"For the good plausible girl? Should I be plausible enough?"
"Surely--what could be more natural? Everything would seem to contribute
to the suitability of our alliance. I should be known to have known you
for years--from childhood's sunny hour; I should be known to have
bullied you, and even to have been bullied _by_ you, in the period of
pinafores. My relations from a tender age with your brother, which led
to our schoolroom romps in holidays and to the happy footing on which
your mother has always been so good as to receive me here, would add to
all the presumptions of intimacy. People would accept such a conclusion
as inevitable."
"Among all your reasons you don't mention the young lady's attractions,"
said Mary Gosselin.
Firminger stared a moment, his clear eye lighted by his happy thought.
"I don't mention the young man's. They would be so obvious, on one side
and the other, as to be taken for granted."
"And is it your idea that one should pretend to be engaged to you all
one's life?"
"Oh no, simply till I should have had time to look round. I'm determined
not to be hustled and bewildered into matrimony--to be dragged to the
shambles before I know where I am. With such an arrangement as the one I
speak of I should be able to take my time, to keep my head, to make my
choice."
"And how would the young lady make hers?"
"How do you mean, hers?"
"The selfishness of men is something exquisite. Suppose the young
lady--if it's conceivable that you should find one idiotic enough to be
a party to such a transaction--suppose the poor girl herself should
happen to wish to be _really_ engaged?"
Guy Firminger thought a moment, with his slow but not stupid smile. "Do
you mean to _me_?"
"To you--or to some one else."
"Oh, if she'd give me notice I'd let her off."
"Let her off till you could find a substitute?"
"Yes--but I confess it would be a great inconvenience. People wouldn't
take the second one so seriously."
"She would have to make a sacrifice; she would have to wait till you
should know where you were," Mrs. Gosselin suggested.
"Yes, but where would _her_ advantage come in?" Mary persisted.
"Only in the pleasure of charity; the moral satisfaction of doing a
fellow a good turn," said Firminger.
"You must think people are keen to oblige you!"
"Ah, but surely I could count on _you_, couldn't I?" the young man
asked.
Mary had finished cutting her book; she got up and flung it down on the
tea-table. "What a preposterous conversation!" she exclaimed with force,
tossing the words from her as she tossed her book; and, looking round
her vaguely a moment, without meeting Guy Firminger's eye, she walked
away to the house.
Firminger sat watching her; then he said serenely to her mother: "Why
has our Mary left us?"
"She has gone to get something, I suppose."
"What has she gone to get?"
"A little stick to beat you perhaps."
"You don't mean I've been objectionable?"
"Dear, no--I'm joking. One thing is very certain," pursued Mrs.
Gosselin; "that you ought to work--to try to get on exactly as if
nothing could ever happen. Oughtn't you?" She threw off the question
mechanically as her visitor continued silent.
"I'm sure she doesn't like it!" he exclaimed, without heeding her
appeal.
"Doesn't like what?"
"My free play of mind. It's perhaps too much in the key of our old
romps."
"You're very clever; she always likes _that_," said Mrs. Gosselin. "You
ought to go in for something serious, for something honourable," she
continued, "just as much as if you had nothing at all to look to."
"Words of wisdom, dear Mrs. Gosselin," Firminger replied, rising slowly
from his relaxed attitude. "But what _have_ I to look to."
She raised her mild, deep eyes to him as he stood before her--she might
have been a fairy godmother. "Everything!"
"But you know I can't poison them!"
"That won't be necessary."
He looked at her an instant; then with a laugh: "One might think _you_
would undertake it!"
"I almost would--for _you_. Good-bye."
"Take care,--if they _should_ be carried off!" But Mrs. Gosselin only
repeated her good-bye, and the young man departed before Mary had come
back.