"Good-night," I answered, and I dipped my pen in the ink.
"My dear F.H.," I wrote, "If the fishing is anything like it was two years ago, may I come over and hold a rod in your honor? My doctor tells me I want a change and I am beginning to believe him, accordingly when I happened on your letter of two years ago, I made up my mind to force your hospitality. If inconvenient don't hesitate to say so.—Yours, A.H. Bellairs. P.S.—Are there two old maiden ladies in Ballysheen of the name of Fennell?"
When I had finished, I read it through. Could any man guess from that innocent little postscript, the mad errand I had in contemplation? I think I know now why women are such past-masters in the use of that particular form of letter writing. As a method of diplomacy, there is nothing to touch it. What you say in a postscript can have no possible significance to the man who reads it. Were it a matter of dignity alone, no one would admit to themselves that you had treated them with such scant courtesy. No—that postscript was the one bright spot in my letter, and therewith I sealed it up.
When I came back to the fire, there was Dandy still staring at the leaping antics of the canary-colored flame. I sat down on the hearthrug and put one arm round his neck.
"You can see that satin gown, too, can you?" said I. Dandy blinked his eyes. "And do you think she'll be grateful?" I went on. "Do you really imagine that any woman is grateful to a rank outsider for breaking her heart? It will break her heart, you know. She's breaking it now, longing for her blue skies and her palm trees—but if we send her back there without him, it'll break her heart altogether. Yet that's what we shall have to do. We shall have to send her back again. What do you think about it all?"
Dandy yawned towards the fire, and the yellow flame danced higher than ever. At moments it looked as though it were going to leap up the chimney out of sight, yet always it came back into the heart of the fire once more like a spirit chained to the furnace.
Three days later there came a reply from Ballysheen.
"There's not a fish in the water," wrote Townshend. "But come all the same, you never know. Your company is as good as any twenty-pounder in the slackest of seasons." "What, is he lonely too?" I thought. "There are Miss Fennells here," the letter continued, "but for God's sake don't talk of them as old maiden ladies—Miss Emily wears an orange-colored wig, so they say in Ballysheen—and she would have you know that at thirty-seven a woman is in her prime. I don't promise you entertainment from them—but come anyway."
And I am going. I have just rung the bell for Moxon, and Dandy already is beginning to lift his nose to the scent of adventure in the wind.