"Well, he needn't have cleared out, perhaps. I should have shown her that it wouldn't wash, if it had been me, and she'd soon have given it up. Well, old man, I don't think there's much harm done. He'll come back again all right, and they'll make it up. And when two people make it up, in that condition—well, it's getting close on to the time for putting up the banns."
Voices were heard approaching from behind the shrubs, and one of them seemed to be talking a foreign language in a high-pitched authoritative voice. Jimmy hastily threw his cigarette away, and made no apology for doing so. "They'll want us to play tennis," he said. "We'd better go and get our shoes."
[CHAPTER XI]
THE SECOND LOVE
Young George drove himself home with very pleasant recollections of his afternoon. He had found the Beckley girls quite humanly entertaining when out of sight and hearing of their 'awful old Mademoiselle,' and when Maggie Williams had joined the party they had all enjoyed themselves exceedingly. She was a pretty, lively girl, ready to amuse herself in whatever company should be provided for her, and had made it plain that she particularly liked that of Young George.
Young George felt that he was beginning to know what love really was. Memories of the way Maggie tossed her masses of dark hair, and looked when she spoke to him, out of her laughing eyes, beguiled his homeward journey. She was the only girl he had ever met worthy to be compared with his own sisters, and it was an addition to his pleasure that they approved of her. He had been a little anxious about that when he had first begun to think a good deal about her, because Jimmy had been so very contemptuous at the idea of taking notice of a girl of fourteen. But after Maggie had been over to Abington, and he had waited rather anxiously to hear the comments that might be made about her, Beatrix had said: "Dear old boy, I think you have very good taste. She's much the prettiest girl anywhere about here, except us; and she's very nice too." And Barbara had said: "If I've got to lose you, Bunting, I'd as soon Maggie had you as anybody. I should scratch anybody else's eyes out."
Even Jimmy seemed to have waked up to Maggie's charm. He had taken a good deal more notice of her that afternoon than ever before, and had told Young George as he went off that he'd only been rotting when he had chaffed him about her. In the present unattached state of his affections, Young George had had a faint idea that Jimmy might be preparing to cut him out. But, although Maggie had responded frankly to his unusual attentions to her, it was Young George whose conversation and society she had obviously preferred. This memory gave him an agreeable sensation under the ribs as he went over the signs of it. Jimmy would not be able to cut him out, but it was satisfying to have his taste thus endorsed by a man of such wide experience in these affairs.
When he had nearly reached home and was driving up the road through the park, he descried two figures strolling through the fern towards him. He recognised them as Dick Mansergh and Beatrix, and either something in their attitude towards one another, although they were walking apart, or the thoughts upon which his own mind had been running, gave him the idea that whatever differences they may have had were at an end, and the engagement which he and Jimmy had agreed would be such an eminently suitable one had come to pass.