And, by Jove, he took it—just made him, you know. These butlers are not half bad fellows if you go at them right—I can always manage them. He sympathized with me—you could see that—dashed if the fellow wasn't almost weeping as he closed the door.
And then I just flopped down upon a divan and lay there panting like a what's-its-name—reaction, you know. So he had known! He had known when he let me come to Wolhurst, and had waited for the moment when he would have me under his roof and be able utterly to confound me. This, then, explained his mental condition, his relapse to drink again—his madness on the subject of pajamas. It was awful! By Jove, as I lay there thinking of his suspicions and diseased imaginings induced by his monstrous folly of drink—the awful curse of drink—and of what it had almost brought upon two innocent lives, I felt indignant—almost sick. Lay there helpless, wishing Jenkins would come, and wondering if I wasn't getting a bit feverish—mouth dry and craving moisture, you know. But not a thing could I find in the room except a glass—and empty. Carafe beside it, but nothing in it but water, you know, and a large, round ball of ice. So just had to fall back on the couch and try not to think of my throbbing, swollen tongue.
Mind got to wandering then, I think. Thought of Frances and how much I loved her, and of cooling streams—fizzy and gurgling—and of amber fountains, crested with sparkling, pearly sunbursts—you know! I even got to wondering if she really loved me—fact! And then came the disquieting thought of how devilish disappointing and awful it would be if Jenkins should forget a stock of my Egyptian Koroskos. What was it she had told me that night about being engaged to another and wanting to be free, now that she had met me—the darling! Then, dash me if I could remember to save me whether Jenkins had or had not said something to me that morning about packing my ashes-of-roses socks and ties—or was it about my lilac silk underwear with the mauve fleur-de-lis? Devilish annoying I couldn't remember. Of course it was this that was making her so reticent and offish about any reference to the other night—I mean it was this thing of being entangled with this other chap. So jolly sensitive and high-minded, don't you know, she didn't want to talk about our future until she had dumped the other fellow in the road—that was it.
Struck me suddenly that there was some jolly proverb thing about it: something about the old love and the new—some dashed wise, old, musty rot about that. What the deuce was it?
And luckily, just then Jenkins came!
And when he had laid out my things, and I found I was to wear a scarf of Harvard crimson—the color she admired—I was so devilish pleased and grateful to Jenkins for the decision that I thought that now I would let him have a try at the proverb.
"I say, Jenkins," I began carelessly, "there's some jolly saying or proverb—eh, you know?"
"Certainly, sir," responded Jenkins absently, for he was intensely concentrated on the selection of a scarf-pin.
I went on: "It's about—oh, don't you know—about when you've tried being engaged to one person and you don't like it, and you are thinking of being engaged to another—something of that sort, dash it—oh, you know!" And I wondered if it would be the sardonyx or the ruby, and hoped it would be the ruby.
"Mm-m-m," murmured Jenkins, blinking thoughtfully. "Let's see, sir—it ain't that one about the hair of the dog, is it?"