I allowed that I felt a little nausea myself, but I told him that this time, at least, he’d shown some sense; that Miss Churchill was a mighty pretty girl and rich enough so that her liking him didn’t prove anything worse against her than bad judgment; and that the thing for him to do was to quit his foolishness, propose to her, and dance the heel, toe, and a one, two, three with her for the rest of his natural days.
Jack hemmed and hawked a little over this, but finally he came out with it:
“That’s the deuce of it,” says he. “I’m in a beastly mess—I want to marry her—she’s the only girl in the world for me—the only one I’ve ever really loved, and I’ve proposed—that is, I want to propose to her, but I’m engaged to Edith Curzon on the quiet.”
“I reckon you’ll marry her, then,” I said; “because she strikes me as a young woman who’s not going to lose a million dollars without putting a tracer after it.”
“And that’s not the worst of it,” Jack went on.
“Not the worst of it! What do you mean! You haven’t married her on the quiet, too, have you?”
“No, but there’s Mabel Moore, you know.”
I didn’t know, but I guessed. “You haven’t been such a double-barreled donkey as to give her an option on yourself, too?”
“No, no; but I’ve said things to her which she may have misconstrued, if she’s inclined to be literal.”
“You bet she is,” I answered. “I never saw a nice, fat, blonde girl who took a million-dollar offer as a practical joke. What is it you’ve said to her? ‘I love you, darling,’ or something about as foxy and noncommittal.”