“Then why the devil are you trying to make me miserable on this beautiful afternoon?”
He twisted round on the bench and faced her. “Then you’re not angry with me—you don’t think I’ve been a blackguard?”
“I think the two of you are innocent lambs,” said Clementina.
Tommy grinned. He, the seasoned man of the world of twenty-three, to be called an innocent lamb! Much Clementina knew about it.
“All the same,” said he, reverting to his gloom, “you’re different from other people; you have your own way of looking at things. Ordinary folk would say I had behaved abominably. Admiral Concannon would kick me out of the house if I went and asked him for his daughter. It’s Gilbertian! There’s a Bab Ballad almost on the same theme,” he laughed. “I guess I’d better not speak to the Admiral yet awhile.”
“I guess not,” said Clementina. “Leave well alone for the present.”
This advice she gave to Etta when that young person, before going to bed, told her the marvellous news. But Etta’s anxiety as to future ways and means was the least of her preoccupations, which consisted, in the main, of wonder at Tommy’s transcendent perfections, and at her extraordinary good fortune in winning the favour of such a miracle of a man. Clementina left her radiant and went to bed with a headache and a bit of a heartache. The one little Elf of Romance that had crossed her grey path she had snubbed unmercifully. Would ever another chance come by? Would he not go back and tell his congeners of the flinty-bosomed, sour-avised female who had nearly frightened him to death; and bid them all beware of her devastating presence? It was no use her saying that she loved the Elf with all her heart, but had to dissemble her love, for the Elf, like the lover in the poem, would naturally ask the historic question. Yet she did love him, and in the secrecy of her soul longed for such another—but one perhaps who would put before her a less Puckish proposition. How could she attract one? With what lure could she entice him?
“Bosh!” she said, after a couple of sleepless hours. “It’s high time I was back at work again.”
Now, be it here definitely stated that Clementina misjudged the Elf. He was mightily amused by her treatment of him, and ran away with his elfin thumb to his elfin nose in the most graceless and delicious manner possible. He swore revenge. In his cobweb seat he thought hard. Then he slapped his thighs and laughed, and returned to Elfland where he raised a prodigious commotion.
The result of this will be duly set forth in the following pages.