“Are you sure you’ve got it right?” said Punch. “I mean, these ’ere love-squalls are very tricky. Perhaps you don’t really care about either of us. I’m sure you think you do, but perhaps you don’t. I remember Dusty Bligh wobbling between Ray Darling, that was, and Monica Pump. Neither of the girls would have been seen dead with him, but that never entered his head. His trouble was that he couldn’t decide which to have. It was like a billiard match. In the afternoon Monica’ld be leading, and in the evening Ray’ld get her eye in and fairly walk away. It might have been going on now, if a widow with three kids hadn’t rolled up and pinched the prize.”
“Serve him right,” said Miss Choate. “But I’m not wobbling. Don’t you believe it. If the man I love would only propose to-night, I’ld fairly jump at him.”
“The devil you would,” said Fairfax.
“But he won’t,” said Athalia sadly. “Don’t be afraid.” A tender note slid into the fresh tones. “I think he’s love-shy. He’ll want a lot of leading. And then, as I’ve said, perhaps it won’t be the same.”
Punch frowned upon his finger-nails.
“You know, it’s all damned fine,” he said uneasily, “but in the course of this running-up stunt I may get fond of you.” He hesitated. Then—“Not soppy, you know, but—but troubled . . . go off my feed and that sort of thing. At the present moment I’m sorry, and there you are; but if I saw a lot of you, as you seem to suggest I should—well, I might easily get distracted. And then if the other gent comes off I’m carted good and proper, I am.”
Athalia shrugged her white shoulders.
“That’s your look-out. On the other hand, I may get fond of you. It’s a gamble, of course: but so are a lot of things. And I’ve told you the absolute truth. I needn’t have. Not one woman in a million would have. They’ld ’ve played you up all right without putting you wise. And you’ld ’ve blessed or cursed them according as it fell out. But I agreed to be honest—for a quarter of an hour. . . . Incidentally, I see the time’s up.”
“Make it twenty minutes,” said Fairfax hastily.
“Not for worlds,” said Athalia, with a bewitching smile. She rose and, standing a-tiptoe, peered at herself in the mirror above the hearth. “And now, which is it to be?”