Uneasy Money, P. G. Wodehouse [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

to have doubts again. Nothing clings like a suspicion in the mind of a conscientious young man that he has been allowing his heart to stray from its proper anchorage. Could it be that he was behaving badly toward Claire? The thought was unpleasant, but he could not get rid of it. He extracted Claire’s photograph from his suitcase and gazed solemnly upon it.

At first he was shocked to find that it only succeeded in convincing him that Elizabeth was quite the most attractive girl he ever had met. The photographer had given Claire rather a severe look. He had told her to moisten the lips with the tip of the tongue and assume a pleasant smile, with the result that she seemed to glare. She had a rather markedly agressive look, queenly perhaps, but not very comfortable.

But there is no species of self-hypnotism equal to that of a man who gazes persistently at a photograph with the preconceived idea that he is in love with the original of it. Little by little Bill found that the old feeling began to return. He persevered. By the end of a quarter of an hour he had almost succeeded in capturing anew that first, fine, careless rapture which, six months ago, had caused him to propose to Claire and walk on air when she accepted him.

He continued the treatment throughout the day, and by dinner time had arranged everything with his conscience in the most satisfactory manner possible. He loved Claire with a passionate fervor; he liked Elizabeth very much indeed. He submitted this diagnosis to conscience, and conscience graciously approved and accepted it.

It was Sunday that day. That helped. There is nothing like Sunday in a foreign country for helping a man to sentimental thoughts of the girl he has left behind him elsewhere. And the fact that there was a full moon clinched it. Bill was enabled to go for an after-dinner stroll in a condition of almost painful loyalty to Claire.

From time to time, as he walked along the road, he took out the photograph and did some more gazing. The last occasion on which he did this was just as he emerged from the shadow of a large tree that stood by the roadside, and a gush of rich emotion rewarded him.

“Claire!” he murmured.

An exclamation at his elbow caused him to look up. There, leaning over a gate, the light of the moon falling on her beautiful face, stood Claire herself.

XII

In trying interviews, as in sprint races, the start is everything. It was the fact that she recovered more quickly from her astonishment that enabled Claire to dominate her scene with Bill. She had the advantage of having a less complicated astonishment to recover from, for, though it was a shock to see him there when she had imagined that he was in New York, it was not nearly such a shock as it was to him to see her there when he had imagined that she was in England. She had adjusted her brain to the situation while he was still gaping.

“Well, Bill?”

This speech in itself should have been enough to warn Lord Dawlish of impending doom. As far as love, affection and tenderness are concerned, a girl might just as well hit a man with an ax as say “Well, Bill?” to him when they have met unexpectedly in the moonlight after long separation. But Lord Dawlish was too shattered by surprise to be capable of observing nuances. If his love had ever waned or faltered, as conscience had suggested earlier in the day, it was at full blast now.

“Claire!” he cried.

He was moving to take her in his arms, but she drew back.

“No, really, Bill!” she said; and this time it did filter through into his disordered mind that all was not well. A man who is a good deal dazed at the moment may fail to appreciate a remark like “Well, Bill?” but for a girl to draw back and say, “No, really, Bill!” in a tone not exactly of loathing, but certainly of pained aversion, is a deliberately unfriendly act. The three short words, taken in conjunction with the movement, brought him up with as sharp a turn as if she had punched him in the eye.

“Claire! What’s the matter?”

She looked at him steadily. She looked a at him with a sort of queenly woodenness, as if he were behind a camera with a velvet bag over his head and had just told her to moisten the lips with the tip of the tongue. Her aspect staggered Lord Dawlish. A cursory inspection of his conscience showed nothing but purity and whiteness, but he must have done something or she would not be staring at him like this.

“I don’t understand!” was the only remark that occurred to him.

“Are you sure?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was at Riegelheimer’s Restaurant⁠—Ah!”

The sudden start which Lord Dawlish had given at the opening words of her sentence justified the concluding word. Innocent as his behavior had been that night at Riegelheimer’s, he had been glad at the time that he had not been observed. It now appeared that he had been observed, and it seemed to him that Long Island suddenly flung itself into a whirling dance. He heard Claire speaking a long way off.

“I was there with Lady Wetherby. It was she who invited me to come to America. I went to the restaurant to see her dance⁠—and I saw you!”

With a supreme effort Bill succeeded in calming down the excited landscape. He willed the trees to stop dancing, and they came reluctantly to a standstill. The world ceased to swim and flicker.

“Let me explain,” he said.

The moment he had said the words he wished he could recall them. Their substance was right enough, it was the sound of them that was wrong. They sounded like a line from a farce, where the erring husband has been caught by the masterful wife. They