IX
Miss Esme sat at her table wearing an expression of absolute amazement. A slight but growing tendency toward tears emphasized itself in her small and brittle soul. She, of all the guests, remained in the room. Presently the lights were lowered one by one, and presently an elderly gentleman detached himself from a shadowy seat in a window corner and came toward her.
“Don’t you think you’d better be going?” he said, in the kindliest possible way.
Esme started.
“I beg your pardon—n-no, I must wait for my husband.”
“Dear me! I shouldn’t do that, because—I mean—after all—you haven’t one—and he has a wife already.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “then that—”
“Quite so. Splendid, isn’t it?”
“But—who are you?”
“Just a friend.”
“Of course,” said Esme, trying to recover a grain of lost prestige. “I hadn’t any idea he was married.”
“ ’Course not. Not in the least to blame.”
“Fancy his being married!”
“I’m doing that,” said Clem, with rather a wonderful expression on his face. “But, look here, suppose we do the rest of our fancyin’ in the 12.30 to town? Nice time to catch it.”
“Well, I can’t stop here, can I?”
“Wouldn’t do.”
They had a first-class compartment all to themselves, and Uncle Clem made a most favourable impression upon Miss Esme. She thought him such a nice old gentleman. He talked of such pleasant things in such a pleasant way. He wasn’t a bit prudish, and seemed to think she had done perfectly right in coming away with Wynne.
“Still, I do think it was very wrong of him, as he was married,” she said.
“Yes—yes—yes. Still, it’s a queer world. You see he may have forgotten he was married—some folk do. He may never really have known—but he will know. My dear, it isn’t until we realize the wonder of another that we become wonderful ourselves. You don’t know what you’ve done for that young man.”
“Somehow I don’t believe I should like to have married him,” said Esme, thoughtfully.
“You don’t! No! Well, there you are, you see! Yet somebody is always wanted by somebody else, and that somebody else can always make that somebody into something. Victoria! Wouldn’t be any harm to kiss you good-night, would it? ’Course not! That’s right Splendid!”
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
A few obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note. When multiple spellings occurred, majority use has been employed.
A cover has been created for this ebook and is placed in the public domain.
[End of Our Wonderful Selves by Roland Pertwee]