At last, very thoughtfully, he came to the house in Audley Square. As he
rang, a clock struck one and gave him an idea.
“I will ask her to luncheon at Claridge’s,” he thought. “It will be a
good opening.”
Major Cypress waited in the drawing-room for quite a long time. He paced
about. The floor was of parquet, mostly uncovered, and so his feet made
a noise. He sat down.
“You again!” cried Shirley.
“How are you, Shirley?”
“I refuse to tell you, Hugo. I am tired of telling you. Don’t I look
well?”
“Hum,” said Hugo. He could never answer questions like that.
Shirley came near. She was in a sort of bronze dress of _crêpe
marocain_, and her throat glowed very white. Her face Major Cypress did
not actually look at, it tempted him so exceedingly. Shirley smiled.
“I will tell you,” she smiled, “what you have come to do, Hugo. You
have come to take me out to lunch.”
“I do wish,” said Hugo, “that you would get out of that nasty habit of
calling ‘luncheon’ lunch. Lunch sounds like a glass of milk and a
digestive biscuit.”
“Dear Hugo!”
“Look here, Shirley, don’t ever say that again!”
Shirley was very near, and her white hands were somehow like white
flowers. But at her face he did not look.
“Dea----”
“Don’t!” he roared.
Now Shirley was twenty and tall and straight and fair, and when she
laughed you saw why servants were polite to her on sight. And oh, she
was such a pretty girl!
“Hugo,” she said, “you are going to propose to me again.”
“Oh, am I?”
“Yes,” she said, “you are. And if you say you are not, then you are a
liar, and I don’t like liars.”
Then something happened to Hugo Cypress; and, after all, he was
thirty-four, and she only twenty. He glared down at Shirley St. George,
and from his mouth issued reasonable and critical noises, as befitted a
man of thirty-four who has offered his hand five times running to a
slip of a girl of twenty.
“Shirley,” he said, “listen to me. You are a very pretty young lady. I
have so far been so shy with you that I have not been able to tell you
how beautiful I think you are----”
“Thank you, Hugo,” she said very softly. And she tempted him
exceedingly, but he continued on his manly way, glaring at a point
half-way between her right ear and her left shoulder.
“Nor have I been able to tell you, Shirley, how I love you. That was
because I was shy--but I have now finished with being shy. I adore you
so frightfully, my dear, that I have made myself a carpet for you to
walk on. And you have taken advantage of me, that’s what you’ve done.
Carpets get frayed. You have treated me, Shirley, exactly as a
heartless, meretricious woman of thirty might treat an infatuated
soap-manufacturer. That is, perhaps, because you are used to men being
in love with you, and know that they will love you all the more the
worse you treat them. Perhaps you are right, Shirley. But I can’t bear
it any more, and so I am now going to leave this building and your
life....” And Hugo went towards the door with a firm step.
“You’re not going, Hugo!” It was a cry.
“I am indeed, Shirley. Good-bye. And God bless you.”
“Oh, dear, every man says ‘God bless you!’” cried Shirley. “It is the
most final and most bitter thing they can say, for they say it with a
prayer to the devil in their hearts. Go away, Hugo Cypress. I hate you.”
“That’s why I am saying good-bye, Shirley.”
“But surely you can’t go without proposing to me for the sixth and last
time!” And that was a cry.
Hugo opened the door; and he smiled, in a sort of way.
“I thought I couldn’t, Shirley--but I find I can.”
“But you can’t, you simply can’t!” she cried. “Why, I came down to see
you on the distinct understanding that you were going to propose to me
for the sixth and last time and only _then_ going away for ever! Hugo,
you can’t do one without the other--it’s not fair!”
“Don’t worry, little Shirley. The day is yet young, and some one else is
sure to propose to you in the course of it. You will observe, my dear,
that I am being cynical, after the manner of all rejected young men.”
“But, Hugo, I want _you_ to--for the sixth and last time, dear, just to
see what I’ll say!” And she tempted him exceedingly with her sun-lit
face.
“That’s just it, Shirley. I know what you’ll say. Good-bye.”
“Oh, oh!” cried Shirley. “How awful men are! And how d’you know what
I’ll say, Hugo? You are a clever chap, aren’t you? Are you a
psycho-analyst, Hugo? Can you tell what is passing in a woman’s mind by
looking at her instep? And for heaven’s sake don’t go on standing in
that doorway looking like a draught!”
“Sorry, Shirley.” And Hugo faded away round the angle of the door and
was closing it behind him.
“Hugo, how dare you go like that!” And that was the most frantic cry of
all; and Hugo’s face reappeared round the angle of the door, and it was
a rather bewildered face.
“Well, damn it, my dear, I must go somehow!”
“Yes, but you know very well you can’t live without me--don’t you, Hugo?
Now answer truthfully, Hugo.”
“Well, you know, since you came in this morning, I’ve been thinking it
over----”
“But how awful you are to admit that you can think of anything when
you’re with Shirley!”
“There you go!” he cried harshly. “Making a fool of me!”
“But, my darling, I must make someth----”
“What was that you said?” he snapped.
“Have you gone mad? Didn’t you hear me?”
“Child, did you or did you not call me ‘darling’?”
“Why, so I did!--I’m so sorry, Hugo....”
Hugo Cypress advanced across the room and towered above Shirley St.
George.
“Are you playing the fool, Shirley?”
“I am playing for time, my darling--lunch-time. Luncheon-time, I mean.”
She giggled.
Now Shirley was not given to giggling....
No one had ever seen Shirley carrying an umbrella, and no one had ever
heard Shirley giggling.
“Ho!” muttered Major Cypress.
“Don’t gargle in my aunt’s drawing-room, Hugo!”
“I’m thinking, Shirley.”
“Don’t think!” she cried sharply.
“Well,” he began, and stopped.
“Wipe your forehead, dear; you’re rather hot.”
Hugo wiped his forehead.
“Look here, Shirley, supposing--just supposing--that I so far forget
myself as to prop----”
“Oh, Hugo!” And she clapped her hands--little Shirley! “You must! For
the sixth and last time ... just to make it even numbers!”
Hugo’s face was as white as his gardenia.
“For the sixth and last time, Shirley, will you marry me?”
As she stood, with the palms of her hands pressed down on the table and
her little face thrown back, she was like a dove, still and absorbed.
She was absorbed in something that was Hugo, yet in something that was
much more than Hugo. And then her lips trembled a little; they
whispered:
“Oh, Hugo, I have been such a beast! But you are so sweet that I simply
couldn’t help it!”
He didn’t understand.
But he understood when suddenly she crooked an arm around his neck and
brought his face down to hers, and he saw that her eyes were wet....
“My God!” he said, and kissed her bravely.
“Of course,” she whispered. “Of course....”
“No, not like that,” she whispered. “Not as though I were your sister. I
beg you to observe that I am not your sister. Yes, properly, dear. Oh, I
do like you frightfully, Hugo....”
Then quite a lot of things happened at the same time; and then he cried:
“But why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because I didn’t realise, my darling. I didn’t know I loved you--and
how can a girl know a thing like that? Oh, Hugo, you are so sweet! What
fun to have you for keeps! And it will be nice to chew bits of you now
and then--oh, what fun we’ll have! Dear Hugo....”
“And you said, Shirley, that you would never, never marry me!”
“I didn’t know myself, dear--nor you! Until, after the fifth time, when
you went away saying that you would never come back. And then I was very
sorry, Hugo.”
“Oh, by the way,” he said, “here’s a note from George--about taking you
to _Loyalties_ to-night.”
She read the note.
“Oh!” she said.
“What does he say?” he asked.
She tore up the note.
“Only that he’s got a box for _Loyalties_, and that I may ask whom I
like----”
“Thanks so much, Shirley. I’d love to come. It will improve my mind.”
Now this was the note from George Tarlyon to his little sister, Shirley
St. George:
“Shirley, how dare you go about London refusing to marry such of my
friends, if any, who ask you? ‘Never, never,’ indeed! Remember, Shirley,
that there’s only one bigger lie than ‘never, never,’ and that is
‘always, always.’”
“Oh!” thought Shirley. “Fat lot he knows about it!” But all the same,
she never said ‘always, always’; she just thought it.
The rest of this story is quite uninteresting, for Hugo and Shirley were
happy ever after: which is, unfortunately, more than most people are,
what with first one thing and then another....