“Heed my words! Beware of women,
Shallowest when overbrimming
Deepest when they wish you well!
Tears and trifles, lace and laughter,
The Deuce alone knows what they're after--
And he's too much involved to tell.”
--Anon.
[Illustration: 9171]
E all walked back from the field of battle in a highly amicable frame
of mind. Going across the park, Lumme and I fell a little behind our
seconds and conversed with the friendliness of two men who have learned
to respect each other. We had cordially shaken hands, we laughed, we
even jested about the hazards we had escaped--one would think that no
more complete understanding could be desired. Yet there was still a
little thorn pricking us both, a thorn that did not come from the woods
in which we had waged battle, but lived in the peaceful house before us.
Our talk flagged; we were silent. Then Teddy abruptly remarked:
“I say, I don't want to rake up by-gones and that sort of thing, don't
you know, but--er--you mustn't try to kiss her again, d'Haricot.”
“Try?” I replied, a little nettled at this aspersion on my abilities.
“Why not say, 'You must not kiss her again'?”
“By Jove! did you?” cried Teddy, stopping.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“My dear Lumme, the successful man is he who lies about himself and
holds his tongue about women.”
“Be hanged!” he exclaimed.
“Well, why not be?” I inquired, placidly.
“I don't believe it,” he asserted.
“Continue a sceptic,” I counselled.
“She told me she had never kissed any one else,” he blurted out.
It was now my turn to start.
“Except whom?” I asked.
“Me--if you must know,” said Teddy.
“You kissed her?” I cried.
“Well, it doesn't matter to you.”
“Nor does it matter to you that I did,” I retorted.
“But did you?” he asked, with such a painful look of inquiry that my
indignation melted into humor.
“My dear friend,” I replied, “I see it all now. She has deceived us
both! We are in the same ship, as you would say; two of those fools that
women make to pass a wet afternoon.”
“You mean that she has been flirting with me?” he asked, with a
woe-begone countenance.
“Also with me,” I answered, cheerfully. For a false woman, like spilled
cream, is not a matter worth lament.
“I shall ask her,” he said, after a minute or two.
“Have you ever known a woman before?” I asked.
“I've known dozens of 'em,” he replied, with some indignation.
“And yet you propose to ask one whether she has been true to you?”
“Why shouldn't I?”
“Because, my friend, you will receive such an answer as a minister gives
to a deputation.”
“But they might both tell the truth.”
“Neither ever lies,” I replied. “Diplomacy and Eve were invented to
obviate the necessity'.”
This aphorism appeared to give him some food for reflection--or possibly
he was merely silenced by a British disgust for anything that was not
the roast beef of conversation.
We had come among the terraces and the trim yews and hollies of the
garden. The long west wing of Seneschal Court with the high tower above
it were close before us. Suddenly he stopped behind the shelter of a
pruned and castellated hedge, and, with the air of a lost traveller
seeking for guidance, asked me, “I say, what are you going to do?”
“Return to London this morning.”
[Illustration: 0174]
“Why?”
“For the same reason that I leave the table when dinner is over.”
“You won't see her again?”
“See her? Yes, as I should see the remains of my meal were I to pass
through the diningroom. But I shall not sit down again.”
I do not think Teddy quite appreciated this metaphor.
“Don't you think she is--” he began, but had some difficulty in finding
a word.
“Well served?” I suggested.
“No.”
“Digestible, then? No, my friend. I do not think she is very digestible
either for you or for me. We get pains inside and little nourishment.”
“I like her awfully,” said poor Teddy.
“Who would not?” I replied. “If a girl is beautiful, charming, not too
chary of her favors, and yet not inartistically lavish; if she knows how
to let a smile spring gently from an artless dimple, how to aim a bright
eye and shake a light curl; and if she is not too fully occupied with
others to spare one an hour or two of these charms, who would not like
her? Personally, I should adore her--while it lasted.”
“Do you really think she isn't all she seems?” he asked, in a doleful
voice.
“On the contrary, I think she is more; considerably more. My dear Lumme,
I have studied this girl dispassionately, critically, as I would a
work of art offered me for sale, and I pronounce my opinion in three
words--she is false! I counsel you, my friend, to leave with me this
morning.”
“And I should advise you to take this _gentleman's_ advice,” exclaimed
a voice behind us, in a tone that I cannot call friendly. We turned,
possibly with more precipitation than dignity, to see Miss Amy herself
within five paces of us. Evidently she had just appeared round the edge
of the castellated hedge, though how long she had been standing on the
other side I cannot pretend to guess. Long enough, at any rate, to give
her a very flushed face and an eye that sparkled more brightly than
ever. Indeed, I never saw her to more advantage.
“How dare you!” she cried, tears threatening in her voice; “how _dare_
you--talk of me so!”
“Mademoiselle--” I began, with conciliatory humility.
“Don't speak to me!” she interrupted, and turned her brown eyes to
Lumme. Undoubted tears glistened in them now.
“So you have been listening to this--this _person's_ slanders? And you
are going away now because you have learned that I am false? I have been
offered for sale like a work of art! He has studied me dispassionately!”
Here she gave me a look whose wrathful significance I will leave you to
imagine.
“Go! Go with him! You may be sure that _I_ sha'n't ask either of you to
stay!”
Never had two men a better case against a woman, and never. I am sure,
have two men taken less advantage of it.
“Miss Hudson; I say--” began poor Teddy, in the tone rather of the
condemned murderer than the inexorable judge.
“Don't answer me!” she cried, and turned the eyes back to me.
The tears still glistened, but anger shone through them.
“As for you--You--you--_brute!_”
“Pardon me,” I replied, in a reasonable tone, “the conversation you
overheard was intended for another.”
“Yes,” she exclaimed, “while you are trying to force your odious
attentions on me, you are attacking me all the time behind my back.”
“Behind a hedge,” I corrected, as pleasantly as possible.
But this did not appear to mollify her.
“You think every woman you meet is in love with you, I suppose,” she
sneered. “Well, you may be interested to know that we all think you
simply a ridiculous little Frenchman.”
[Illustration: 0178]
“Little!” I exclaimed, justly incensed at this unprovoked and untrue
attack. “What do you then call my friend?”
For Lumme was considerably smaller than I, and might indeed have been
termed short.
“He knows what I think of him,” she answered; and with this ambiguous
remark (accompanied by an equally ambiguous flash of her brown eyes at
Teddy), she turned scornfully and hurried to the house.
For a moment we stood silent, looking somewhat foolishly at each other.
“You've done it now,” said Teddy, at length.
“I have,” I replied, my equanimity returning.
“I suppose I'll have to clear out too. Hang it, you needn't have got me
into a mess like this,” said he, in an injured tone.
“Better a mess than a snare,” I retorted. “Let us look up a good train,
eat some breakfast, and shake the dust of this house from our feet.”
He made no answer, and when we got to the house he tacitly agreed to
accompany Shafthead and myself by the 11.25 train.
My things were packed. Halfred and a footman were even piling them on
the carriage, and I was making my adieux, when I observed this dismissed
suitor enter the hall with his customary cheerful air and no sign of
departure about him.
“Are you ready? I asked him.
“They've asked me to stay till to-morrow,” he replied, with a conscious
look he could not conceal, “and--er--well, there's really no necessity
for going to-day. Good-bye--see you soon in town.”
“Good-bye,” said Amy, sweetly, but with a look in her eyes that belied
her voice. “I am so glad we have been able to persuade _one_ of you to
stay a little longer.”
“Better a little fish than an empty dish,” I said to myself, and
revolving this useful maxim in my mind I departed from Seneschal Court.
[Illustration: 0179]
[Illustration: 8000]