IV
“And that,” said I, when Mr. Clarriker had gone, “is what you are actually considering! I have always believed Dickens invented that man to go into one of the latter chapters of Edwin Drood. It is the solitary way of explaining certain people—that they were invented by some fagged novelist who unfortunately died before he finished the book they were to be locked up in. As it was, they got loose, to annoy you by their incredibility. No actual human being, you know, would suggest a white shirtwaist as a substitute for a box of candy.”
“Oh, I have seen worse,” said Bettie, as in meditation. “It’s just Jo’s way of expressing the fact that I am stupendously beautiful in white. Poor dear, my loveliness went to his head, I suppose, and got tangled with next week’s advertisement for the Gazette. Anyhow, he is a deal more considerate than you. For instance, I was crazy to go to the show on Tuesday night, and Josiah Clarriker was the only person who thought to ask me, even though he is one of those little fireside companions who always get so syrupy whenever they take you anywhere that you simply can’t stand it. The combination both prevented my acceptance and accentuated his devotion; and quite frankly, Robin, I am thinking of him, for at bottom Jo is a dear.”
I laid one hand on each of Bettie’s shoulders; and it was in my mind at the time that this was the gesture of a comrade, and had not any sexual tinge at all. I wished that Bettie had better teeth, of course, but that could not be helped.
“You are to marry me as soon as may be possible,” said I, “and preferably tomorrow afternoon. Avis has thrown me over, God bless her, and I am free—until of course you take charge of me. There was a clever woman once who told me I was not fit to be the captain of my soul, though I would make an admirable lieutenant. She was right. It is understood you are to henpeck me to your heart’s content and to my ultimate salvation.”
“I shall assuredly not marry you,” observed Miss Hamlyn, “until you have at least asked me to do so. And besides, how dared she throw you over—!”
“But I don’t intend to ask you, for I have not a single bribe to offer. I merely intend to marry you. I am a ne’er-do-well, a debauchee, a tippler, a compendium of all the vices you care to mention. I am not a bit in love with you, and as any woman will forewarn you, I am sure to make you a vile husband. Your solitary chance is to bully me into temperance and propriety and common sense, with precisely seven million probabilities against you, because I am a seasoned and accomplished liar. Can you do that bullying, Bettie—and keep it up, I mean?”
And she was silent for a while. “Robin,” she said, at last, “you’ll never understand why women like you. You will always think it is because they admire you for some quality or another. It is really because they pity you. You are such a baby, riding for a fall—No, I don’t mean the boyishness you trade upon. I have known for a long while all that was just put on. And, oh, how hard you’ve tried to be a boy of late!”
“And I thought I had fooled you, Bettie! Well, I never could. I am sorry, though, if I have been annoyingly clumsy—”
“But you were doing it for me,” she said. “You were doing it because you thought I’d like it. Oh, can’t you understand that I know you are worthless, and that you have never loved any human being in all your life except that flibbertigibbet Stella Blagden, and that I know, too, you have so rarely failed me! If you were an admirable person, or a person with commendable instincts, or an unselfish person, or if you were even in love with me, it wouldn’t count of course. It is because you are none of these things that it counts for so much to see you honest with me—sometimes—and even to see you scheming and playacting—and so transparently!—just to bring about a little pleasure for me. Oh, Robin, I am afraid that nowadays I love you because of your vices!”
“And I you because of your virtues,” said I; “so that there is no possible apprehension of either affection ever going into bankruptcy. Therefore the affair is settled; and we will be married in November.”
“Well,” Bettie said, “I suppose that somebody has to break you of this habit of getting married next November—”
Then, and only then, my hands were lifted from her shoulders. And we began to talk composedly of more impersonal matters.