Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/116

108 find rather a bore. Yet if she's willing,' he went on with more cheer and as if still seeking a justification of his original judgment—if she's willing, you see, I wasn't so much out.'

Bertram Braddle demurred. 'But she isn't willing.'

His interlocutor stared. 'I thought you said she proposed it.'

'Proposed what?'

'Why, the six months' wait—to make sure of you.'

'Ah, but she'll be sure of me, after she has married me. The delay she asks for is not for our marriage,' Braddle explained, 'but only—from the date of our marriage—for the information.'

'A-ah!' Chilver murmured, as if only now with a full view. 'She means she'll speak when you are married.'

'When we are. And then only on a great condition.'

'How great?'

'Well, that if after the six months I still want it very much. She argues, you know, that I shan't want it.'

'You won't then—you won't!' cried Chilver with a laugh at the odd word and passing his arm into his friend's to make him walk again. They talked and they talked; Chilver kept his companion's arm and they quite had the matter out.

'What's that, you know,' Braddle asked, 'but a way to get off altogether?'

'You mean for you to get off from knowing?'

'Ah no, for her'

'To get off from telling? It is that, rather, of course,' Chilver conceded. 'But why shouldn't she get off—if you should be ready to let her?'

'Oh, but if I shouldn't be?' Braddle broke in.

'Why then, if she promises, she'll tell you.'

'Yes, but by that time the knot will be tight.'

'And what difference will that make if you don't mind? She argues, as you say, that after that amount of marriage, of experience of her, you won't care!'