Between the Dark and the Daylight Part 42

The Major began to be alarmed. He feared Miss Maynard must be seriously unwell.

"Eh! ah! you--you're not well. You--you don't take enough care.

It's--it's indigestion."

"Indigestion!" cried Miss Maynard, and she sank upon the couch.

"Indigestion! He breaks my heart, and he says it's indigestion!"

She burst into a flood of tears. The Major was terrified.

"Mrs. Philips!" he shouted. "Mary Ann!"

"Don't!" exclaimed Miss Maynard. "Call no one. Let me die alone! You have robbed me of the man I love!"

"Love!" cried the Major, racking his brains to think where the tinge of insanity came in the family. "You love Spooner!"

"Spooner!" replied Miss Maynard with contempt. "I love John Roland."

"John Roland!" yelled the Major, thinking that he must be going mad as well. "Who the deuce is he?"

"He asks me who he is, and he kicked him from his house this morning!"

"I kicked him!" cried the Major, indignant at the charge. "I kicked Spooner!"

"You did not!" persisted Miss Maynard between her tears. "You kicked Roland!"

"I kicked Spooner!" said the Major.

"Do you mean to say," enquired Miss Maynard, on whom a light was dimly breaking, "that you didn't know the gentleman you kicked was Mr.

Roland?"

"Roland!" exclaimed the Major, staggered. "Roland! I swear I thought the man was Spooner."

"Oh!" gasped Miss Maynard, overwhelmed by the discovery, "Major Clifford, what have you done?"

"Heaven knows!" groaned the Major as he sank into a chair. "Chanced six months' hard labour."

There was silence for a few moments then the Major spoke again:

"I know what I'll do, I'll write."

Miss Maynard was agreeable. Getting pens, ink and paper he sat down and commenced his composition.

"My Dear Sir,

"As an unmitigated idiot and an ungentlemanly ruffian, I am only too conscious that I am an a.s.s----"

"I don't think I would put unmitigated idiot and ungentlemanly ruffian," suggested Miss Maynard mildly. "Perhaps Mr. Roland would not care to marry into a family which contained such characters as that."

"Marry?" said the Major, arresting his pen.

"Yes," replied Miss Maynard. "I think I would put it in this way: 'My Dear Mr. Roland----'"

"But I never saw the man before. I don't know him from Adam."

"Never mind," said Miss Maynard; "I do."

So the Major wrote as he was told.

"My Dear Mr. Roland,

"I have to apologise for my conduct of this morning, which was entirely owing to a gross misconception on my part. If you will kindly call at your earliest convenience I will explain fully. I may say that your proposition has my heartiest approval--"

"But I don't know what his proposition is," protested the Major.

"Mr. Roland's proposition is that he should marry me," explained Miss Maynard. There was silence. Miss Maynard prepared to raise her pocket-handkerchief to her eyes. "Of course, if you wish to break my heart----"

Then the Major succ.u.mbed, and Miss Maynard continued her dictation.

----"and I shall have the greatest pleasure in welcoming you as my nephew.

"Believe me, with repeated apologies, Very faithfully yours,

"Arthur Clifford."

Miss Maynard possessed herself of the epistle, and while the Major was addressing the envelope, added a postscript of her own:

"My Dear Jack,

"You see, I call you Jack for once--my silly old uncle has made a goose of himself. Please, please come this instant to your own Em, because--I will not say I want to kiss you. It would be most unseemly in the afternoon.

"Ever, ever your own

"Em."

This choice epistle, containing additions of which he was unconscious, the Major packed into an envelope, and, under Miss Maynard's supervision, dispatched to its destination by a maid. Then they went down, models of propriety, to luncheon.

It was after that meal, when they were again in the drawing-room, that there came a knock at the street door. Steps were heard coming up the stairs.

"It is he!" cried Miss Maynard, with that intuition bestowed upon true love preparing to receive him in her arms.

Fortunately, however, he eluded her embrace, because the visitor happened to be Mr. Spooner.

"Mr. Spooner!" cried Miss Maynard.

"Miss--Miss Maynard," said Mr. Spooner, "I--I beg your pardon."

"The Rev. William Spooner--Major Clifford."