Farewell, Nikola | Page 8

her to the window. "The girl will very soon
recover from her fit of depression, and afterwards will be as merry as a
marriage-bell. By the way, I don't know why I should think of it just
now, but talking of marriage-bells reminds me that Glenbarth told me
last night that he thought Gertrude one of the nicest girls he had ever
met."
"I am delighted to hear it," my wife answered. "And still more
delighted to think that he has such good sense. Do you know, I have set
my heart upon that coming to something. No! you needn't shake your
head. For very many reasons it would be a most desirable match."
"For my own part I believe it was for no other reason that you bothered
me into inviting him to join our party here. You are a matchmaker. I
challenge you to refute the accusation."
"I shall not attempt to do so," she retorted with considerable hauteur. "It
is always a waste of time to argue with you. At any rate you must agree
with me that Gertrude would make an ideal duchess."

"So you have travelled as far as that, have you?" I inquired. "I must say
that you jump to conclusions very quickly. Because Glenbarth happens
to have said in confidence to me (a confidence I am willing to admit I
have shamefully abused) that he considers Gertrude Trevor a very
charming girl, it does not follow that he has the very slightest intention
of asking her to be his wife. Why should he?"
"Lords," she answered, as if that ought to clinch the argument. "Fancy a
man posing as one of our hereditary legislators who doesn't know how
to seize such a golden opportunity. As a good churchwoman I pray for
the nobility every Sunday morning; and if not knowing where to look
for the best wife in the world may be taken as a weakness and it
undoubtedly is, then all I can say is, that they require all the praying for
they can get!"
"But I should like to know, how is he going to marry the best wife in
the world?" I asked.
"By asking her," she retorted. "He doesn't surely suppose she is going
to ask him?"
"If he values his life he'd better not do that!" I said savagely. "He will
have to answer for it to me if he does!"
"Ah," she answered, her lips curling. "I thought as much. You are
jealous of him. You don't want him to ask her because you fancy that if
he does your reign will be over. A nice admission for a married man, I
must say!"
"I presume you mean because I refuse to allow him to flirt with my
wife?"
"I mean nothing of the kind, and you know it. How dare you say, Dick,
that I flirt with the Duke?"
"Because you have confessed it," I answered with a grin of triumph, for
I had got her cornered at last. "Did you not say, only a moment ago,
that if he did not know where to find the best wife in the world he was

unfit to sit in the House of Lords? Did you not say that he ought to be
ashamed of himself if he did not ask her to be his wife? Answer that,
my lady."
"I admit that I did say it; but you know very well that I referred to
Gertrude Trevor!"
"Gertrude Trevor is not yet a wife. The best wife in the world is beside
me now; and since you are already proved to be in the wrong you must
perforce pay the penalty."
She was in the act of doing so when Gertrude entered the room.
"Oh, dear," she began, hesitating in pretended consternation, "is there
never to be an end of it?"
"An end of what?" demanded my wife with some little asperity, for she
does not like her little endearments to be witnessed by other people.
"Of this billing and cooing," the other replied. "You two insane
creatures have been married more than four years, and yet a third
person can never enter the room without finding you love-making. I
declare it upsets all one's theories of marriage. One of my most
cherished ideas was that this sort of thing ceased with the honeymoon,
and that the couple invariably lead a cat-and-dog life for the remainder
of their existence."
"So they do," my wife answered unblushingly "And what can you
expect when one is a great silly creature who will not learn to jump
away and be looking innocently out of the window when he hears the
handle turned? Never marry, Gertrude. Mark my words: you will repent
it if you do!"
"Well, for ingratitude and cool impudence, that