She was very elegant, with an aristocratic air. The
bill, as she mentioned it, seemed a very negligible trifle.
Nevertheless, Denry's heart quaked.
"Oh!" he said. "Did you pay it?"
"Yes," said she. "The landlady wanted the money, she told me. So
Nellie gave me her share, and I paid it at once."
"Oh!" said Denry.
There was a silence. Denry felt as though he were defending a castle,
or as though he were in a dark room and somebody was calling him,
calling him, and he was pretending not to be there and holding his
breath.
"But I 'd hardly enough money left," said Ruth. "The fact is, Nellie
and I spent such a lot yesterday and the day before.... You 've no idea
how money goes!"
"Haven't I?" said Denry. But not to her--only to his own heart.
To her he said nothing.
"I suppose we shall have to go back home," she ventured lightly. "One
can't run into debt here. They 'd claim your luggage."
"What a pity!" said Denry sadly.
Just those few words--and the interesting part of the interview was
over! All that followed counted not in the least. She had meant to
induce him to offer to defray the whole of her expenses in Llandudno--no
doubt in the form of a loan; and she had failed. She had intended him
to repair the disaster caused by her chronic extravagance. And he had
only said, "What a pity!"
"Yes, it is!" she agreed bravely, and with a finer disdain than ever of
petty financial troubles. "Still, it can't be helped."
"No, I suppose not," said Denry.
There was undoubtedly something fine about Ruth. In that moment she had
it in her to kill Denry with a bodkin. But she merely smiled. The
situation was terribly strained, past all Denry's previous conceptions
of a strained situation; but she deviated with superlative _sang-froid_
into frothy small-talk. A proud and an unconquerable woman! After all,
what were men for, if not to pay?
"I think I shall go home to-night," she said, after the excursion into
prattle.
"I 'm sorry," said Denry.
He was not coming out of his castle.
At that moment a hand touched his shoulder. It was the hand of Cregeen,
the owner of the old lifeboat.
"Mister!" said Cregeen, too absorbed in his own welfare to notice Ruth.
"It's now or never! Five-and-twenty 'll buy the _Fleetwing_, if ten 's
paid down this mornun."
And Denry replied boldly:
"You shall have it in an hour. Where shall you be?"
"I 'll be in John's cabin, under the pier," said Cregeen, "where ye
found me this mornun."
"Right!" said Denry.
If Ruth had not been caracoling on her absurdly high horse, she would
have had the truth out of Denry in a moment concerning these early
morning interviews and mysterious transactions in shipping. But from
that height she could not deign to be curious. And so she said naught.
Denry had passed the whole morning since breakfast and had uttered no
word of preprandial encounters with mariners, though he had talked a lot
about his article for the _Signal_ and of how he had risen betimes in
order to despatch it by the first train.
And as Ruth showed no curiosity, Denry behaved on the assumption that
she felt none. And the situation grew even more strained.
As they walked down the pier towards the beach, at the dinner-hour, Ruth
bowed to a dandiacal man who obsequiously saluted her.
"Who 's that?" asked Denry instinctively.
"It's a gentleman that I was once engaged to," answered Ruth with cold,
brief politeness.
Denry did not like this.
The situation almost creaked under the complicated stresses to which it
was subject. And the wonder was that it did not fly to pieces long
before evening.
VI
The pride of the principal actors being now engaged, each person was
compelled to carry out the intentions which he had expressed either in
words or tacitly. Denry's silence had announced more efficiently than
any words that he would under no inducement emerge from his castle.
Ruth had stated plainly that there was nothing for it but to go home at
once, that very night. Hence she arranged to go home, and hence Denry
refrained from interfering with her arrangements. Ruth was lugubrious
under a mask of gaiety; Nellie was lugubrious under no mask whatever.
Nellie was merely the puppet of these betrothed players, her elders.
She admired Ruth and she admired Denry, and between them they were
spoiling the little thing's holiday for their own adult purposes.
Nellie knew that dreadful occurrences were in the air--occurrences
compared to which the storm at sea was a storm in a teacup. She knew
partly because Ruth had been so queerly polite, and partly because they
had come separately to St. Asaph's Road and had not spent the entire
afternoon together.
So quickly do great events loom up and happen that at six o'clock they
had had tea and were on their way afoot to the station. The odd man of
No. 26, St. Asaph's Road had preceded them with the luggage. All the
rest of Llandudno was joyously strolling home to its half-past six high
tea--grand people to whom weekly bills were as dust and who were in a
position to stop in Llandudno for ever and ever, if they chose! And
Ruth and Nellie were conscious of the shame which always afflicts those
whom necessity forces to the railway station of a pleasure resort in the
middle of the season. They saw omnibuses loaded with luggage and jolly
souls who were actually _coming_, whose holiday had not yet properly
commenced. And this spectacle added to their humiliation and their
disgust. They genuinely felt that they belonged to the lower orders.
Ruth, for the sake of effect, joked on the most solemn subjects. She
even referred with giggling laughter to the fact that she had borrowed
from Nellie in order to discharge her liabilities for the final
twenty-four hours at the boarding-house. Giggling laughter being
contagious, as they were walking side by side close together, they all
laughed. And each one secretly thought how ridiculous was such
behaviour and how it failed to reach the standard of true worldliness.
Then, nearer the station, some sprightly caprice prompted Denry to raise
his hat to two young women who were crossing the road in front of them.
Neither of the two young women responded to the homage.
"Who are they?" asked Ruth, and the words were out of her mouth before
she could remind herself that curiosity was beneath her.
"It's a young lady I was once engaged to," said Denry.
"Which one?" asked the ninny, Nellie, astounded.
"I forget," said Denry.
He considered this to be one of his greatest retorts--not to Nellie, but
to Ruth. Nellie naturally did not appreciate its loveliness. But Ruth
did. There was no facet of that retort that escaped Ruth's critical
notice.
At length they arrived at the station, quite a quarter of an hour before
the train was due, and half an hour before it came in.
Denry tipped the odd man for the transport of the luggage.
"Sure it's all there?" he asked the girls, embracing both of them in his
gaze.
"Yes," said Ruth, "but where 's yours?"
"Oh!" he said. "I 'm not going to-night. I 've got some business to
attend to here. I thought you understood. I expect you 'll be all
right, you two together."
After a moment, Ruth said brightly, "Oh, yes! I was quite forgetting
about your business." Which was completely untrue, since she knew
nothing of his business, and he had assuredly not informed her that he
would not return with them.
But Ruth was being very brave, haughty, and queen-like, and for this the
precise truth must sometimes be abandoned. The most precious thing in
the world to Ruth was her dignity--and who can blame her? She meant to
keep it at no matter what costs.
In a few minutes the bookstall on the platform attracted them as
inevitably as a prone horse attracts a crowd. Other people were near
the bookstall, and as these people were obviously leaving Llandudno,
Ruth and Nellie felt a certain solace. The social outlook seemed
brighter for them. Denry bought one or two penny papers, and then the
newsboy began to paste up the contents poster of the _Staffordshire
Signal_, which had just arrived. And on this poster, very prominent,
were the words: "The Great Storm in North Wales. Special Descriptive
Report." Denry snatched up one of the green papers and opened it, and
on the first column of the news page saw his wondrous description,
including the word "Rembrandtesque." "Graphic account by a Bursley
gentleman of the scene at Llandudno," said the sub-title. And the
article was introduced by the phrase, "We are indebted to Mr. E. H.
Machin, a prominent figure in Bursley," etc.
It was like a miracle. Do what he would, Denry could not stop his face
from glowing.
With false calm he gave the paper to Ruth. Her calmness in receiving it
upset him.
"We 'll read it in the train," she said primly, and started to talk
about something else. And she became most agreeable and companionable.
Mixed up with papers and sixpenny novels on the bookstall were a number
of souvenirs of Llandudno--paper-knives, pens, paper-weights,
watch-cases, pen-cases, all in light wood or glass, and ornamented with
coloured views of Llandudno, and also the word "Llandudno" in large
German capitals, so that mistakes might not arise. Ruth remembered that
she had even intended to buy a crystal paper-weight with a view of the
Great Orme at the bottom. The bookstall clerk had several crystal
paper-weights with views of the pier, the Hotel Majestic, the Esplanade,
the Happy Valley, but none with a view of the Great Orme. He had also
paper-knives and watch-cases with a view of the Great Orme. But Ruth
wanted a combination of paper-weight and Great Orme, and nothing else
would satisfy her. She was like that. The clerk admitted that such a
combination existed, but he was sold "out of it."
"Could n't you get one and send it to me?" said Ruth.
And Denry saw anew that she was incurable.
"Oh, yes, miss," said the clerk. "Certainly, miss. To-morrow at
latest!" And he pulled out a book. "What name?"
Ruth looked at Denry, as women do look on such occasions.
"Rothschild," said Denry.
It may seem perhaps strange that that single word ended their
engagement. But it did. She could not tolerate a rebuke. She walked
away, flushing. The bookstall clerk received no order. Several persons
in the vicinity dimly perceived that a domestic scene had occurred, in a
flash, under their noses, on a platform of a railway station. Nellie
was speedily aware that something very serious had happened, for the
train took them off without Ruth speaking a syllable to Denry, though
Denry raised his hat and was almost effusive.
The next afternoon Denry received by post a ring in a box. "I will not
submit to insult," ran the brief letter.
"I only said 'Rothschild'!" Denry murmured to himself. "Can't a fellow
say 'Rothschild'?"
But secretly he was proud of himself.