WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE.
PART I.
Angelo Armstrong was a man of thirty. He had no capital, but by dint of honest and meritorious toil he found himself eventually earning a moderate salary as clerk in a London Insurance Office. He had been rejected for the Army on account of a defective knee-cap. Outside his work his tastes lay in the direction of botany and bibliomancy, which latter, according to the dictionary, is "Divination performed by selecting passages of Scripture at hazard." He also indulged in good works and was President of the Society for the Preservation of the Spiritual Welfare of the Deputy Harbour Masters at our English Seaports. Thus he was worthy of the name of Angelo by which his mother had insisted that he should be christened, after seeing a picture of the famous historical incident of "Non Angli sed Angeli."
Strangely enough he had never yet come under the influence of love. The three diversions given above had filled his spare hours, and woman was to him a sealed book. One morning he found a letter on his breakfast-table from an old family friend; it read as follows:—
"Ton Répos," Woking,
December 11th, 1916.
"DEAR MR. ARMSTRONG,—Do tear yourself away from grimy London and come and spend the Christmas holidays with us. Only a small party and one of War-workers. We are all workers nowadays, aren't we? You must come!
Sincerely yours,
AUGUSTA POGSON-DELABERE.
N.B.—Our house is a long way from the Crematorium!
This settled it; he decided to go.
PART II.
The Pogson-Delaberes' party at "Ton Répos" consisted of four guests: Col. Maxton, from Aldershot, commanding the 106th Battalion of the Drumlie Highlanders; Miss Agatha Simson, a middle-aged munition-worker; our hero, and, oh! the lovely Miss Sylvia Taunton, another War-worker, aged 22. The result may be easily guessed. For two days the young people were left, naturally, very much together. They quickly fell into an easy intimacy, and on the third and last day of the holiday Angelo was profoundly in love. Gone were the botanizers, gone the bibliomants, gone the Deputy Harbour Masters. There was but one thought in his evacuated brain, to make the fair Sylvia his own.
His opportunity came after dinner that night when the rest of the party had gone out to look at some condemned pheasants which were to be shot at dawn. She was at the piano playing that deservedly popular song, "I've chipped my chip for England," by Nathaniel Dayer, when he suddenly leant over her. "Miss Taunton—Sylvia," he ejaculated, "you will be surprised at this suddenness, I know, but I cannot keep it in any longer; I love you enormously. Is there any chance for me?"
She had just reached that passage in Nathaniel's song where a triumphant ascending scale in G rings out. She faltered and played D-flat instead of D-natural, the first dissonance that night—would it had been the last! Quickly she turned on the music-stool and on him, and spoke with averted head.
"Mr. Armstrong, I will own frankly that I like you more than a little. Though we only met three days ago I am more drawn to you than I have ever been to any other man."
"Aha," he cried exultingly.
"But," she said, "I must say something about myself. While I am a War-worker, I have never told you yet what I am doing. I am a clerk in Marr's Bank, in Cheapside."
"There is nothing dishonourable in that," he almost shouted.
"There is not," she answered, haughtily drawing herself up.
"I keep my account there," he said.
"I know," she replied; "I am in the Pass-book department."
He stood quite still, but the lapels of his dinner-jacket shook slightly.
"My duties," she went on quietly, "are to report each evening to my chief, Mr. Hassets, on our clients' balances. Yours has never been higher than £24 7s. 9d. during the eighteen months that I have been there. I am very sorry, but I cannot marry you."
He looked straight into her inscrutable eyes and the right repartee froze on his lips.
On the morrow he left at dawn, just as the birds were beginning to drop; and before the day was over he had transferred his account from Marr's Bank to Parr's.
"CHAPLAIN —— ASKS GUIDANCE FOR THE AUTHORITIES.
Prays that recent events may be prevented."—Baltimore News.
Surely this is asking too much.
"British troops in Macedonia are now in possession of Deltawah and Sindiyah, some thirty-five miles north of Bagdad, and of Falluyah on the Euphrates, thirty-six miles west of Bagdad."—Sunday Paper.
We know on Fluellen's authority that Macedon and Monmouth are very much alike; and so, it seems, is Mesopotamia.