"To-morrow morning. I shall be away for perhaps three months, and then," doggedly, "then I'm coming home to be married. I came in to tell you."
"I shall postpone the ceremony. Shall we say indefinitely, some time in the summer?"
"Not even then. Never, I think. That troublesome girl is beginning--she feels that she ought to tell you--"
"Who will be in town for the next three months?"
"Then that's all right," said the optimistic Jimmie. "There never was a man--save one, oh, lady mine--who could, for three months, avoid boring you. When he holds forth upon every subject under the sun and stars you will think longingly of me and of the endless variety of my one topic, 'I'm going to marry you.'"
"I defy him to do it. There is no guise in which he could clothe the idea which would not remind you instantly of me. If he should be poetical: well, so was I when we were twenty-one. If he should give you gifts of great price: well, so did I in those Halcyon days when I had an allowance from my Governor and toiled not. If his is an outdoor wooing, you will inevitably remember that I taught you to ride, to skate, to drive, and to play golf. If he should attack you musically, you will be surprised at the number of operas we've heard together and of duets we've sung together. And so, in the words of my friend, fellow-sufferer, and name-sake, Mr. Yellowplush, 'You'll still remember Jeames.'"
"That's nonsense!" cried Miss Knowles. "I've tried to be fond of you--I _am_ fond of you and accustomed to you. The fatal point is that I am accustomed to you. You say you never bore me. Well, you don't. And that other men do. Well, you're right. But people don't marry people simply because they don't bore each other."
"Your meaning is clearer than your words and much more correct. This really essential consideration is, alas, frequently not considered."
"People should marry," said Miss Knowles with a sort of consecrated earnestness--the most deadly of all the practiced phases of her coquetry--"for love. Now, I'm not in love with you. If I were, the very idea of your going away would make me miserable. And do I seem miserable? Am I lovelorn? Look at me carefully and tell the truth."
Jimmie obeyed, and the contemplation of his hostess seemed to depress him.