"Isn't Ella's company sufficient inducement?" he asked chaffingly.
"Going? Of course I am," I answered quickly, glancing at my watch. "We
have a full hour before dressing. Let's go for a row. It'll improve
our appetites."
Within a few minutes I had exchanged the frock coat of officialdom for
flannels, and very soon we were pulling upstream towards a delightful
backwater that was our goal. As we rowed, the silence being broken only
by the sound of the oars in the row-locks, I calmly reviewed the
situation. Why the Laings invited me that night puzzled me. Truth to
tell, I loved Ella Laing with all the strength of my being, and had
foolishly believed she reciprocated my affection until two nights ago,
when I had called at the house near Staines, where she lived with her
mother during the summer months. I had discovered her in the garden
walking in lover-like attitude with Andrew Beck, a retired silk
manufacturer, who had lived in France so long that he had become
something of a cosmopolitan, and who had lately entered Parliament at a
bye-election as representative of West Rutlandshire. I confess to
having conceived an instinctive dislike to this man from the very first
moment we had been introduced by a mutual friend in the Lobby of the
House of Commons, for he was a parvenu of the most pronounced type,
while his grey, beetling brows and flat, broad nose gave his face an
expression anything but pleasing.
Nevertheless he walked jauntily, spoke loudly in bluff good-natured
tones, gave excellent dinners, and, strangely enough, was voted a good
fellow wherever he went. Yet there was an ostentatiousness about his
actions that was sickening; his arrogant, self-assertive manner was, to
me, extremely distasteful. The discovery that he was endeavouring to
supplant me in Ella's affections filled my cup of indignation to the
full.
I had left the garden unobserved on that fateful night, returned at once
to our riverside cottage, and written her an angry letter, charging her
in plain terms with having played me false. In reply, next morning she
sent by the gardener a long letter full of mild reproach, in which she
asserted that she had no thought of love for anyone beside myself, and
that I had entirely misconstrued her relations with Mr Beck. "Strange,
indeed, it is that you, of all men, should declare that I love him," she
wrote. "Love! If you knew all, you would neither write nor utter that
sacred word to me; and even though you are the only man for whom I have
a thought, it may, after all, be best if we never again meet. You say
you cannot trust me further. Well, I can only reply that my future
happiness is in your hands. I am yours."
Deeply had I pondered over this curious, half-hysterical,
half-reproachful letter, re-reading it many many times, and becoming
more and more puzzled over its vague, mysterious meaning. On several
occasions I had been upon the point of calling and questioning her, but
had refrained. Now, however, this formal invitation to dine had come no
doubt through Ella, and I saw in it her desire to personally explain
away my jealousy. So I accepted.