"Don't say that! do tell it to us," says Monica, eagerly, and in perfect good faith. She [knows] less of him than the others, and may therefore be excused for still believing in him.
"Thank you, Miss Beresford. You can soar above a mean desire to crush a rising power. You have read, of course, that popular poem by our poet-laureate, called 'Enid.'"
"Yes," says Monica, staring at him.
"I mean the poem in which he has so faithfully depicted the way in which two escaped lunatics would be sure to behave if left to their own devices. Considered as a warning to us to keep bolts and bars on Colney Hatch and Hanwell, it may be regarded as a delicate attention. Dear Tennyson! he certainly is a public benefactor. There is a scene in that remarkable poem which I think might suit us. You remember where, after much wild careering in the foreground, the principal idiots decide upon riding home together, pillion fashion?"
"I—I think so," says Monica, who plainly doesn't, being much confused.
"'Then on his foot she sat her own and climbed,'—and then she threw her arms round him in a most unmaidenly fashion, if I recollect aright; but of course mad people will be vehement, poor souls; they can't help it. Now, supposing we adopted that scene, wouldn't it be effective? One of Madam O'Connor's big carriage-horses, if brought forward,—I mean the one that kicked over the traces, yesterday,—would, I firmly believe, create quite a sensation, and in all probability bring down the house."
"The stage, certainly," says Desmond.
"Ah! you approve of it," says Kelly, with suspicious gratitude. "Then let us arrange it at once. Miss Beresford might throw her arms round Ryde, for example: that would be charming."
Desmond looking at this moment as if he would willingly murder him, Mr. Kelly is apparently satisfied, and sinks to rest with his head upon his arm once more. No one else has heard the suggestion.
"I think you might help me, instead of giving voice to insane propositions," says Olga, reproachfully, turning her eyes upon Mr. Kelly's bowed form,—he is lying prostrate on the grass,—which is shaking in a palsied fashion. "I really did believe in you," she says, whereupon the young man, springing to his feet, flings his arms wide, and appeals in an impassioned manner to an unprejudiced public as to whether he has not been racking his brain in her service for the last half-hour.