Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/102

 of Jerusalem had plighted her troth, forgetful of her faithful Micky, forgetful of the wistaria arbor and of the grove behind the second gamekeeper's, of their little gold rings and of the post-card bearing the cabalistic “I. L. Y.”

Here, alone with this silent corpse of a man, on the wallowing stern of the Pavoma, it suddenly came to Micky that he had been jilted—chucked—given the mitten, just as he might have anticipated had he been a few years older when he had marched out of the vicarage and trudged so independently, if not arrogantly, to the station. Yes, by Gad—he had hauled back the very man that had spoiled his dream for him—his “hated rival!” Micky made a wry little grimace at the ashen face in front of him. There was a "note" for you! Yet as moment by moment it grew clearer to him that he had lost the Hon. Evelyn, that his poor little collateral branch of a romance had been kicked into the street like a yellow dog with a tin can tied to its tail, that he had been a fool and an ass to suppose that he would have the ghost of a chance in inbred England to make a girl happy, simply because he loved her, nevertheless second by second there welled up