“'On the banks of the Wabash far away,’” I answered. “A simple sentiment would suit me exactly this evening. Yes, I think I’ll come, thank you, Caroline.”
“I should like you to, Rol, dear, you know; but your cold----”
Of course, my cold; I didn’t know I had one, but they had made a chronic asthmatic of me lately.
“And besides, Rol, Mr. Chatterton said he might call this evening. I’m awfully sorry, dear; but can you come to-morrow to the Globe matinée?”
They knew my prospective engagements better than I knew them myself. There was a trifling foolish committee meeting toward to-morrow, and with that I had to be content.
But a tiff is the Compleat Bachelor’s opportunity, and in the invitation to _Tristan_ I spied entertainment.
Carrie had sunk gently on my knee, and had placed a small finger through a buttonhole of my coat. Bassishaw had just called, dressed with the immaculate precision of one who has made up his mind to sulk in his stall, and had taken up a book on jurisprudence which I kept conscientiously on my table, an imposing reminiscence of my younger days. He watched Carrie furtively over the top of it.
“Please, Rol,” she said, the finger working detrimentally through the buttonhole. “You know you love _Tristan_, and Jean and Edouard----”
“But three cannot listen to _Tristan_,” I replied. “Whose hand am I to----”
She came closer, and a mute look in her eyes said that an Irrevocable Destiny had made of her life a Blighted Tract.
“But my cold, Caroline?” I asked consumptively.
“Oh, Rollo, you shall have hot rum directly you come in, and I’ll nurse you. _Do_ come.”
I acceded with secret joy, on the condition of being spared the remedy she suggested.
We did so, in a gloomy depression of spirits that was eminently desirable. Carrie’s humor was not improved by the sight of a man at the next table, apparently chastely-minded, but who took chutney to a grilled steak. She has an instinct for dietetic refinements, and looks on culinary barbarity as worse than untruthfulness.
I had to do most of the talking, which I did, I think, in a naïve unconsciousness of the summer cloudlet that loomed glowering over the party. I spoke of youth. I said, Heaven forgive me, that it was the happiest period of life; that when the heart smiled in love the skies had a blueness; and much more of the same kind. Bassishaw grunted remarks on the Transvaal prospect, and for Carrie’s benefit muttered something about shipment of troops and leave-taking at Waterloo.