"Not much she didn't. I spoke to her through the bedroom door, I called out to her, I as nearly as possible howled; I daresay I rapped as many as twenty times--I know I made my knuckles sore But she took not the slightest notice, not a sound came from the other side; she might have been stone deaf or dead. In fact, I wanted to tell her that I felt sure that something dreadful had happened, and that if she wouldn't speak I should have to break down the door to see what was wrong. But the old girl wouldn't have it. She said that she had had enough of that folly, and when I talked about camping out on the door-mat she marched me off downstairs, feeling all mops and brooms, and all over the place. Then it came out that when I was at the front door she had told the old girl that she wouldn't see me, and nothing would make her see me, and had rushed up to her bedroom and locked herself in. So I came back from Brighton all alone, and the wonder is I didn't start to drink and keep on at it; only I had a sort of feeling that if I began by being squiffy when I got here things wouldn't be so very much brighter; besides, there's always time to start that sort of thing if you are set on it."
"My dear old chap, you've done something to upset the lady's apple-cart; you'll have a letter telling you all about it in the morning."
"I hope so, but I doubt it; I might have known I was feeling too much bucked up. You know she never said exactly yes; she sort of let me take it for granted, and perhaps I took it a little too much for granted; I feel that perhaps that's how it is. But if she's off with me, I'm done--clean. She could make a man of me, even the kind of article the governor thinks a man; but no one else could. If she won't have me, I shall emigrate, that's what I shall do; I shall go to one of those cheery spots where you get knocked out by blackwater fever, or sleeping sickness, or something nice of that sort, three months after you've landed."
Notice being given that dinner was ready, Rodney led Stella into the private room in which it was to be served cheerfully enough, bestowing on her admiring glances and whispering what he meant to be sweet things into her pretty ear as they went.
"My hat! that's a duck of a frock you're arrayed in; you do look scrumptious."
"I'm glad you think so."
The maid's manner was a trifle prim; she plainly wished him to understand that she was still a little out with him. He smiled at her.
"I don't know what you're laughing at."
"Would you rather I cried?"
"I'm afraid poor Tom feels like crying. Isn't it strange Mary not coming, and sending no message, or anything--nothing to explain? Have you heard how she treated Tom?"
They had reached the dinner-table, and were settling themselves in their places.
"Stella, be so good as to understand, once for all, that there's only one subject to-night, and that's you. All other subjects are tabooed.
Are you quite comfortable? Don't put your chair too far off; so that, if you feel like it, you can put your baby foot out towards mine and with your wee slipper crush my favourite corn."
"Rodney, I'm glad you are going to talk to me at last, though I don't suppose you have thought of me once all day."
"Shall I tell you what I've been looking for ever since I came?"
"I expect for somewhere to smoke."
"I've been looking for--say, a curtained nook, where I can have you alone for about five minutes, and have a few of those kisses of which I have been dreaming this livelong day."
"If you had come and fetched me you might have had one kiss--in the cab."
"I'll have one kiss when I take you back--one!"
"Oh, you are going to take me back?"
"I am; and I'm going to eat you on the way; then you'll understand what you escaped by my not fetching you."
"You're not to talk like that; people will hear you."
"Let 'em. Fancy if you'd arrived here with that lovely frock all crumpled--two in a cab! People would have wondered what you had been doing."
"Rodney, if you will talk like that I shall crush your favourite corn."
"Crush it!"
"Please pass me the salt."
Whether, while he passed her the salt, she did crush it, there was nothing to show.
The feast passed off better than, at one time, it had promised to do.
There were about twenty people present. Mr. Austin had whipped up, at a moment's notice, various relations, and also certain persons who were intimately connected with the firm of which he was head; he desired to introduce to them not only his future son-in-law, but also the probable partner in his business. Most of these people were very willing to be entertained, simple souls, easily pleased, and the dinner was a good one. Even Tom, who found himself next to a girl with mischievous eyes and a saucy tongue, was inclined to shed some of his melancholy before the menu was half-way through.
"I never did meet a girl who says such things as you do," he told her, with a frankness which was perhaps meant for laudation. "You are quite too altogether."
"You see," she said, with her eyes fixed demurely on her plate, "it doesn't matter what one does say to some people, does it?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Of course some people don't count, do they?"
"By that I suppose you mean that I'm a----"
She did not wait for him to finish.
"Oh, not at all."
She looked at him with innocence in her glance, which was too perfect to be real.
"How many times have you been ploughed?"
"Who's been telling you tales about me?"
"I was only thinking that it doesn't matter if one hasn't brains so long as one has looks, and you have got those, haven't you?"
Tom's face, as the minx said this, in a voice which was just loud enough to reach his ears, would have made a good photographic study.
Beyond a doubt he was in a fair way to lose some of his sadness, at least for the time.
When the cloth had been removed the giver of the feast, getting on to his feet, made the usual half jovial, half sentimental references to the occasion which had brought them together; and, in wishing the young couple well, made special allusion to the fact that he was not only welcoming a son, but also a colleague. The toast he ended by proposing could not have been better received. Then, while the young maiden sat blushing, the young man stood up, and, in a brief yet deft little speech, told how happy they all had made him, how the hopes which he had cherished for years had at last been realised, how dear those hopes had been to him, how unworthy he was of all the good gifts which had descended on him. But of this they might be sure, that if he had health and strength--and at present he was very well and pretty strong, thanking them very much--he would do his very best in the years to come to prove that he could at least appreciate those things which Providence had bestowed on him. The young man sat down on quite a pathetic note, and the girl by his side pressed his hand and looked as if this were indeed one of those moments of which she had dreamed.
Then there were other speeches and all sorts of kind things were said, which, at such times, one takes it for granted should be said. The young man was made much of, and the maiden, if possible, even more.
And when the feast was really ended, and all the good wishes had been wished again and again, and there came the time of parting, even Mr.
Austin was obliged to confess to himself that everything could scarcely have gone off better. His wife was radiant, some of the shadows had gone from Tom's face; apparently the young lady with the mischievous eyes had in some subtle way, the secret of which she only possessed, acted the part of the sun in dispelling the clouds; Stella could not by any possibility have looked happier or Rodney prouder.
Tom, it is believed, saw the young lady with the mischievous eyes home in one cab, and it is certain that Rodney was with Stella in another.
What took place during that journey in the cab between the restaurant and Kensington it is not perhaps easy to determine precisely, but beyond a doubt Rodney had that one kiss which had been spoken of, and probably others; for when the house in Kensington was reached, and the young lady ran up the steps to the front door, she was in a state of the most delightful agitation. And in the house there was the final parting, which occupied a considerable time, for they had to say to each other the things which they had already said more than once, and which Rodney at least could say so well and to which the girl so loved to listen.
"I think that, after all, to-night has made up for to-day. Do you know, Rodney," and she looked up into his face with something shining in her pretty eyes, "that to-day I have had the most curious fancies?
I was actually frightened; I don't know at what, but I do know that somehow it was because of you. Wasn't it silly?"
"I am not sure that it's ever silly for you to be frightened because of me; I'm in the most delicious terror all day, and sometimes all night, because of you; but you are a goose."
Then he held her perhaps a little closer, and whispered:
"It has been something of a night, hasn't it? For the first time in my life I feel as if I were a person of some importance. You couldn't have your betrothal feast again to-morrow, could you?"
She smiled.