"I wasn't in love with her," continued the ingenuous Mr. Dashwood, "but, somehow or another, before I'd known her ten days I was engaged to her. Awfully funny business. You see, she had a lot of mind of her own, and I admire intellect in a woman, and she was a right good sort. I told her all about my life, and she wanted me to lead a higher one. Said she never could marry me unless I did. The strange thing about her was she always made me feel as if I was in a Sunday school, though she wasn't pious in the least. As a matter of fact, she didn't believe in religion; that is to say, church, and all that; but she was a Socialist.
"Awfully strong on dividing up every one's money so that every one would have five pounds a week. I used to fight her over that, for she had three hundred a year of her own, and stuck to it; besides, I didn't see the force of making all the rotters in the world happy, and drunk, with five quid a week out of my pocket; but she never would give in; always had some card up her sleeve to trump me with.
"You see, I'm not a political Johnny, and hadn't studied up the question. But we never fought really over that. Men and women don't ever really fight over that sort of thing; and I'd always give in for a quiet life, and we'd go off and have tea at the British Museum and look at the mummies and the marbles and things, and after six months or so I got quite fond of her in a way, and I began to look forward to marrying her.
"I used to mug up Herbert Spencer and a chap called Marx, and I never looked at another woman, and scarcely ever made a bet: and it might have gone on to us getting two latchkeys only——"
Mr. Dashwood stopped.
"Only I met another girl," he went on. "That put me in a beastly position, and the long and short of it is I went on the razzle-dazzle from the botheration of it all. Miss H. found out, and she cut the knot herself. I'm glad to be free," finished Mr. Dashwood, "but I wish it had happened some other way. In fact, I wish I'd never met Miss H. at all."
"And who is the other girl?" asked Mr. French.
"Oh, you know her."