“How should I not with so many delightful people being friendly to me? Relations too; Cousin Amy, for instance, and Major Ames, and, let me see, if Mrs. Ames is my cousin, surely you are cousin Harry?”
Harry became peculiarly fascinating, and craned his long neck forward.
“Oh, leave out the ‘cousin,’” he said.
“How sweet of you—Harry,” she said.
That, so to speak, extracted the poison-fangs from the projected “Rivals,” and six mysterious postcards were placed by the author’s hand in the pillar-box that evening. Each consisted of one mystic sentence. “She calls me by my Christian name.” By a most convenient circumstance, too apt to be considered accidental, there had here come to birth an octo-syllabic line, of honeyed sweetness and simplicity. He was not slow to take advantage of it, and the moon setting not long before daybreak saw another completed gem of the M. E. series.
Mrs. Evans that afternoon, like Major Ames that morning, “sat and thought,” after Harry had left her. Independently of the fact that all admirers, even the weirdest, always found welcome in her pale blue eyes, she felt really grateful to Harry, for he had given her the information on which she based a plan which was quite as sound and simple as Major Ames’, and was designed to secure the same object. Since the night of the fancy dress ball she had only seen him once or twice, and never privately, and the greater vitality which, by the wondrous processes of affinity, he had stirred in her, hungered for its sustenance. It cannot be said that she was even now really conscious in herself of disloyalty to her husband, or that she actually contemplated any breach of faith. She had not at present sufficient force of feeling to imagine a decisive situation; but she could at most lash her helm, so to speak, so that the action of the wind would take her boat in the direction in which she wished to go, and then sit idly on deck, saying that she was not responsible for the course she was pursuing. The wind, the tide, the currents were irresistibly impelling her; she had nothing to do with the rudder, having tied it, she did not touch it. Like the majority in this world of miserable sinners, she did not actively court the danger she desired, but she hung about expectant of it. At the same time she kept an anxious eye on the shore towards which she was driving. Was it really coming closer? If so, why did she seem to have made no way lately?
To-day her plan betokened a more active hand in what she thought of as fate, but unfortunately, though it was as sound in itself as Major Ames’, it was made independently and ignorantly of that which had prompted his slight opposition this morning, so that, while each plan was admirable enough in itself, the two, taken in conjunction, would, if successful, result in a fiasco almost sublime in its completeness. The manner of which was as follows.
Elsie, it so happened, was not at home that evening, and she and her husband dined alone, and strolled out in the garden afterwards.
“You will miss your chess this evening, dear,” she said. “Or would it amuse you to give me a queen and a few bishops and knights, and see how long it takes you to defeat me? Or shall we spend a little cosy chatty evening together? I hope no horrid people will be taken ill, and send for you.”
“So do I, little woman,” he said (she was getting to detest appellation). “And as if I shouldn’t enjoy a quiet evening of talk with you more than fifty games of chess! But, dear me, I shall be glad to get away to Harrogate this year! I need a month of it badly. I shall positively enjoy the foul old rotten-egg smell.”