Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

"Well, then."

"Not so fast, my pet. Wait for the epilog. But all the same I'm not going to let myself fall in love with him. I don't feel that I have exclusive rights in that look of his."

"I don't follow you."

"I fancy I have to share it with a good many other girls."

"You mean you think he's one of these—er—flippertygibbets?"

"Yes, if a flippertygibbet is a man who can't help making love to every girl he meets who's reasonably pretty."

"But he says he's loved you since you were fifteen or whatever it was."

"He has to say something, to keep the conversation going."

"But what makes you feel like that about him?"

"Instinct. I think young Mike Cardinal is a butterfly, Shorty; the kind that flits from flower to flower and sips. I strongly suspect him of having been flitting and sipping this afternoon. Did you see him when he came back from the great city?"

"No. I was giving Whiskers his run."

"Well, I did. We had quite a chat. And the air for yards about him was heavy with some strange, exotic scent, as if he had been having his coat sleeve pawed at for hours by some mysterious, exotic female. I'm not blaming him, mind you. It's not his fault that he looks like a Greek god. And if women chuck themselves at his feet, it's only natural that he should pick them up. Still, you can understand my being a little wary. He thrills me, Shorty, but all the time there's a prudent side of me, a sort of Terry Cobbold in spectacles and mittens, that whispers that no good ever comes of getting entangled with Greek gods. I mistrust men who are too good-looking. In short, my heart inclines to Mike Cardinal, but my head restrains me. I suppose I feel about him pretty much as Mrs. Punter feels about Spink."

Lord Shortlands puffed unhappily.

"Well, I think you're making a great mistake."

"So do I—sometimes."

"About that scent. He probably rubbed up against some woman."

"That is what I fear."

"You ought to marry him."

"Why do you want me to so much?"

"Well, dash it, I like the chap."

"So do I."

"And have you considered what's going to happen after this fellow Robb has got that stamp? I get married and go off and leave you here alone with Adela—if, as you say, and I think you're right, Clare's going to collar Blair. You'll hate it. You'll be miserable, old girl. Why don't you marry the chap?"

The picture he had drawn of a Shorty-less Beevor Castle had not failed to make its impression on Terry. It was something she had not thought of. She was considering it with a frown, when the door opened and Mike came in.

Mike was looking tense and solemn. He was a young man abundantly equipped with what he called sang-froid and people who did not like him usually alluded to as gall, but tonight's operations were making him feel like a nervous impresario just before an opening. In another quarter of an hour the curtain would be going up, and the sense of his responsibility for the success of the venture weighed upon him. At the sight of Terry and of a Lord Shortlands unaccompanied by Augustus Robb he started visibly.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded sternly. "You're supposed to be in bed."

"I know. I got up. I want to watch. I've never seen a pete busted before."

"One wishes to keep the women out of this."

"Well, one won't."

"Now I know what the papers mean when they talk about the headstrong modern girl."

"Avid for sensation."

"Avid, as you say, for sensation. Well, it's lucky you're going to get an indulgent husband."

"Am I?"

"I think so. I've got a new system. Where's Augustus?"

"Up in Shorty's room, I suppose."

"Then why aren't you with him, Shorty? Staff work, staff work. We must have staff work."

Lord Shortlands spoke plaintively.

"He told me to go away. I didn't want to, but he said my watching him made him nervous. He seems a very high-strung sort of chap."

"How was he getting on?"

"All right, it seemed to me."

"Well, you had better go and fetch him."

"Can't you?"

"No. I want to have a word with Terry."

Lord Shortlands, on whom the strain was beginning to tell, ran a fevered hand through his grizzled hair, and whispered something about wishing he could have a drink.

This surprised Mike.

"Haven't you had one? Didn't you share Augustus's plenty?"

"He wouldn't let me. He said it was sinful. And when I pressed the point, he threatened to bounce a bottle on my head. I would give," said Lord Shortlands spaciously, "a million pounds for a drink."

"I can do you one cheaper than that," said Mike. "Skim up to my room, feel at the back of the top right-hand drawer of the chest of drawers, and you will find a flask full of what you need. Help yourself and leave twopence on the mantelpiece."

He went to the door and closed it after his rapidly departing host.

"Alone at last," he said.

Terry's gentle heart had been touched by a father's distress.

"Poor old Shorty!"

"Yes."

"He really isn't fit for this sort of thing."

"No."

"His high blood pressure—"

Mike took her gently by the elbow and led her to a chair. He deposited her lovingly in its depths and seated himself on the arm.

"When I said 'Alone at last,' " he explained, "I didn't mean that now was our chance to discuss Shorty's blood pressure. The time to do that will be later on, when we are sitting side by side before the fire in our little home. 'Let's have a long talk about Shorty's blood pressure,' you will say, and I shall reply 'Oh, goody! Yes, let's.' But for the moment there are weightier matters on the agenda paper. When I came into the room just now, I overheard your father make a very pregnant remark."

"Eavesdropping, eh?"

"I see no harm in dropping a few eaves from time to time. People do it behind screens on the stage, and are highly thought of. He was saying 'Why don't you marry the chap, you miserable little fathead?'"

"He didn't call me a fathead."

"He should have done. Was he alluding to me?"

"He was."

"What a pal! How did the subject come up?"

"He had been asking me why I wouldn't marry you."

"Now, there's a thing I've been trying to figure out for weeks, and I believe I've got it. I see you've been reading Percy's Promise. I skimmed through it last night, and it has given me food for thought. It has suggested to me this new system of which I spoke just now. I see now that I have not been handling my wooing the right way."

"No?"

"No. I have been too flip. Amusing, yes. Entertaining, true. But too flip. They did these things better in 1869. Have you got to the part where Lord Percy proposes to the girl in the conservatory?"

"Not yet."

"I will read it to you. Try to imagine that it is I who am speaking, because he puts in beautiful words just what I want to say. Ready?"

"If you are."

"Then here we go. 'It has been with a loving eye, dearest of all girls, that I have watched you grow from infancy to womanhood. I saw how your natural graces developed, and how by the sweetness of your disposition you were possessing yourself of a manner in which I, who have seen courts, must be allowed to pronounce perfect. It is not too much to say that I am asking a gift which any man, of whatever exalted rank, would be proud to have; that there is no position, however lofty, which you would not grace; and that I yield to no one in the resolution to make that home happy which it is in your power to give me. Your slightest wish shall be gratified, your most trifling want shall be anticipated.' How's that?"

"It's good."

"Let's try some more. 'Dearest, you are breaking a heart that beats only for you. I know that I am not one for whom nature has made a royal road to the hearts of women. You would feel for me if you knew the envy with which I regard those who are so favored. If I do not look, if I do not speak as a lover ought to do, it is not, heaven knows, because love is wanting. The pitcher may be full of good wine, but for that very reason it flows with difficulty. It is hard indeed that eloquence should be denied to one who is pleading for his very life. I love you, I love you, I love you. Dearest, can you never love me?' I don't know why he beefed about not being eloquent. Some steam there. How's it coming? Are you moved?"