"She came home from a convent in Brussels," he continued, feeling for his little brass box, "and to use the slang of our professional class, her people knew my people. That was the way we talked. If a thing was good, we called it 'ripping.' If it was unpleasant, we said it was 'beastly.' I believe the slang has changed since then, but the silly artificial spirit of it will never change. Why can't educated people speak English?
"She came home from a convent in Brussels. Her home was about a mile off, a big house in East Barnet, and she called with her mother one day when I happened to come home from a journey early. She gave me a look....
"You see, she wasn't beautiful. She was well-dressed and well-mannered and she had grey eyes. Beyond that I haven't any distinct memory of what she was like. And the astounding thing to me, when I look back on that business, is the utter lack of any common interests. How could I expect her to take any notice of me? I was a book-worm. I couldn't do any of the social tricks she admired. I knew as much about music as a cow, and considered tennis a bore. And yet I wanted her. I wanted that eighteen-year-old girl as I've never wanted anything since. I made myself a door-mat for her feet, I took her impudence and said nothing, I waited for her and made no complaint when she forgot to keep an appointment. My mother saw it and did her best to help me (though it wasn't much), for she wanted me to get married. This would have been a good match, for it so happened that 'her people' were in a position to advance me in my profession, as I called it.
"And strange to say, my persistence did make some impression. I did make some headway. I chucked my books to one side, went in for tennis, and even took girls up the river to Kingston and Bourne End, she being one of them. It made a hole in the little bank account I had started, but I suppose it was worth it. I met a lot of pretty girls; but I was not after a pretty girl; I was after her. The river was a lot in my favour, I believe. It so happened that Belvoir's young brother, a Charterhouse boy, whom I knew slightly, nearly ran our punt down one Saturday with his launch. It made a big impression on Gladys, my knowing young Belvoir. You see she had been at school with Belvoir's cousin, so it all worked in. In a way I suppose I was happy ... yes, it's a wonderful thing, a tremendous thing to be in love; but all the same, I wouldn't like to go through it again!
"So it stood, when one day in the autumn, the whole thing capsized. My brother came back.
"He didn't come back like any other prodigal I ever heard of. No, he came back in his own way, like a conquering hero, which he was. He came back on an automobile.
"You laugh? But you must remember that in those days there weren't fifty automobiles in England. When my brother came up the London Road with a whiz and a bang, a long trail of blue stench coming out of the back of the machine, I really think that was the third or fourth time I had ever seen such a thing. Well, there he was, a great big chap with a hooked nose and flashing black eyes behind the goggles. Where had he been? Neither to Canada nor to New Zealand. He'd been to France. He'd gone there and learned the motor-car business in one of the first shops ever built. Picked it up you may say, as he picked everything up, but he got it none the less. He'd seen the possibilities of the thing, and here he was appointed London agent for the French firm at three hundred a year. He, laughed when he saw me. 'Hullo, Charley!, he sneers. 'How's the puff-puffs?' He sneered at everything about me. I had learned to read French pretty well and knew my classics in the original, but here was my young brother sneering at me in French argot which he knew I couldn't resent because I couldn't understand it.
"He would come down to the tennis club that evening, though I didn't want him. Somehow I dreaded introducing him to Gladys. There was no need for me to worry. He introduced himself. In another five minutes he was talking French with her, and she was screaming with laughter at the stories he told her. He saw her home....
"You can understand that the next day I was in a bad condition for work. And it so happened that I had a job that needed all the concentration I could give it. I don't remember a single detail of it. I had been neglecting my work then, like all young chaps in love, but on this occasion I made a costly mistake. I marked the driving pulley on a line-shaft a foot too small. The aggravating part was I sent it to the head office in Yorkshire without revising it and they got on to my boss. He took the bit in his teeth and went for me. He gave me a week to find another job. I was 'down and out.'
"I was paralyzed for a while. I didn't know where to turn. The bottom had dropped out of my world for good and all. Another job! Why, I knew men in that employ who had held their jobs for forty years.