Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

He paused. A duller man than he would have noted that Terry was not responsive.

"I had anticipated a certain amount of girlish joy," he said.

"Oh, I'm delighted."

"Then why aren't you squeaking? I should have thought such news would have been well worth a squeak or two." Mike paused again, and sniffed. "Odd smell in here," he said. "Can it be I?"

Terry's lip curled. The smell to which he alluded had not escaped her.

"You've probably not noticed it," she said coldly, "but you are reeking of scent."

"Am I? So I am. Tut, tut."

His reaction to a discovery which should have bathed him in shame and confusion seemed to Terry entirely inadequate. Would nothing, she was asking herself, stir this man's conscience?

"And I'm not surprised," she said bitterly. "Did you enjoy your lunch?"

Mike seemed perplexed.

"How have we got on to the subject of lunch? We were talking of scent."

Terry bit her lip. It was showing a disposition to tremble, and she would have preferred to die the most horrible death rather than shed tears.

"Why lunch?" asked Mike.

"I happened to see you going to lunch today."

"I didn't know you were in London."

"No."

"Were you at Barribault's?"

"I was on the pavement outside."

"And you saw me going in?"

"Yes."

"Then you saw me at my best," said Mike. "Yous saw me in the act of giving a prospect the works, and that is the moment to catch me."

"What do you mean?"

"I've got La Stoker signed up on the dotted line. From now on, for a period of five years, the dear old firm will peddle her at ten per cent of her stupendous salary. It's an ironclad contract, and if she attempts to slide out of it she'll get bitten to death by wild lawyers. And I did it. I, Cardinal. I'm good, I tell you. Good, good, good!"

Terry gasped. Her heart, which she had supposed crushed and dead, gave a sudden leap. There shot through her a suspicion, growing with the moments, that the Lady Teresa Cobbold had made a fool of herself. And at the same time, tentatively at first but rapidly gaining in strength as the purport of his words came home to her, soft music began to play in the recesses of her soul.

"Oh, Mike!" she said.

"I should have begun by telling you that in that cable of his recalling me to the office my boss mentioned that La Stoker had severed relations with her agent before leaving Hollywood and had made no new commitments, and he urged me to get in touch with her and secure her custom. 'Give her the old oil,' he pleaded, in effect, and I gave it her abundantly. I laid the foundations of my brilliant campaign yesterday with a lunch which set the office back about twenty bucks and had her rocking on her French heels, and today I took her out again and polished her off. But it was in no sense a walkover. The Stoker is one of those dumb females whose impulse, if you ask them to do something, is to say 'Well, I dunno' and do the opposite, and there were times, I confess, when I felt like giving the thing up and getting what small consolation I could from beating her over the head with a bottle. Still, I triumphed in the end, and why on earth you're not leaping about and fawning on me is more than I can understand. What's the matter with you?"

Terry choked. Odd things were happening inside her. Carried away, no doubt, by that soft music, her heart appeared now to have parted completely from its moorings and to be going into a sort of adagio dance.

"Was that really it?"

"Was what really what?"

"Was it really just a business lunch?"

"Strictly business."

"Oh, Mike!"

"You may well say 'Oh, Mike!' I was superb. I played on that goofy dame as on a stringed instrument. I gave her everything I'd got: the whispered compliment, the gentle pressure of the hand, the smile that wins, the melting look—"

Terry laughed shakily.

"I saw the melting look."

"You did? Good Lord, I hope you didn't think—"

"That's exactly what I did think. I thought it was Geoffrey Harvest all over again. Well, you never said a word to me about it," said Terry defensively.

"The Cardinals don't talk. They act."

"And you sneaked off at dawn—"

"It wasn't at dawn. I took the nine-forty-five. And I didn't sneak off. I strode from the house with my chin up and my chest out, twirling my clouded cane. So you thought I was a flippertygibbet?"

"Yes. Flitting from flower to flower."

"Is that what flippertygibbets do?"

"Yes. They're very like butterflies in their habits. And it's no good looking at me in that reproachful way, as if you were King Arthur and I was Guinevere—"

"It isn't exactly reproachful. Sadness was what I was trying to register. You must know that you're the only girl in the world I could possibly love, and that only an absolute nitwit would go flitting elsewhere if he'd got you. Don't you ever look in the glass?"

"Well, I stick to it that it was a perfectly natural mistake to make. There were you, devouring this woman with your eyes—"

"I was thinking of that ten per cent."

"—and generally behaving like Great Lovers through the Ages. Anyone would have been misled. Stanwood was."

"Stanwood."

"He was among the spectators."

"Egad! What did he think?"

"The worst. Well, when I tell you that he spoke of writing a letter to Miss Stoker calling her the Scarlet Woman of Babylon—"

"Where on earth did Stanwood ever hear of the Scarlet Woman of Babylon?"

"Apparently Mr. Robb chats with him about her sometimes. And then he came to me and asked me to marry him."

"To—what?"

"To marry him. And I said I would."

Mike tottered.

"You said you would?"

"Yes. It was his idea. He said it would show you where you got off."

Mike drew a deep breath.

"If Shorty kicks at paying three guineas to have your head examined," he said feelingly, "I'll put up the money myelf. Let me tell you something for your files. You're not marrying any blasted Stanwoods. You're marrying me."

"Yes, I see that now."

"Got it quite clear in your little nut, have you?"

"Quite."

"It's a pity you were ever uncertain on the point, for look what you have done. Playing with hearts, I call it. Now I have the unpleasant task of telling an old friend that if he doesn't lay off, I'll push his face in. And what makes it so extremely awkward is that I don't believe I can push Stanwood's face in, unless I seize a happy moment when he's looking the other way."

"Will you really tell him?"

"Of course."

"Oh, Mike, how noble of you. I was wondering how I could do it."

"Where is this home-wrecker?"

"Telephoning. His father rang him up from New York."

"Well, here's something that may comfort you. I doubt if we shall have much moaning at the bar when we break it to him that the deal is off. Towards the end of lunch, when the main business details had been settled, I worked like a beaver in his interests, and La Stoker is now prepared to marry him any time he says the word. I might perhaps have mentioned that earlier."

"You might."

"My old trouble. Playing for suspense. But let's not talk about Stanwood. His romance is merely a side issue. Ours is what matters."

"Yes."

"Have you any objection to getting married like lightning?"

"Not if it's to you."

"'At's the way to talk! It will be. I'll see to that. Well, that's what we'll have to do, because time is running short. I've got to sail next week."

"How pleased all the girls in Hollywood will be to see you again."

"Are there girls in Hollywood?"

"Stanwood says so."

"I don't suppose I shall so much as notice them."

"How about if they come squealing 'Oh, Mike, darling'?"

"There is such a thing as police protection, I presume. But I was saying. About getting swiftly off the mark. It must be a simple ceremony at the registry office for us."