“‘We will go all over it together soon!’ Will we, though!” he muttered bitterly. And then, with a savageness begotten of a feeling of being cornered, trapped, run to earth, he began to wonder whether he should suffer himself to be taken possession of in this slap-dash fashion. Had he really given himself away beyond recall! Old Glover entertained splendidly, and the sparkling burgundy was more than first-rate. What a fool he had been. Still it seemed impossible that Edith should have taken seriously all he said—impossible and preposterous! Yes, preposterous—if all that a man said while sitting out with a pretty girl, in a deliciously cool and secluded corner of the conservatory—after that first-rate sparkling burgundy too—was to be twisted into a downright proposal—an engagement. By Jove, it was—preposterous!
But through all his self-evolved indignation Philip could not disguise from himself that he had acted like a lunatic, had, in fact, given himself away. Between his susceptibility to feminine admiration and his laisser faire disposition, he had allowed his relations with Edith Glover to attain that stage where the boundary between the ordinary flirtatious society acquaintance and the affianced lover has touched vanishing point. The girl was pretty, and adored his noble self. Old Glover, who was a merchant-prince of some sort or other and rolling in money, would be sure to “come down” liberally. On the whole he might do worse. So he had reasoned. But now?
Throughout his perusal of that trying effusion his mind’s eye had been more than half absorbed in a vision of Alma Wyatt—Alma as he had last seen her—the sweet, patrician face, the grey earnest eyes, the exquisite tastefulness of her cool white apparel, the grace and poetry of her every movement, the modulated music of her voice. It seemed a profanation to contrast her—to place her on the same level with this other girl—this girl with her middle-class ideas, vile orthography, and exuberant gush.
What was he to do? that was the thing. Should he send a reply—one so chilling and decisive as to leave room for no further misapprehension? That would never do, he decided. The Glovers were just the sort of people to come straight over there and raise such a clamour about his ears that he might safely wish himself in a hornets’ nest by contrast. This they might do, and welcome, were it not for Alma. But then, were it not for Alma it is probable to the last degree that he would have drifted on, contented enough with the existing state of things.
“Heavens and earth, I believe old Fordham is right after all?” he ejaculated at last. “Women are the devil—the very devil, one and all of them. I’ll adopt his theory. Shot if I don’t!”
But profession and faith are not necessarily a synonym. Between our would-be misogynist and the proposed mental transformation stood that bright and wholly alluring potentiality whose name was Alma Wyatt.
With an effort he locked away the obnoxious missive, wishing to Heaven he could lock up the dilemma he was in as easily and indefinitely. Should he consult Fordham? No, that wouldn’t help matters; besides, he shrank from having to own that he had made a consummate ass of himself, nor did he feel disposed just then to open his heart even to Fordham. How beastly hot it had become! He would stay up in his room and take it easy—have a read and a smoke. Hang everybody! And with a growl he kicked off his boots, and, picking up a Tauchnitz novel, flung himself on the bed and lighted his pipe.
Rat-tat-tat-tat! Then a voice. “You there, Phil? The first dinner-bell has gone!”
He started up. The knock and the voice were Fordham’s. It was a quarter-past six, and he had been asleep just three hours.