'Very possibly he may have done these things,' he said, 'but surely marriage means more than this. Personally, if I were a girl, I would go rather for a certain steadiness and stability of character. To illustrate what I mean, did you happen to see me win the Egg-and-Spoon race at the ship's sports? Now there, it seems to me, in what I might call microcosm, was an exhibition of all the qualities a married man most requires—intense coolness, iron resolution, and a quiet, unassuming courage. The man who under test conditions has carried an egg once and a half times round a deck in a small spoon is a man who can be trusted.'
She seemed to waver, but only for a moment.
'I must think,' she said. 'I must think.'
'Certainly,' said William. 'You will let me see something of you at the hotel, after we have landed?'
'Of course. And if—I mean to say, whatever happens, I shall always look on you as a dear, dear friend.'
'M'yes,' said William Mulliner.
For three days my Uncle William's stay in San Francisco was as pleasant as could reasonably be expected, considering that Desmond Franklyn was also stopping at his and Miss Banks's hotel. He contrived to get the girl to himself to quite a satisfactory extent; and they spent many happy hours together in the Golden Gate Park and at the Cliff House, watching the seals basking on the rocks. But on the evening of the third day the blow fell.
'Mr Mulliner,' said Myrtle Banks, 'I want to tell you something.'
'Anything,' breathed William tenderly, 'except that you are going to marry that perisher Franklyn.'