Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/129

Rh 'Your letter didn't say that.'

'Oh, I didn't go into our terms.'

'No,' said Braddle with some severity, 'you slurred them over. I know what you urged on me and what you thought I was going to do. I thought I was going to do it too. But at the scratch I couldn't.'

'So you believed I wouldn't?'

Poor Braddle was, after all, candid enough. 'At the scratch, yes; when it came—the question—to yourself, and in spite of your extraordinary preaching. I think I took for granted that she must have done for you what she didn't do for me—that, liking you all for yourself, don't you see? and therefore so much better, she must have come round.'

'For myself, better or worse, I grant you, was the only way she could like me,' Chilver replied. 'But she didn't come round.'

'You married her with it?'

'This was a question, however—it was in particular an emphasis—as to the interpretation of which he showed a certain reserve. 'With what?'

'Why, damn it, with the condition.'

'Oh, yes—with the condition.' It sounded, on Chilver's lips, positively gay.

'You waited?'

'I waited.'

This answer produced between them for the time—and, as might be said, by its visible effect on the recipient—a hush during which poor Bertram did two or three pointless things: took up an ash-tray that was near them and vaguely examined it, then looked at the clock and at his watch, then again restlessly moved off a few steps and came back. At his watch he gave a second glare. 'I say, after all—don't come to-night.'

'You can't stand me?'

'Well, I don't mind telling you you've rather upset me. It's my abject nerves; but they'll settle down in a few days, and then I'll make you a sign. Good-bye.'