Lalage's Lovers Part 39

"No. I told you he took it like a lamb. Why won't you try to understand?"

"Anyhow," I said, "his demeanour was most encouraging to you. I suppose you suggested Miss Battersby to him at once?"

"No, I didn't. I couldn't."

Lalage hesitated again. She was not speaking with her usual fluency. I tried to help her out.

"Something in the glare of his eyes stopped you," I said. "I have always heard that the human eye possesses remarkable power."

"There was something in his eye," said Lalage, "but not that."

"It stopped you though, whatever it was."

"No, it didn't. I wish it had. I might have cleared out at once if it had."

"If it wasn't a glare, what was it? I can't imagine a better opportunity for mentioning Miss Battersby."

"He didn't give me time."

"Do you mean to say he pushed you out of the room?"

"No."

"Did he swear? I once heard of an Archdeacon swearing under great provocation."

"No."

"I can't guess any more, Lalage. I really can't. You'll have to tell me what it was."

"He said he'd get married with pleasure."

"But not to Miss Battersby. I'm beginning to see now. Who is the fortunate lady?"

"Me," said Lalage.

"Good heavens, Lalage! You don't mean to say you're going to marry the Archdeacon?"

"You're as bad as he was," said Lalage angrily. "I won't have such horrid things said to me. I don't see why I should be insulted by every one I meet. I wish I hadn't told you. I ought not to have told you. I ought to have gone on looking for your mother until I found her."

I was immensely, unreasonably relieved. The idea of Lalage marrying the Archdeacon had been a severe shock to me.

"The Archdeacon's proposal----" I said. "By the way, you couldn't possibly have been mistaken about it, could you? He really did?"

Lalage blushed hotly.

"He did," she said, "really."

"That just shows," I said, "what a tremendous impression you made on him with Selby-Harrison's text."

"It wasn't the text at all. He said it had been the dearest wish of his heart for years. Can you imagine anything more silly?"

"I see now," I said, "why he always took such an interest in everything you did and went out of his way to try to keep you from getting into mischief. I think better of the Archdeacon than I ever did before."

"He's a horrid old beast.'"

"You can't altogether blame him, though."

"I can.

"You oughtn't to, for you don't know----"

"I do know."

"No, you don't. Not what I mean."

"What do you mean? I don't believe you mean anything."

"You don't know the temptation."

Lalage stared at me.

"I've often felt it myself," I said.

Lalage still stared. She was usually quick witted, but on this occasion she seemed to me to be positively dull. I suppose that the nerve storm through which she had pa.s.sed had temporarily paralyzed the gray matter of her brain. I made an effort to explain myself.

"You must surely realize," I said, "that the Archdeacon isn't the only man in the world who would like--any man would--in fact every man must, unless he's married already, and in that case he's extremely sorry he can't. I certainly do."

Lalage grew gradually more and more crimson in the face while I spoke.

At my last words she started violently, and for an instant I thought she was going to fall into the tank.

"Do be careful," I said. "I don't want to have to dive in after you and drag you, in a state of suspended animation, to the sh.o.r.e."

Lalage recovered both her balance and her self-possession.

"Don't you?" she said, with a peculiar smile.

"No, I don't."

"I should have thought," she said, "that any man would. According to you every man must, unless he is married already, and then he'd be extremely sorry that he couldn't."

"In that sense of the words," I said, "of course I do. Please fall in."

"I daresay that the words don't really mean what they seem to mean,"

said Lalage. "Lots of those words don't. I must look them out in the original Greek."

After this our conversation became greatly confused. It had been slightly confused before. The reference to the original Greek completed the process. It seems to me, looking back on it now, that we sat there, Lalage on the edge of the water tank, I in my hammock chair, and flung illusive phrases and half finished sentences at each other, getting hot by turns, and sometimes both together. At last Lalage left me, quite as abruptly as she had come. I did not know what to make of the situation.

There had been nothing but conversation between us. I always understood that under certain circ.u.mstances there is more than conversation, sometimes a great deal more. I picked up "Sword Play," which lay on the ground beside me. It was the only authority to hand at the moment. I turned to the last chapter and found that the fencing professor and the haughty lady had not stopped short at conversation. When the lady finally unbent she did so in a very thorough way and things had pa.s.sed between her and the gentleman which it made me hotter than ever to read about. I had not stirred from my chair nor Lalage from the edge of the tank while we talked. I was greatly perplexed. It was quite plain the history of the swordsman and his lady was not the only one which made me sure of this--that my love-making had not run the normal course. In every single record of such doings which I had ever read a stage had been reached at which the feelings of the performers had been expressed in action rather than in words. Lalage and I had not got beyond words, therefore I doubted whether I had really been love-making. I had certainly got no definite statement from Lalage. She had not murmured anything in low, sweet tones; nor had she allowed her head to droop forward upon my breast in a manner eloquent of complete surrender. I was far from blaming her for this omission. My hammock chair was adjusted at such an angle that unless she had actually stood on her head I do not see how she could have laid it against my breast, and if she had done that her att.i.tude would have been far from eloquent, besides being most uncomfortable for me. Still the fact remained that I had not got by word or att.i.tude any clear indication from Lalage that my love-making, supposing that I had been love-making, was agreeable to her.