"Yes, Beamish, I am to be married at last."
And quite time, too, ancient imbecile. I felt inclined to kick him as he stood there, smirking and twiddling his watch-chain.
"I have been making matrimonial approaches towards the Princess Margaretta almost since the moment in which she arrived at Beachington. I felt that such a woman as that must be mine, though, at the same time, I scarcely dared to hope. But the Princess is a woman of the widest sympathies. I am inclined to the belief that it is because I have made her sympathies my own that I have made her heart mine also. I presented her this afternoon with a cheque for a thousand guineas to be devoted to a cause in which she is much interested--the relief of the Russian Jews. It was, perhaps, for a person in my circumstances, a rash thing to do. But I do not regret it, for I am persuaded that it was that spontaneous act upon my part which induced her to say 'yes' to my whispered prayers."
I moved away from him; I could not congratulate him--I could not! I fancy that he was so lifted up in the seventh heaven of his happiness that he never noticed the omission.
On the other side of the pier I came upon Macbride. Macbride is a Yankee--a New England man; as keen and cute, and yet as nice a fellow as you would care to meet. He spends three or four months of every year in England on business, and, during that time, he is continually in and out of Beachington.
He was leaning over the railings, looking down at the sea, when I came up to him.
"Macbride," I said, "did you ever hear anything in the States of a man named Dowsett?"
He knew what I was driving at immediately. That man knows everything!
"The Princess's Dowsett?"
"That's it. I see you know that her husband's name was Dowsett."