“Sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?” That, of course, isn’t what she says.
“Nancy, I suppose you knew almost at once what you felt about Billy?”
“Oh, yes!” (Readily.)
“You knew he was absolutely the one and only? How lovely!” A pause. “I suppose the way to find out is to imagine him among seventeen other young men, all frightfully good-looking and nice and good sorts, and the right kind of voice, and all wanting to marry you at once, and all that? Then, if you still feel you could choose him out of all those——”
“But, Blanche, I should have had to,” I explained, truthfully enough, as I thought of the five hundred pounds. “Couldn’t help myself!”
“I see,” sighed Blanche. “Mustn’t it be glorious for you both?”
And thirteen-year-old Theo, pouring upon her “new sister” the wealth of superfluous adoration which will some day be wasted, I suppose, upon some quite ordinary young man, proclaims at frequent intervals, “Isn’t it ripping having her here?” and lives entirely in the present. Theo, by the way, is the only one of them before whom I feel I have to be careful not to over-do Manner A.
Manner B. is reserved for those hours which, for the sake of appearances, his official fiancée is obliged to spend alone with Mr. Waters; going for dull walks—that is, for me they’re kept from being too deadly dull by the certainty that I am making them so for him!—and sitting with him in the den, where I will not play accompaniments to his songs except as a last resource after I’ve exhausted every possibility of the stilted remark, the awkward pause, the resigned glance, and the languor that stops short only at the visible yawn. Since that first tête-à-tête I have brought the contrasting of Manners A. and B. to a fine art. I’ve been revelling in the idea that for a whole fortnight this is what my employer will be forced to put up with. After all, it’s what the whole lives of some married men amount to! And, according to the terms of the Governor’s own agreement, there’s nothing in all this of which he can openly complain!
* * * * *