The Thousandth Woman

by E. W. Hornung

There was no reason why he should not; there never had been any sort or kind of understanding between herself and him; it was only as lifelong friends that they had written to each other, and that only once a year. Lifelong friendships are traditionally fatal to romance. Blanche could remember only one occasion on which their friendship had risen to something more—or fallen to something less! She knew which it had been to her; especially just afterward, when all his troubles had come and he had gone away without another word of that kind. He had resolved not to let her tie herself, and so had tied her all the tighter, if not tighter still by never stating his resolve. But to go as far as this is to go two or three steps further than Blanche went in her perfectly rational retrospect: she simply saw, as indeed she had always seen, that they had both been free as air; and if he was free no longer, she had absolutely no cause for complaint, even if she was fool enough to feel it.

All this she saw quite clearly in her very honest heart. And yet, he might have told her; he need not have flown to see her, the instant he landed, or seemed so overjoyed, and such a boy again, or made so much of her and their common memories! He need not have begun begging her, in a minute, to go out to Australia, and then never have mentioned it again; he might just as well have told her if he had or hoped to have a wife to welcome her! Of course he saw it afterward, himself; that was why the whole subject of Australia had been dropped so suddenly and for good. Most likely he had married beneath him; if so, she was very sorry, but he might have said that he was married. Had Blanche been analyzing herself, and not just the general position of things, she would have had hereabouts to account to her conscience for a not unpleasing spasm at the sudden thought of his being unhappily married all the time.

One proof was that he had utterly forgotten all about the waltz of Eldorado—even its name! No; it had some vague associations for him, and that was worse than none at all. Blanche had its long note (not "bars and bars," though, Sweep) wailing in her head all night. And so for him their friendship had only fallen to something lower, to that hateful haunting tune that he could not even decently forget!

Curiously enough, it was over Martha that she felt least able to forgive him. Martha would say nothing, but her unspoken denunciations of Cazalet would be only less intolerable than her unspoken sympathy with Blanche. Martha had been perfectly awful about the whole thing. And Martha had committed the final outrage of being perfectly right, from her idiotic point of view.

Now among all these meditations of a long night, and of a still longer day, in which nobody even troubled to send her word of the case at Kingston, it would be too much to say that no thought of Hilton Toye ever entered the mind of Blanche. She could not help liking him; he amused her immensely; and he had proposed to her twice, and warned her he would again. She felt the force of his warning, because she felt his force of character and will. She literally felt these forces, as actual emanations from the strongest personality that had ever impinged upon her own. Not only was he strong, but capable and cultivated; and he knew the whole world as most people only knew some hole or corner of it; and could be most interesting without ever talking about himself or other people.

In the day of reaction, such considerations were bound to steal in as single spies, each with a certain consolation, not altogether innocent of comparisons. But the battalion of Toye's virtues only marched on Blanche when Martha came to her, on the little green rug of a lawn behind the house, to say that Mr. Toye himself had called and was in the drawing-room.

Blanche stole up past the door, and quickly made herself smarter than she had ever done by day for Walter Cazalet; at least she put on a "dressy" blouse, her calling skirt (which always looked new), and did what she could to her hair. All this was only because Mr. Toye always came down as if it were Mayfair, and it was rotten to make people feel awkward if you could help it. So in sailed Blanche, in her very best for the light of day, to be followed as soon as possible by the silver teapot, though she had just had tea herself. And there stood Hilton Toye, chin blue and collar black, his trousers all knees and no creases, exactly as he had jumped out of the boat-train.

"I guess I'm not fit to speak to you," he said, "but that's just what I've come to do—for the third time!"

"Oh, Mr. Toye!" cried Blanche, really frightened by the face that made his meaning clear. It relaxed a little as she shrank involuntarily, but the compassion in his eyes and mouth did not lessen their steady determination.

"I didn't have time to make myself presentable," he explained. "I thought you wouldn't have me waste a moment if you understood the situation. I want your promise to marry me right now!"