Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/591

 "Veto," said I, "what do you mean?"

"You will surely be married by next Christmas," he replied.

"Married!" I exclaimed, with a laugh. "We have never thought of being married."

The Major took his cigar from his mouth, put his hands upon his knees, leaned forward, and looked at me.

"Do you mean to say, sir, that you and Miss Welden are not engaged to be married?"

"Not at all," said I, "we have known each other a long time, but we are friends and nothing more."

"Well, I'll be hanged!" cried Major Pendallas, throwing away his cigar and rising abruptly from his chair. Then, standing with his back to the fire, he looked down upon me.

"Now I am disappointed. I surely thought you two were a team, and a fine one. I had made up my mind to it, and now I am set back. I feel as if I were driving a big Percheron and a polo pony. I'm a practical, common-sense man, and I don't mind asking practical, common-sense questions. I have done that all my life, and though I have made a good many people mad it has always been better for me in the end. Now would you mind telling me if that young woman is engaged to somebody else, or if you are? Don't get angry. If anybody is angry, I ought to be."

I was not in the least offended. There was an impetuous but kindly earnestness about the man which impressed me very agreeably. There are some people whose liberties are pleasant rather than otherwise. The Major was one of those people.

"I am not engaged," I said with a smile, "and I have no reason to believe. that she is."

Major Pendallas thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, strolled to the other end of the large room, and, then turning, came back and sat down.

"I believe," said he, "that the man who lives alone does more thinking to the minute than other people. When she was pouring out the coffee to-night, and you were handing your cup to her, and both of you were laughing about the sugar, I stopped eating and I said to myself, 'That is as perfect a match as I ever saw.' And in regard to human beings it is very seldom that I think that. And now you turn around and tell me that you and she go single."

I could not help laughing at the serious way in which he discussed the subject.

"I am sorry to disappoint you," said I, "but Miss Welden and I are not marrying people. For myself, I cannot afford matrimony."

"That's what I once thought," he said, "and for thirty-five years I have regretted that I was foolish enough to think so."

It was plain that my host was a man of nervous temperament. He could not sit