POLLY RECEIVES A PROPOSAL.
If Clara Newell could have seen Tom Peters carrying on with Polly in
the passage, she might have felt justified in her prejudice against
him. It must be confessed, though, that Everard also carried on with
Polly. Alas! it is to be feared that men are much of a muchness where
women are concerned; shabby men and smart men, bank managers and
journalists, bachelors and semi-detached bachelors. Perhaps it was a
mistake after all to say the chums had nothing patently in common.
Everard, I am afraid, kissed Polly rather more often than Clara, and
although it was because he respected her less, the reason would
perhaps not have been sufficiently consoling to his affianced wife.
For Polly was pretty, especially on alternate Sunday afternoons, and
she liked to receive the homage of real gentlemen, setting her white
cap at all indifferently. Thus, just before Clara knocked on that
memorable Sunday afternoon, Polly, being confined to the house by the
unwritten code regulating the lives of servants, was amusing herself
by flirting with Peters.
[Illustration: "CARRYING ON WITH POLLY."]
"You _are_ fond of me a little bit," the graceless Tom whispered,
"aren't you?"
"You know I am, sir," Polly replied.
"You don't care for anyone else in the house?"
"Oh no, sir. I wonder how it is, sir?" Polly replied ingenuously.
And that very evening, when Clara was gone and Tom still out, Polly
turned without the faintest atom of scrupulosity, or even jealousy, to
the more fascinating Roxdal. If it would seem at first sight that
Everard had less excuse for such frivolity than his friend, perhaps
the seriousness he showed in this interview may throw a different
light upon the complex character of the man.
"You're quite sure you don't care for anyone but me?" he asked
earnestly.
"Of course not, sir!" Polly replied indignantly. "How could I?"
"But you care for that soldier I saw you out with last Sunday?"
"Oh no, sir, he's only my young man," she said apologetically.
"Would you give him up?" he hissed suddenly.
Polly's pretty face took a look of terror. "I couldn't, sir! He'd kill
me! He's such a jealous brute, you've no idea."
"Yes, but suppose I took you away from here?" he whispered eagerly.
"Somewhere where he couldn't find you--South America, Africa,
somewhere thousands of miles across the seas."
"Oh, sir, you frighten me!" whispered Polly, cowering before his
ardent eyes, which shone in the dimly lit passage.
"Would you come with me?" he hissed. She did not answer; she shook
herself free and ran into the kitchen, trembling with a vague fear.