Three Men and a Maid | Page 8

Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing letters and asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she had sent them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in the mornings--I don't as a rule--and they would be back at lunch-time, A fat lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I told her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and she wanted to know what it was and I tried to think of something, but it sounded pretty feeble and she said I had better telephone to the man and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book and told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn't meet him! He was pretty peeved, judging from what he said about my being on the wrong line. And mother listening all the time, and I knowing that she knew--something told me that she knew--and she knowing that I knew she knew--I tell you it was awful!"
"And the girl?"
"She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from eleven till one-thirty and then began to get impatient. She wouldn't see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her saying that what had happened was all for the best as she had been thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed."
"Did you explain about the trousers?"
"Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a man anything except being ridiculous."
"I think you're well out of it," said Sam judicially. "She can't have been much of a girl."
"I feel that now. But it doesn't alter the fact that my life is ruined. I have become a woman-hater. It's an infernal nuisance, because practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its way to boost women, and now I'll have to start all over again and approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me I wonder there isn't a law against them. 'What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was it betrayed the Capitol!'"
"In Washington?" said Sam puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting page.
"In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome."
"Oh, as long ago as that?"
"I was quoting from Thomas Otway's 'Orphan.' I wish I could write like Otway. He knew what he was talking about. 'Who was't betrayed the Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Antony the world? A woman. Who was the cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old Troy in ashes? Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!"
"Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I mean. But the girl I met on the dock--"
"Don't!" said Eustace Hignett "If you have anything bitter and derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to the captain or the ship's cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that I am a soul in torment! I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a future! What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My work? I haven't any. I think I shall take to drink."
"Talking of that," said Sam, "I suppose they open the bar directly we pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?"
Eustace shook his head gloomily.
"Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move I go to bed and stay there. As a matter of fact I think it would be wisest to go to bed now. Don't let me keep you if you want to go on deck."
"It looks to me," said Sam, "as if I had been mistaken in thinking that you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage."
"Ray of sunshine!" said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve pyjamas out of the kit-bag. "I'm going to be a volcano!"
* * * * *
Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get on deck and ascertain if that girl