He would take her sailing.
And casting about for a means of accomplishing his wish in accordance with the conventions—Stuart was not in favour of that ‘splendid unconventionality’ usually ending in a muddle, whereof Young Bohemia delights to prate—he bethought him of Nigger Strachey. Nigger had a wife, which just now would come in handy, though Stuart had hitherto rather resented her entrapping of his friend. It brought home to him strongly the lurking danger that besets all men. Strachey had been as sturdily opposed to marriage as Stuart himself; and then, queerly, it had befallen him. So Stuart walked warily, mistrustful of the crafty huntress who hid in the dark, and then pounced. His fear of marriage was the most unsubtle of all his qualities; an elementary fear, of the kind that offers food for music-hall comedians, and inspired Bernard Shaw to the writing of “Man and Superman.” Peter knew of his fear, and hated it as she might hate a gaoler, because it checked her from spontaneously revealing all that she felt for him.
The idea of taking Peter sailing utterly possessed Stuart; and he went straight from Euston to Strachey’s rooms in Chelsea.
“Look here, Nigger, have you still got that bungalow at Potter Heigham?”
“The one you gave me for a wedding-present? Yes. Most unpractical gift I had. Looked to you for a nice bit of Dresden, or at least a plated tea-service.”
“I want you and your wife to invite me up for a week’s sailing; day after to-morrow; and bring whom I like.”
“Do,” grunted Nigger; “delighted. Need we be there?”
“Yes.”
“Um!” Strachey removed the pipe from his mouth and expressed his disturbance by a long and doubtful whistle. “My wife——” he began ponderously.
“Oh, that’s all right.... What do you take me for?”