"Great things, reasons! The reason why so many marriages aren't a success is because they haven't enough 'reasons why' behind them. Now, how far had I got with mine—ah, yes. Reason Number a Hundred: I'm twenty-six; I shall never been any better-looking than I am now. Not unless I'm better-dressed. Which (Reason a Hundred and One) I should be if I married Hugo. Reason a Hundred and Two: my old lady won't live for ever, and I should never get a better job than hers. Except his. Reason Number a Hundred and Two and a Half: I do quite like him. He doesn't expect anything more, so there's the other half-reason for taking him. Reason a Hundred and Four: he's never disapproved of me. Whereas Monty always likes me against his better judgment. Much nicer for me, but annoying for a husband. I should make Hugo an excellent wife." She added this half-aloud (to the snapshot).
"I should never shock him. Never bore him. Never interfere with him. Never make him look silly—any sillier than he can't help looking with that hair and that necktie he will wear. Leslie would have the sense, when she wasn't amusing him at the moment, to retire to her own rooms (Reason a Hundred and Five for marrying well), and to stay there until she was fetched. Reason a——"
Here, in the full flow of her reasoning, Miss Long cast suddenly and rather violently down her pen, and tore the sheet with Hugo's name in it into tiny strips that she cast into the empty fireplace.
"I can't think to write a good letter to-day!" she excused herself to herself as she got up from her chair. "I'm tired.... It was all that talking from Taffy last night. Bother the child. Bother her. It's unsettling!—Bother all engaged girls. (And all the people shall say Amen.) I wonder where they went to?... I shall ring up somebody to take me on the river, I think. Plenty of time to say 'Yes' to Hugo later."
The letter to Hugo, between the lines of which there had come the vision of an engaged girl's happy face, remained, for the present, unfinished.
"O-o-o Chelsea," she called. "I want to speak to Mr. Scott, please."
She thought, "This shall be my last free Sunday, and I'll have it in peace!"
In Richmond Park the grass was doubly cool and green beneath the shade both of the oaks and of the breast-high bracken where Gwenna and Paul Dampier sat, eating the fruit and cake that they had bought on the way, and talking with long stretches of contented silence.