monkey!"
"A monkey!" he repeated involuntarily.
So it was a monkey that was under restraint, and not a Judge of Her Majesty's Supreme Court of Judicature: a discovery which left him as much in the dark as to what particular service he had rendered as ever, and made him tremble to think what he might have said. But apparently, by singular good fortune, he had not committed himself beyond recovery; for Miss Tyrrell only said:
"I thought you were speaking of the monkey, the little wretch that came up behind papa and snatched away all his notes – the notes he had made for the great case he tried last term, and has to deliver judgment upon when the Courts sit again. Surely he told you how important they were, and how awkward it would have been if the monkey had escaped with them, and torn them into pieces or dropped them into the sea? – as he probably would have done, but for you!"
"Oh, ah, yes!" said Peter, feeling slightly crestfallen, for he had hoped he had performed a more dashing deed than catching a loose monkey. "I believe your father – Sir John?" he hazarded … "Sir William, of course, thank you … did mention the fact. But it really was such a trifling thing to do."
"Papa didn't think so," she said. "He declares he can never be grateful enough to you. And, whatever it was," she added softly, and even shyly, "I, at least, can never think lightly of a service which has – has made us what we are to one another."
What they were to one another! And what was that? A dreadful uncertainty seized upon Peter. Was it possible that, in some way he did not understand, he was engaged to this very charming girl, who was almost a stranger to him? The mere idea froze his blood; for if that was so, how did it affect his position towards Sophia? At all hazards, he must know the worst at once!
"Tell me," he said, with trembling accents, – "I know you have told me already, but tell me once more – precisely what we are to one another at present. It would be so much more satisfactory to my mind," he added, in a deprecatory tone, "to have that clearly understood."
"I thought I had made it quite clear already," she said, with the least suspicion of coldness, "that we can be nothing more to one another than friends."
The relief was almost too much for him. What a dear, good, sensible girl she was! How perfectly she appreciated the facts!
"Friends!" he cried. "Is that all? Do you really mean we are nothing more than friends?"
He caught her hand, in the fervour of his gratitude, and she allowed it to remain in his grasp; which, in the altered state of things, he found rather pleasant than otherwise.
"Ah!" she murmured, "don't ask me for more than I have said – more than I can ever say, perhaps! Let us be content with remaining friends – dear friends, if you like – but no more!"
"I will," said Peter promptly, "I will be content. Dear friends, by all means; but no more!"
"No," she assented; "unless a time should come when – "
"Yes," said Peter, encouragingly, as she hesitated. "You were about to say, a time when – ?"
Her lips moved, a faint flush stole into her cheeks; she was about to complete her sentence, when her hand seemed to melt away in his own, and he stood, grasping the empty air, by his own mantelpiece. The upper deck, the heaving bows, the blue seaboard, Miss Tyrrell herself, all had vanished; and in their stead were the familiar surroundings of his chamber, the grimy London house fronts, and Sophia's list of questions lying still unanswered upon his writing-table! His fifteen minutes had come to an end; the cheque was nowhere to be seen. The minute-hand of his clock had not moved since he last saw it; but this last circumstance, as he saw on reflection, was only natural, for otherwise the Time Deposit would have conferred no real advantage, as he would never have regained the hours he had temporarily foregone.
For some time Peter sat perfectly still, with his head between his hands, occupied in a mental review of this his initial experience of the cheque-book system. It was as different as possible from the spell of perfect rest he had anticipated; but had it been unpleasant on that account? In spite of an element of mystification at starting, which was inevitable, he was obliged to admit to himself that he had enjoyed this little adventure more than perhaps he should have done. With all his attachment to Sophia, he could hardly be insensible to the privilege of suddenly finding himself the friend – and more than that, the dear friend – of so delightful a girl as this Miss Tyrrell.
There was a strange charm, a peculiar and quite platonic tenderness about an intimacy of this peculiar and unprecedented nature, which increased at every fresh recollection of it. It increased so rapidly indeed, that almost unconsciously he drew the cheque-book towards him, and began to fill up another cheque with a view to an immediate return to the Boomerang.
But when he had torn the cheque out, he hesitated. It was all quite harmless: the most severe moralist could not convict him of even the most shadowy infidelity towards his fiançée, if he chose to go back and follow up a purely retrospective episode like this – an episode which interested and fascinated him so strongly – only, what would Sophia say to it? Instinctively, he felt that the situation, innocent as it was, would fail to commend itself to her. He had no intention of informing her, it was true; but he knew that he was a poor dissembler – he might easily betray himself in some unguarded moment, and then – No! it was vexing, no doubt; but, upon the whole, it was wiser and better to renounce those additional hours on board the Boomerang altogether – to allow this past, that never had, but only might have been, to remain unsummoned and unknown for ever. Otherwise, who could tell that, by gradual assaults, even such an affection as he had for Sophia might not be eventually undermined?
But this fear, as he saw the next moment, was almost too extravagant to be seriously taken into account. He felt nothing, and never could feel anything, but warm and sincere friendship for Miss Tyrrell; and it was satisfactory to know that she was in no danger of mistaking his sentiments. Still, of course there was always a certain risk, particularly when he was necessarily in ignorance of all that had preceded and followed the only colloquy they had had as yet. At last he decided upon a compromise: he would not cash that second cheque for the present, at all events; he would reserve it for an emergency, and only use it if he was absolutely driven to do so as a mental tonic. Perhaps Sophia would not compel him to such a necessity again; he hoped – at least, he thought she would not.
So he put the unpresented cheque in an inner pocket, and set to work with desperate energy at his examination-paper; although his recent change must have proved less stimulating to his jaded faculties than he had hoped, since Sophia, after reading his answers, made the cutting remark that she scarcely knew which he had more completely failed to apprehend – the purport of his author, or that of the very simple questions she had set him.
Peter could not help thinking, rather ruefully, that Miss Tyrrell would never have been capable of such severity as that; but, then, Miss Tyrrell was not his fiançée, only a very dear friend, whom he would, most probably, never meet again.
CHAPTER II.
The Second Cheque
Furnishing.—A Cosy Corner.—"Sitting Out."—Fresh Discoveries.—Twice a Hero.—Bewilderment and Bathos.
The knowledge that one has a remedy within reach is often as effectual as the remedy itself, if not more so; which may account for the fact that, although a considerable number of weeks had elapsed since Peter Tourmalin had drawn his second cheque on the Anglo-Australian Joint Stock Time Bank Limited, that cheque still remained unpresented.
The day fixed for his wedding with Sophia was drawing near; the flat in the Marylebone Road, which was to be the scene of their joint felicity, had to be furnished, and this occupied most of his time. Sophia took the entire business upon herself, for she had scientific theories on the subject of decoration and colour harmonies which Peter could only accept with admiring awe; but, nevertheless, she required him to be constantly at hand, so that she could consult him after her own mind had been irrevocably made up.
One February afternoon he was wandering rather disconsolately about the labyrinthine passages of one of the monster upholstery establishments in the Tottenham Court