A Master of Deception. Marsh Richard

I do want to go where we can be all by ourselves, so I suggest the Devil's Dyke. This taxi will romp up; it's the most vulgar place I know, so we go where we please and do as we choose-everybody does up there."

      So it was the Devil's Dyke. The taxi did "romp up." They had lunch at the hotel, and afterwards went out on to the downs, Rodney carrying a rug which he had borrowed from the hotel over his arm. They had not to go far over the slopes before they had left the few people who were up there behind, and were as much alone as if they had the world to themselves. Rodney spread the rug on the grass at the bottom of one of those little hollows shaped like cups which are to be found thereabouts by those who seek. On it they reclined; the gentleman lit a cigar, the lady a cigarette. They were as much at home with each other as either could desire. Their conversation was frankness itself.

      "When I feel like liking it," observed the lady, "this is just the sort of thing I do like. You're engaged, and I'm engaged, so we ought to be nice to each other. Do you mind my kissing you?"

      "Not a bit."

      She leaned over and kissed him on the lips, he removing his cigar to enable her to do it. Then she blew her cigarette smoke in his face and laughed. He said nothing; he was thinking that there was a good deal to be said for being on such terms with three nice girls. After all, there might be something in the Mohammedan's idea of paradise. She was silent for a moment; then inquired:

      "Why did you ask Stella after all? Because you knew she'd like you to?"

      He considered his reply.

      "No; not altogether. Of course, at the beginning I never meant to, then all of a sudden I felt as if I had to. I had a sort of feeling that it would be such fun."

      "And was it fun?"

      "Distinctly; I wouldn't mind going through it all over again."

      "Wouldn't you? Now you'll have to marry her."

      "Shall I?"

      "Don't you want to marry her?"

      "I do not."

      "That's unfortunate, because you certainly will have to."

      "We'll see."

      "Stella'll see-or, rather, her family will. If it were any other but the Austin family I should have said that a person of your eel-like slipperiness-"

      "Thank you."

      "Might have wriggled away; but if you wriggle away it will be out of the frying-pan into the fire. For ever so long the family has been expecting you to ask Stella to marry you; you've fostered the expectation, and now that you have asked her, if you try to sneak out of your engagement, Mr. Austin will make things so uncomfortable that you'll find it easier to make Stella Mrs. E."

      "And do you want to marry Tom?"

      "I do not. All the same, I expect I shall."

      "Why? If you don't want to?"

      Miss Carmichael sent a cloud of smoke up into the air.

      "A girl's position is so different from a man's. I must marry someone, and, so far as I can see, it may as well be Tom."

      "Why must you marry someone?"

      "Don't be absurd! Can you conceive me as a spinster? Rather than be an old maid I'd-marry you; I can't say anything stronger."

      "You've a friendly way of paying compliments."

      "My dear young fellow; as a-chum, when I'm in the mood, you're ripping, simply ripping; but as a husband-good Lord, deliver us! If Stella understood you only a quarter as well as I do she'd be only too glad to let you go the very first moment you showed the faintest inclination to bolt."

      class="normal""And, pray, what sort of wife do you think you'll make?"

      Again a pause, while more cigarette smoke went into the air.

      "Depends on the man."

      "I presume to what extent you can fool him."

      "I can imagine a man to whom I would be all that a wife could be, the whole happiness of his whole life."

      "I can't."

      "That's because you don't understand me as well as I do you."

      "What sort of wife do you think that you'll make Tom?"

      "Oh, he'll be content."

      "Poor devil!"

      "I'm not so sure; it's a good thing to be content. Each time I put my arms about his neck he'll forgive me everything."

      "So far as I gather, the difference between me as a husband and you as a wife consists in this: that while I'm going to be found out, you're not. I don't see why you should be so sure of the immunity you refuse to me."

      "I admit that in this world one never can be sure of anything. I quite credit you with as much capacity to throw dust in a woman's eyes as I have to throw dust in a man's. Still, there is a difference between us of which I'm conscious, though just now I'm too lazy to attempt an exact definition. I really can't see why you object to Stella; she'll make you a good wife."

      "Hang your good wives!"

      "My child! Do you want a bad one? You should have no difficulty in being suited."

      "Is a sinner likely to be happy if mated to a saint?"

      "Would he be happier if mated to another sinner? In that case you might do well to marry me-which I doubt."

      "I don't. I'm disposed to think that ours would be an ideal union."

      "I wonder."

      "Neither would expect the other to be perfect; each would allow the other a wider range of liberty for purely selfish reasons."

      "I say, wouldn't it be rather a joke if you were to throw over Stella and I were to throw over Tom and we were to marry each other?"

      "I'd do it like a shot if it weren't for one drawback-that we both of us are penniless."

      "That is a nuisance, since we are both of us so fond of what money stands for. If you had five thousand a year perhaps I might marry you after all."

      "I'm sure you would."

      "Pray why are you sure? You've a conceit!"

      "I am sure."

      "If-I say if-I were to marry you, would you give me a good time?"

      "The very best-a time after your own heart."

      "Would you? Lots of frocks?"

      "All the frocks your soul desired."

      "Everything I wanted?"

      "That's a tall order. I'm only human."

      "That certainly is true. I shouldn't be surprised if you were more generous even than Tom."

      "I don't call that sort of thing generosity. A man gives things to a woman he cares for because he has a lively sense of favours to come."