“Here or nowhere!”
“Oh, Polly, Polly! Why are you so cruel?” began Jimmy, as he forced a look of agony into his eyes.
“Come now—that will do from you, little boy! If that is what you have to say, then just keep it. I’ve no time to throw away,” said Polly, in a voice like steel, and then she drew aside her dress and walked away.
Jimmy stood disconsolate, wishing he dared commit suicide before her eyes, and make her repent those unkind words. But he was awfully hungry, and he thought better of suicide so he went back to finish his late dinner.
Eleanor saw him, later, as he left the dining-room and, with the imp of mischief uppermost in her mind, waylaid him and spent the evening talking of nothing but Polly—her beauty, her accomplishments, and her tremendous wealth that no one as yet, had been able to compute.
Had Jimmy any doubt of who his soul-mate was, before, that talk settled it. He was now determined to have Polly, even if he had to steal her and keep her locked up until she consented to his offer of marriage.
The farce now amused everyone but Angela and Mrs. Alexander. Jimmy was so openly wild about Polly that he acted like a possessed idiot rather than a young man with a grain of sense. If Polly had fawned upon him, he might have wearied of her company, but because she scorned him so heartily and showed it plainly, he felt all the more attracted to her.
Mrs. Alexander snubbed Polly whenever she scorned Jimmy; and Angela made much of the lady because she showed her partisanship for the young man, so openly. Thus the two, Angela and Mrs. Alexander came closer together because of the common bond—Jimmy.
When Mr. Fabian suggested that all go to see the Minster of York, Angela and Mrs. Alexander refused. Jimmy saw the look Polly cast at him, and murmured something about drowning his sorrow. But he failed to say whether it would be in the river or in home-brew.
They viewed the ancient place and Mr. Fabian remarked: “It was here that the greatest disaster that ever befell man occurred in 306 A.D.”