“I was horrid,” she continued, “and I pretended——”
She stopped, conscious of the significance of what she was about to say. She had pretended to be unconscious of her empire over his heart, and was now retracting. Miss Nellie is the modern girl, with whom proposal is unnecessary.
Ted cut her short with the brutality of male desperation.
“All right, Nellie,” he said curtly. “It’s not your fault. I drank brandy.”
This was a surprise to me. Brandy steadies the nerves, but it is a remedy not recommended by the captains of cricket elevens, and his boyish devilry, as training, was as reprehensible as it was in the spirit of the comedy. But Nellie saw further than Ted.
“Oh, Ted,” she said humbly, “and that is my fault too. I made you angry. Will you forgive me?”
It has always seemed to me that when a pretty, half-tearful creature asks you if you will forgive her, the question is beside the mark, the forgiveness not depending on whether you will or not. You are not willing; you would much rather not; but—you do precisely as Ted did; he squeezed her ungloved hand across my knee, and an Eton boy sniggered.
I don’t know why I should have experienced a sensation as near akin to jealousy as I can locate it. I pursued the moral labyrinth for a time, and, getting no nearer, was fain to come to earth.
“And the next innings, Ted——” Nellie was saying.
Alas! What then? What, in Ted’s words, had women, even Queens of Love and Beauty, to do with cricket? More subtle in their influence than the forbidden brandy, why do not the captains demand that their followers shall be bachelors unattached? Ted was too blessedly happy to know; certainly too happy to be let alone. I spoke for his own good.