Helen agreed that Mr. Forbes ought to be married. It was so much her opinion that she had to be careful not to argue too emphatically. It seemed to Mrs. Browne that there were particular as well as general grounds for approving such an idea, and Miss Josephine Lovitt struck her also as its brilliant apotheosis. “Josie’s a nice girl,” declared Mrs. Lovitt, “and a great deal cleverer than she pretends to be. And Jack would like it above all things. But it’s too nice to hope for,” and Mrs. Lovitt sighed with the resignation that is born of hope deferred.
Helen reported the matter duly to George, who laughed in a ribald manner about Mrs. Lovitt’s intentions, and would hear nothing of the advisability of the match, as men never will. So she was not encouraged to suggest anything of co-operation on her own part. Indeed, she was hardly conscious of such an idea, but the married woman’s instinct was already awake in her, and she was quite prepared to do anything she could to further Mrs. Lovitt’s benevolent design. It should be furthered, Helen thought, in the interests of the normal and the orthodox.
Opportunities did not immediately occur, because Mrs. Lovitt took them all herself. She gave tennis parties at the Saturday club, and made up sets so that Mr. Forbes and Miss Lovitt played together. When Mr. Forbes sang “The Bogie Man” to them all after dinner she made Josephine play his accompaniment to save her “rheumatic” finger-joints. Josephine might teach Jimmy “Halma”—she was much too stupid to learn—she would talk to Mr. Browne. All this quite shamelessly, rather with an air of conscious rectitude, of child-like naïveté. It was the old thing, Jimmy Forbes thought, over his peaceful private cigar; it amused her to do it, it always had amused her to do it. Before he had generally resented it a good deal; this time he resented it too, by Jove, but not so much. After all, why should he resent it—deuced bad policy; it only encouraged the little woman to go on with this sort of game. And for the first time in Mr. Forbes’s dawning experience of womankind it occurred to him that it might be advisable under some circumstances not to sulk. He wouldn’t sulk—he would teach the little woman a lesson. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to do. Besides, Miss Lovitt was rather amusing, and no fool either; she wouldn’t misunderstand things. And Mr. Forbes finished his cigar with the conviction that such an experiment would be absolutely safe so far as the girl was concerned—of course, he was bound to think of the girl—and more or less agreeable.
JOSEPHINE MIGHT TEACH JIMMY “HALMA.”
A little later Helen confided to George that she really wouldn’t be one bit surprised if something came of it; Jack Lovitt remarked to his wife that Forbes seemed rather taken with Josie, and he was quite prepared to give them his blessing; and Mrs. Lovitt replied that it would be lovely, wouldn’t it, but she was afraid it was only temporary, adding rather vaguely that Jimmy Forbes wasn’t a bit like other men. On the whole it wouldn’t be unsuitable, but it was a pity Josie was so tall—she overtopped him by about a foot—a tall woman and a little man did look so idiotic together. That evening Mrs. Lovitt accompanied “The Bogie Man” without any reference to her rheumatic finger-joints.
It was at this juncture—when any lady of discretion living in the same house would have been looking on in silent joy, without lifting a finger—that Helen found herself yielding to the temptation of furthering matters, so successfully, you understand, was Mr. Forbes making his experiment. Here a little and there a little Mrs. Browne permitted herself to do what she could, and opportunities occurred to an extent which inspired and delighted her. She discovered herself to be a person of wonderful tact, and the discovery no doubt stimulated her, though it must be said that circumstances put themselves very readily at her disposal. Mrs. Lovitt, for one thing, had gradually retired from the generalship of the situation, becoming less and less sanguine of its issue as Helen became more and more hopeful. She even had a little confidential conversation with Josephine, in which she told that young lady that though Jimmy was a dear good fellow and she had always been able to depend upon him to be kind to any friends of hers, she was afraid he was not a person to be taken altogether seriously. Josie would understand. And Josie did understand quite well.
As to Mr. Forbes himself, his experiment had succeeded. There was no doubt whatever that the little woman had been taught a lesson; anyone could see that she had learnt it remarkably well. Yet he continued to instruct her, he did not withdraw the experiment. He found it interesting, and not exclusively in its effect upon Mrs. Lovitt. Miss Josephine found it interesting too. She thought she would like to hand Mr. Forbes back to her little sister-in-law, to hand him back a little damaged, perhaps. This was doubtless very naughty of Miss Josephine, but not unnatural under the circumstances. It was only, after all, that she did not make a good cat’s paw.
And thus it went on, to be brief—for this is not a chronicle of the affair of Jimmy Forbes and Mrs. Lovitt’s sister-in-law, the which any gossip of Calcutta will give you at great length and detail—until the Brownes asked Miss Josephine Lovitt and Mr. Forbes to go with them to see Mr. Wylde de Vinton, assisted by a scratch company, perform Hamlet in the opera house, on a Saturday evening. Hitherto Mr. Forbes’s Saturday evenings had not been his own, they had been Mrs. Lovitt’s. She had established a peculiar claim to be amused on Saturday evenings—they were usually consecrated to long talks of a semi-sentimental order, which Jack Lovitt could not possibly have understood even if he had been there. Therefore when Mr. Forbes showed Mrs. Lovitt Helen’s note and stated his intention of accepting, it was in the nature of a finality.
