“In that case I will never do so again,” he said. “Forgive me and forget that I said it, dear.” Then to change the conversation, he added: “I expect this will be our last day’s hunting together before we are married. We shall both be too busy to be able to spare the time.”
“I have no idea how I am going to get through all I have to do,” she said. “I shall practically live in shops for the next month, and I do detest shopping. Mamma, on the other hand, seems to revel in it. I fancy she would like to have a wedding to arrange every month in the year. By the way, Godfrey, have you decided who is going to be your best man?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Victor Fensden. He is my oldest friend, and I heard from him only this morning that he will be delighted to officiate in that capacity. He is in Paris just now, but returns to England at the end of the week, when I have invited him to come down here for a few days. I hope you will like him.”
“I am certain to like any friend of yours,” she replied. “I shall be very interested in Mr. Fensden. I came across a volume of his poems the other day. It was very strangely bound and illustrated in an extraordinary manner by himself.”
“That’s his own idea. And did you like the poetry?”
“Well, if I must be candid, and I’m sure you won’t mind, I must confess that I did not understand much of it. It seems so confused. Not a bit like Tennyson, or Keats, or Shelley.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Godfrey. “Fensden is very clever, too clever for me, I’m afraid. One or two literary people rave about his work, I know, but for my part I like less words and a little more human nature. Give me 'Gunga Din,’ or the 'Charge of the Light Brigade,’ for my money, and anybody else can have all the nymphs and satyrs, and odes to Bacchus and Pan that were ever crammed into the realms of poetry.”
Loath as I am to say it, such was the infatuation of this girl that she positively agreed with him. Fate, with that characteristic kindness for which it is celebrated, had been good enough to endow them with minds of similar calibre, which, of course, was very desirable, and just as it should be.
On the Wednesday morning following the conversation I have just described Molly and her mother departed for London, where the former was to be handed over to the tender care of Madame Delamaine and her assistants. They were to be away for three days, returning home on the Friday evening, and, as a little compensation for their absence, it was agreed that Godfrey should meet them in town on the Thursday and take them to a theatre.
Accordingly the morning train conveyed him to the Metropolis. He had the pleasure of the vicar’s society on the way up, and the latter, not being restrained by his wife, was able to give him his opinion on matters in general and the immediate stress on politics in particular. In consequence, as Godfrey admitted afterward, he spent two such hours of boredom as he hopes never to experience again. On his arrival in London he drove to his tailors and ordered his wedding garments, going on afterward to a well-known firm of jewellers in Regent Street, from whom he bought a wedding-ring with as much care as he would have given to the purchase of Crown jewels, and a diamond necklace with little more concern than if it had been a pair of gloves. From Regent Street he drove to his club for luncheon. He was late, but that did not matter, for he felt that the morning had been well spent. On entering the dining-room he looked about him for a vacant table. He had chosen one, and was proceeding toward it when a well-known voice behind him said: