Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor

persuasiveness, "do you like me?... justa little?"

  Now Peggy was a young woman who had listened to such confidences often,and who, by reason of the numbers of her admirers, had grown hardened totheir appeals. She found them, however, sufficiently embarrassing tocause her to regret, not so much wounding her lovers, as the trouble shewas put to in order to wound them as little as possible. It showed awant of consideration on the part of the men she wished to be friendlywith when they made that agreeable condition no longer possible. Youthand beauty in a woman handicap her in the matter of masculinefriendship; yet eliminate the disqualifying attributes, and thedifficulty of friendship with the opposite sex is even greater. Theposition therefore becomes well-nigh impossible.

  Peggy looked back at the young man with such disconcerting candour inthe grey eyes that he began to feel somewhat foolish and found himselfreddening awkwardly. A girl when she receives a proposal of marriagehas no right to appear so composed.

  "I like you so well," Peggy answered him quietly, "that I hope you won'tsay anything more. It's--such a pity," she faltered, losing somethingof her former calmness, "to spoil everything. Let us take a mutualliking for granted, and leave it at that."

  This sounded like a brilliant inspiration, but was in reality arepetition of a suggestion made on a similar occasion to an entirelydifferent suppliant. The experience of its ill-success on the formeroccasion might have prepared her for its inefficacy now, but it was theonly thing which flashed into her mind at the moment, and she said it alittle breathlessly in the hope that it would decide Doctor Fairbridgein favour of retreat. It failed, however, of the desired effect. Hecaught at the leaf of a palm near his arm and began unthinkingly on itsdestruction, not looking at the mischievous work of his fingers, butstaring at Peggy.

  "I can't leave it at that," he said. "It--it isn't liking with me. Ilove you. I... Please be patient with me, Miss Annersley. I find itso difficult to express all I feel. Of course, I can't expect that youshould love me as I love you... How should you? But I am hoping thatperhaps--in time--"

  He broke off, so manifestly at a loss in face of the discouragement heread in her indifferent look, so awkward and disturbed and reproachfulat her lack of reciprocity, that he found it impossible to proceed withhis appeal. He had, in rehearsing the interview in bed on the previousnight, brought it to such an entirely different issue that the situationas it actually befell found him unprepared. The virile eloquence of theprevious night did not fit the present occasion.

  "I want to marry," he finished lamely.

  That, in the circumstances, was an unfortunate admission. A gleam,expressive of amusement rather than of tenderness, shone in Peggy'seyes.

  "I know," she said. "You told me so before... on account of thepractice."

  He glared at her, flushed and angry.

  "Hang the practice!" he said rudely. "I want to marry you."

  This bomb, which had been clumsily preparing from the outset, explodedwith little effect. Peggy certainly lowered her eyes, and the warmblood mounted to her cheeks; but she did not appear overwhelmed by thisfrank declaration. It was, indeed, whatever emotion swayed the speaker,so shorn of sentiment in itself that the girl was relieved of any fearshe might have entertained of hurting him with a refusal. Had she beenas much in love with him as he had professed to be with her, her answerwould still have been "No."

  "I am sorry," she said, a trifle unsympathetically. "I don't, you see,want to marry you."

  "Don't say `no' without at least considering my proposal," he urgedblankly. "I'll wait--as long as you wish. But I can't take `no' likethat. I've never wanted anything in all my life as I want you. Don'tbe so unkind, Peggy, as to refuse me a little hope. I'm an ass, I know.And perhaps I have been a little abrupt--"

  "Well, a little," agreed Peggy.

  "Do you mind," she added quickly, seeing him clutch desperately at asecond palm-leaf in his agitation, "keeping to the leaf you have alreadyspoiled?"

  He dropped the worried leaf as though it had stung him, and half turnedfrom her.

  "You are heartless," he exclaimed with bitterness, taking his defeatill, recognising that it was a defeat even while he refused to accepther answer as final. He had been so confident of success that hisfailure was the more humiliating in consequence of his former assurance.

  "I feel certain," he resumed more quietly, "that later you will be alittle sorry for your unkindness to me. I never loved anyone till I metyou. I love you very earnestly."

  "I'm sorry," said Peggy again. "I would be a little more sympathetic ifI knew how. But, you see, I have never been in love in my life."

  "I think I could teach you to love," he said, in all good faith. "I amgoing to try."

  She laughed.

  "I never had any aptitude," she said, "unless it was for gardening. Youhad better give me up, Doctor Fairbridge, as hopeless, and find an ablerpupil."

  "I shall never," he pronounced solemnly, "give you up. I do not change.I have met the one woman in the world for me. Oh, Miss Annersley," headded, ceasing to be rhetorical and becoming therefore a much moreinteresting study to Peggy, "don't be too hard on a fellow. I won'tbother you any more now. But one day I hope you will listen to me morepatiently, and be a little kinder to me. I'm awfully keen on this."

  "Yes," said Peggy. "I wish you weren't. I'm just going to forget allyou've said, and we will go on being friendly. I am a good deal keeneron friendship than on the other relationship."

  "Are you?" he said, surprised, as though that were an attitude he hadnever contemplated before; that he found, indeed, difficult to reconcilewith his ideas of girls. "I'm not. But the half loaf, you know... Iwill content myself with that for the present--only for the present."

  How, he wondered, when he returned with Peggy to the drawing-room--whichhe would have preferred not to do, and only agreed to on her showing himthat it might be remarked if he left without taking leave in the usualmanner--had he been deceived into making such a miscalculation? ClearlyPeggy was a heartless little flirt. She had assuredly encouraged him.He was conscious as he entered the drawing-room in her wake of a slightdiminution in his regard for her. There is nothing like a wound to thepride for clearing a man's vision.

  "For goodness' sake," exclaimed Peggy, looking back at him over hershoulder as he emerged behind her through the glass doors, "don't wearso long a face. It will be remarked."

  Doctor Fairbridge, who felt little inclination towards cheerfulness,mended his expression none the less; but the smile which he summoned tohis aid was rather forced.

  "I can't act," he said reproachfully. "You've hurt me. I'm feelingsore, Miss Annersley."

  "Don't be silly," Peggy admonished him. "You needn't look sore,anyhow."

  She led him towards her sister, and left him with her, feeling assuredthat Sophy would administer an anodyne; Sophy had helped to heal woundsof her making before. She had the knack of putting a man in betterconceit with himself; it is a knack which springs from the dictates of akindly nature.

  Peggy herself joined a group of young people who were listening withsceptical amusement to the history of the Hall ghost which Mr Errol,newly arrived, was relating. Peggy seated herself near him.

  "Do you believe in ghosts?" she asked.

  "Well," he replied with gravity, "there is so much which isincomprehensible that I cannot discredit things merely because I fail tounderstand them."

  She looked at him with interest, while the scepticism of the rest strovecourteously to efface itself.

  "I heard of the ghost from Robert," she announced. "Hannah has seen it.But Robert didn't seem to know very much about it. It is respectableto have a ghost. I hope it is a pleasant one."

  "There are two," he said.

  "Good gracious!" exclaimed Peggy. "Two misty apparitions! Hannahdoesn't own to seeing two. I might be able to stand one, but two wouldbe the death of me. Who are they?"

  "One is a hound," he explained; "the other is a lady. They hav
e beenseen walking on the terrace in the dusk. They walk the length of theterrace and back, look towards the west, and disappear."

  "And then does something awful happen?" inquired one of the listeners.

  "No; I never heard that anything happened. Nor does the apparitionappear regularly. It has only been seen about three times, and alwaysafter dusk."

  "I shall watch for it," said Peggy. "I am not in the least alarmed nowI know there is a dog. I have never been afraid of a living dog;