The Terrible Twins | Page 6

a
mercenary marriage for her; he was sure that she loved him, for he felt
rather than knew that with women he was irresistible.
It was not love, however, that knitted Mrs. Dangerfield's brow in a

troubled frown as she dressed; nor was it love that caused her to select
to wear that evening one of her oldest and dowdiest gowns, a gown
with which she had never been truly pleased. The troubled air did not
leave her face during dinner; and it seemed to affect the Twins, for they,
too, were gloomy. They were pleased, indeed, with the beginning of the
campaign, but still very doubtful of success in the end. Where their
interests were concerned their mother was of a firmness indeed hard to
move.
Moreover, she kept looking at them in an odd considering fashion that
disturbed them, especially at the Terror. Erebus in a pretty light frock
of her mother's days of prosperity, which had been cut down and fitted
to her, was a sight to brighten any one's eyes; but the sleeves of the
dark coat which the Terror wore on Sundays and on gala evenings,
bared a length of wrist distressing to a mother's eye.
The fine high spirits of Captain Baster were somewhat dashed by his
failure to find his keys and open his portmanteau, since he would be
unable to ravish Mrs. Dangerfield's eye that evening by his
distinguished appearance in the unstained evening dress of an English
gentleman. After a long hunt for the mislaid keys, in which the harried
staff of The Plough took part, he made up his mind that he must appear
before her, with all apologies, in the tweed suit he was wearing. It was
a bitter thought, for in a tweed suit he could not really feel a conquering
hero after eight o'clock at night.
Then he put his foot into a dress-boot full of cold water. It was a good
water-tight boot; and it had faithfully retained all of the water its lining
had not soaked up. The gallant officer said a good deal about its
retentive properties to the mute boot.
At dinner be learned from Mrs. Pittaway that the obliging Terror had
himself fetched the cigarette-case from his bedroom. A flash of
intuition connected the Terror with the watered boot; and he begged her,
with loud acerbity, never again to let any one--any one!!--enter his
bedroom. Mrs. Pittaway objected that slops could not be emptied, or
beds made without human intervention. He begged her, not perhaps
unreasonably, not to talk like a fool; and she liked him none the better

for his directness.
Food always soothed him; and he rose from his dinner in better spirits.
As he rose from it, the Terror, standing among the overarching trees
which made the muddy patch in the lane so dark, was drawing a
clothes-line tight. It ran through the hedge that hid him to the hedge on
the other side of the lane. There it was fastened to a stout stake; and he
was fastening it to the lowest rail of a post and rails. At its tightest it
rose a foot above the roadway just at the beginning of the mud-patch. It
was at its tightest.
Heartened by his dinner and two extra whiskies and sodas, Captain
Baster set out for Colet House at a brisk pace. As he moved through the
bracing autumn air, his spirits rose yet higher; that night--that very
night he would crown Mrs. Dangerfield's devotion with his avowal of
an answering passion. He pressed forward swiftly like a conqueror; and
like a conqueror he whistled. Then he found the clothes-line, suddenly,
pitched forward and fell, not heavily, for the mud was thick, but
sprawling. He rose, oozy and dripping, took a long breath, and the
welkin shuddered as it rang.
The Terror did not shudder; he was going home like the wind.
Having sent Erebus to bed at a few minutes to nine Mrs. Dangerfield
waited restlessly for her tardy guest, her charming face still set in a
troubled frown. Her woman's instinct assured her that Captain Baster
would propose that night; and she dreaded it. Two or three times she
rose and walked up and down the room; and when she saw her deep,
dark, troubled eyes in the two old, almost giltless round mirrors, they
did not please her as they usually did. Those eyes were one of the
sources from which had sprung Captain Baster's attraction to her.
But there were the Twins; she longed to do so many useful, needful
things for them; and marriage with Captain Baster was the way of
doing them. She told herself that he would make an excellent stepfather
and husband; that under his unfortunate manner were a good heart and
sterling