“It was the business I was thinking about.”
Mr. Amherst, never one to allow pasture land to flourish extensively under his boots, wrote a letter that night, posted it at the corner of Trafalgar Square, and walked three times around the pedestal of the Nelson Statue, partly because he had a great belief in the value of exercise, partly to enjoy the thought that he had, in sending the note, started the ball a-rolling. Coming into the hotel he was told by the porter that Miss Amherst had retired to rest, and he went upstairs humming cheerfully. The porter, it would seem, had been misinformed, for later the girl was leaning over the low balcony chatting with a youth who carried a kit bag. You would have said he was the young waiter at the Soho Restaurant, only that he wore no moustache and she called him Willie, which, as one knows, is rarely counted an Italian name.
“It’s all right, dear girl,” he said. “Now that I know his limit, I can easily arrange.”
“I don’t want him to waste his money,” she explained.
“Leave everything to me,” he begged. “Don’t forget the match to-morrow. By the by, just go in and borrow a lucifer for me. My box is empty.”
She returned with a supply taken from the smoking-room, and leaning over the balcony struck one and just managed to reach his cigar. No one was about, excepting the driver of a four-wheeler on the rank opposite; the cabman remarked confidentially to his horse: “Romeo and Juliet. Played nightly all over the blooming world.” The horse waggled his nose-bag to show that he, too, was acquainted with standard literature.
Mr. Amherst had announced the intention of taking his daughter home by the eight-thirty the following morning, and she was to knock at the wall not later than half-past seven; Miss Amherst was able at nine o’clock breakfast to exhibit her watch and blame it for her omission. She read from a morning paper the fixtures of the day, repeating the announcement concerning the match, whereupon her father announced that he was as ready to be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, and gave her permission to catch the ten-five, and to travel alone. Miss Amherst agreed, but finding in another part of the journal an account of a deplorable case of a communication cord refusing to act, became suddenly terrified and begged her father to accompany her. He said “No!” There was reason in all things. Devoted as he was to his daughter, and ready as he might be to make sacrifices, this was asking too much. He had decided to see James McWinter play once more, before advancing a further stage in the negotiations, and the opportunity was one not to be missed.
“But I tell you what, Mary,” he said firmly; “you do some shopping, buy presents for relatives, and we can both go back together this evening.”
“The best places in London close on Saturday afternoons.”
“Then come to the match with me.”