"The lovers were wed at an early date, And lived for the future, I understand, In one continuous tete-a-tete,-- For these things occur...in the Flowery Land."
Gladys wanted to know: "But what sort of house is a tete-a-tete? Is it like a palace?"
"It is very often much nicer than a palace," I declared,--"provided of course you are only stopping over for a week-end."
"And wasn't it odd the Dragon should have come just when he did?"
"Oh, Gladys, Gladys! don't tell me you are a realist."
"No, I'm a precious angel," she composedly responded, with a flavour of quotation.
"Well! it is precisely the intervention of the Dragon, Gladys, which proves the story is literature," I announced. "Don't you pity the poor Dragon, Gladys, who never gets a chance in life and has to live always between two book-covers?"
She said that couldn't be so, because it would squash him.
"And yet, dear, it is perfectly true," said Mrs. Hardress. The lean and handsome woman was regarding the pair of us curiously. "I didn't know you cared for children, Mr. Townsend. Yes, she is my daughter." She carried Gladys away, without much further speech.
Yet one Parthian comment in leaving me was flung over her shoulder, snappishly. "I wish you wouldn't imitate John Charteris so. You are getting to be just a silly copy of him. You are just Jack where he is John. I think I shall call you Jack."
"I wish you would," I said, "if only because your sponsors happened to christen you Gillian. So it's a bargain. And now when are we going for that pail of water?"
Mrs. Hardress wheeled, the child in her arms, so that she was looking at me, rather queerly, over the little round, yellow head. "And it was only Jill, as I remember, who got the spanking," she said. "Oh, well! it always is just Jill who gets the spanking--Jack."
"But it was Jack who broke his crown," said I; "Wasn't it--Jill?" It seemed a jest at the time. But before long we had made these nicknames a habit, when just we two were together. And the outcome of it all was not precisely a jest....
She told me not long after this, "When I saw Gladys loved you, of course I loved you too." And I hereby soberly record the statement that to have a woman fall thoroughly in love with him is the most uncomfortable experience which can ever befall any man.