“I wish you’d stop calling me by that silly name.”
“But—Glor—Glory—you must have got my note. You were in the rose garden. You let me put my arm round you. I’ve been treasuring the memory all evening when I wasn’t racked with agony at the thought of you being ill—or dead.”
“I never met you in the rose garden. You’re mad!”
“I’m not. You did. Oh, Glor——”
“Stop calling me that. It sounds like a patent medicine or a new kind of metal polish ... and as you don’t care for me enough to get a dance in decent time, and as you go mooning about the garden with other girls—girls who seem to go dying all over the place from your account—and pretend you think they’re me——”
“I didn’t pretend. I thought it was. It must have been. Oh, Glor——”
“Stop saying that! I’ve simply finished with you. Well, if you don’t care about me enough to know who is me and—thank you, when I want to die I’ll do it at home and not in a beastly old rose garden—so there—And I’ve finished with you, Robert Brown,—so there.”
Columbine flounced off and Henry V, pale and distraught, pursued her with a ghostly, “Oh, Glor——”
The Brigand passed on, a faint smile on his face.
******