The engagement is announced between Charles Edward, only son of
the late Mr E. C. Biffen, and Mrs Biffen, of 11 Penslow Square,
Mayfair, and Honoria Jane Louise, only daughter of Sir Roderick
and Lady Glossop, of 6b Harley Street, W.
'Great Scott!' I exclaimed.
'Sir?' said Jeeves, turning at the door.
'Jeeves, you remember Miss Glossop?'
'Very vividly, sir.'
'She's engaged to Mr Biffen!'
'Indeed, sir?' said Jeeves. And, with not another word, he slid out.
The blighter's calm amazed and shocked me. It seemed to indicate that
there must be a horrible streak of callousness in him. I mean to say,
it wasn't as if he didn't know Honoria Glossop.
I read the paragraph again. A peculiar feeling it gave me. I don't know
if you have ever experienced the sensation of seeing the announcement
of the engagement of a pal of yours to a girl whom you were only saved
from marrying yourself by the skin of your teeth. It induces a sort
of--well, it's difficult to describe it exactly; but I should imagine a
fellow would feel much the same if he happened to be strolling through
the jungle with a boyhood chum and met a tigress or a jaguar, or what
not, and managed to shin up a tree and looked down and saw the friend
of his youth vanishing into the undergrowth in the animal's slavering
jaws. A sort of profound, prayerful relief, if you know what I mean,
blended at the same time with a pang of pity. What I'm driving at is
that, thankful as I was that I hadn't had to marry Honoria myself, I
was sorry to see a real good chap like old Biffy copping it. I sucked
down a spot of tea and began to brood over the business.
Of course, there are probably fellows in the world--tough, hardy blokes
with strong chins and glittering eyes--who could get engaged to this
Glossop menace and like it, but I knew perfectly well that Biffy was
not one of them. Honoria, you see, is one of those robust, dynamic
girls with the muscles of a welterweight and a laugh like a squadron
of cavalry charging over a tin bridge. A beastly thing to have to
face over the breakfast table. Brainy, moreover. The sort of girl who
reduces you to pulp with sixteen sets of tennis and a few rounds of
golf and then comes down to dinner as fresh as a daisy, expecting you
to take an intelligent interest in Freud. If I had been engaged to her
another week, her old father would have had one more patient on his
books; and Biffy is much the same quiet sort of peaceful, inoffensive
bird as me. I was shocked, I tell you, shocked.
And, as I was saying, the thing that shocked me most was Jeeves's
frightful lack of proper emotion. The man happening to float in at this
juncture, I gave him one more chance to show some human sympathy.
'You got the name correctly, didn't you, Jeeves?' I said. 'Mr Biffen is
going to marry Honoria Glossop, the daughter of the old boy with the
egg-like head and the eyebrows.'
'Yes, sir. Which suit would you wish me to lay out this morning?'
And this, mark you, from the man who, when I was engaged to the
Glossop, strained every fibre in his brain to extricate me. It beat me.
I couldn't understand it.
'The blue with the red twill,' I said coldly. My manner was marked, and
I meant him to see that he had disappointed me sorely.
About a week later I went back to London, and scarcely had I got
settled in the old flat when Biffy blew in. One glance was enough to
tell me that the poisoned wound had begun to fester. The man did not
look bright. No, there was no getting away from it, not bright. He had
that kind of stunned, glassy expression which I used to see on my own
face in the shaving-mirror during my brief engagement to the Glossop
pestilence. However, if you don't want to be one of the What is Wrong
With This Picture brigade, you must observe the conventions, so I shook
his hand as warmly as I could.
'Well, well, old man,' I said. 'Congratulations.'
'Thanks,' said Biffy wanly, and there was rather a weighty silence.
'Bertie,' said Biffy, after the silence had lasted about three minutes.
'Hallo?'
'Is it really true--?'
'What?'
'Oh, nothing,' said Biffy, and conversation languished again. After
about a minute and a half he came to the surface once more.
'Bertie.'
'Still here, old thing. What is it?'
'I say, Bertie, is it really true that you were once engaged to
Honoria?'
'It is.'
Biffy coughed.
'How did you get out--I mean, what was the nature of the tragedy that
prevented the marriage?'
'Jeeves worked it. He thought out the entire scheme.'
'I think, before I go,' said Biffy thoughtfully, 'I'll just step into
the kitchen and have a word with Jeeves.'