"After all," he said, "the real blow is losing Hereward. Elspeth—Elspeth is very dear to me, but she can never be quite the same."
A TRAGEDY OF THE SEA
William Bales—as nice a young man as ever wore a cummerbund on an esplanade—was in despair. For half an hour he and Miss Spratt had been sitting in silence on the pier, and it was still William's turn to say something. Miss Spratt's last remark had been, "Oh, Mr. Bales, you do say things!" and William felt that his next observation must at all costs live up to the standard set for it. Three or four times he had opened his mouth to speak, and then on second thoughts had rejected the intended utterance as unworthy. At the end of half an hour his mind was still working fruitlessly. He knew that the longer he waited the more brilliant he would have to be, and he told himself that even Bernard Shaw or one of those clever writing fellows would have been hard put to it now.
William was at odds with the world. He was a romantic young man who had once been told that he nearly looked like Lewis Waller when he frowned, and he had resolved that his holiday this year should be a very dashing affair indeed. He had chosen the sea in the hopes that some old gentleman would fall off the pier and let himself be saved by—and, later on, photographed with—William Bales, who in a subsequent interview would modestly refuse to take any credit for the gallant rescue. As his holiday had progressed he had felt the need for some such old gentleman more and more; for only thus, he realised, could he capture the heart of the wayward Miss Spratt. But so far it had been a dull season; in a whole fortnight nobody had gone out of his way to oblige William, and to-morrow he must return to the City as unknown and as unloved as when he left it.
"Got to go back to-morrow," he said at last. As an impromptu it would have served, but as the result of half an hour's earnest thought he felt that it did not do him justice.
"So you said before," remarked Miss Spratt.
"Well, it's still true."
"Talking about it won't help it," said Miss Spratt.