I
"Mrs. Bellamy Druce! Rather a mouthful, that."
"Is that why you make a face over it?"
"Didn't expect me to relish it, did you, Cinda?"
"I'm afraid I wasn't thinking of you at all, Dobbin, when I took it."
"Meaning, if you had been, you might have thought twice before taking?"
"No fear: I was much too madly in love with Bel."
"Was?"
"Dobbin!"
"Sorry--didn't mean to be impertinent."
"I don't believe you. Still, I'm so fond of you, I'll forgive you--this
once."
"Won't have to twice. I only--well, naturally, I wanted to know whether
or not it had taken."
"Taken?"
"Your matrimonial inoculation."
"I think one may safely say it has. I've grown so old and wise in
marriage, it really seems funny to remember I was ever an innocent."
"Four years----"
"Going on five."
"It's seemed a long time to me, too, Cinda--five years since these eyes
were last made glad by the sight of you."
"At least, time hasn't impaired your knack at pretty speeches."
"Nor your power to inspire them."
"I'm not so sure. To myself I seem ever so much older." Lucinda Druce
turned full face to the man on her left, anxiety feigned or real
puckering the delicately pencilled brows. "Doesn't it show at all,
Dobbin, the ruthless march of advancing years?"
The man narrowed critically his eyes and withheld his verdict as if in
doubt; but a corner of his mouth was twitching.
"You are lovelier today than ever, lovelier even than the memories of
you that have quickened my dreams----"
"All through these years? How sweet--and what utter tosh! You know
perfectly well your heart hasn't been true to Poll----"
"Unfortunately, the damn' thing has. Oh, I'm not pretending I didn't do
my level best to forget, tried so hard I thought I had won out. But it
only needed this meeting tonight to prove that the others were merely
anodynes for a pain that rankled on, as mortal hurts do always, 'way
down beneath the influence of the opiate."
"Truly, Dobbin, you've lost nothing of your ancient eloquence. That last
speech quite carried me back to the days when, more than once, you all
but talked me off my feet and into your arms."
"Pity I ever stopped talking."
"I wonder!"
"You wonder----?"
"Whether it's really a pity you never quite succeeded in talking me into
believing I loved you enough to marry you, whether we wouldn't all have
been happier, you, Bel, and I."
"Then you aren't altogether----"
"Hush! I haven't said so."
"No; but you've had time to find out."
"Perhaps...."
"And you know your secrets are safe with me."
"That's why I'm going to say--what I am going to say."
"O Lord! now I shall catch it."
"Don't be afraid, Dobbin, I'm not going to scold. But I know you so
well, how direct and persistent you are--yes, and how sincere--it's only
fair to tell you, the traditions of our kind to the contrary
notwithstanding, I'm still in love with my husband."
For a moment Richard Daubeney was silent, staring at his plate. Then he
roused with a light-hearted shrug and smile.
"And that's that!"