Set in Silver | Page 5

to write this immense letter to you, and get it off to catch the post. It will arrive in the morning with your coffee and petits pains--how I wish I were in its place! You can take half an hour to make up your mind (I'm sure with your lightning wits you wouldn't ask longer to decide the fate of the Great Powers of Europe) and then telegraph me simply "Yes," or "No." I will understand.
For my own sake, naturally, I should prefer "No." That goes unsaid, doesn't it? I should then be relieved of responsibility; for even Ellaline, knowing that you and I are all in all to each other, could hardly expect me to fly in your face, just to please her. But, on the other hand, if you did think I could do this dreadful thing without thereby becoming myself a Dreadful Thing, it would be a glorious relief to pay my debt of gratitude to Ellaline, yes, and even over-pay it, perhaps. One likes to over-pay a debt that's been owing a long time, for it's like adding an accumulation of interest that one's creditor never expected to get.
When, gasping after the first shock, I pleaded that I'd do anything else, make any other sacrifice for Ellaline's sake, except this one, she flashed out (with the odd shrewdness which lurks in her childishness like a bright little garter-snake darting its head from a bed of violets), saying that was always the way with people. They were invariably ready to do for their best friends, to whom they were grateful, anything on earth except the only thing wanted.
Well, I had no answer to make; for it's true, isn't it? And then Ellaline sobbed dreadfully, clutching at me with little, hot, trembling hands, crying that she'd counted on me, that she'd been sure, after all my promises, I wouldn't fail her. She'd felt so safe with me! Are you surprised I hadn't the heart to refuse? I confess, dear, that if I were quite alone in the world (though the world wouldn't be a world without you) I should certainly have grovelled and consented then and there.
She says she won't close her eyes to-night, and I dare say she won't, in which case she'll be as pathetic as a broken flower to-morrow. I don't think I shall sleep much either, wondering what your verdict will be.
I really haven't the remotest idea whether it will be Yes or No. Usually I imagine that I can pretty well guess what your opinion is likely to be, but I can't this time. The thing to decide upon is in itself so fantastic, so monstrous, that one moment I tell myself you won't even consider it. The next minute I remember what a dear little "crank" you are on the subject of gratitude--your "favourite virtue," as you used to write in old-fashioned "Confession Albums" of provincial American friends when I was a child.
If people do anything nice for you, you run your little high-heeled shoes into holes to do something even nicer for them. If you're invited out to tea, you ask your hostess to lunch or dinner, in return: that sort of thing invariably; and you've brought me up with the same bee in my bonnet. So what will your telegram be?
Whatever you say, you may count on a meek "Amen, so be it," from
Your most admiring subject,
Audrie.
P. S.--Of course, it isn't as if this man were an ordinary, nice, inoffensive human man, is it? I do think that almost any treatment is too good for such a cold-blooded, supercilious old Dragon. And you needn't reprove me for "calling names." With singular justice Providence has ticketed him as appropriately as his worst enemy would have dared to do. They have such weird names in Cornwall, don't they?--and it seems he's a Cornishman. Until lately he was plain Mister, now he's Sir Lionel Pendragon. Somebody has been weak enough to die and leave him a title, and also an estate (though not in Cornwall) which he's returning to England in greedy haste to pounce upon. So characteristic, after living away all these years; though Madame de Maluet has tried to make Ellaline believe he's coming back to settle down because of a letter she wrote, reminding him respectfully that after nineteen it's almost indecent for a girl to be kept at school.
Don't fear, however, if your telegram casts me to the Dragon, that I shall be in danger of getting eaten up. His Dragonship, among other stodgy defects, has that of eminent, well-nigh repulsive, respectability. He is as respectable as a ramrod or a poker, and very elderly, Ellaline says. From the way she talks about him he must be getting on for a hundred, and he is provided with a widowed