Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 44).djvu/231

 what I meant to say. I'm not sure I meant to say anything.

She glared at me. By this time I was pure jelly. I simply flowed about the chair.

"You are facetious, Reginald," she said.

"No, no, no!" I shouted. "It slipped out. I wouldn't be facetious for worlds."

"I am glad. It is no laughing matter. Have you any suggestions?"

"Suggestions?"

"You don't imagine it can be allowed to go on? The engagement must be broken, of course. But how?"

"Why don't you tell him he mustn't?"

"I shall naturally express my strong disapproval, but it may not be effective. When out of the reach of my personal influence my wretched brother is self-willed to a degree."

I saw what she meant. Good old Percy wasn't going to have those eyes patrolling his spine if he knew it. He meant to keep away and conduct this business by letter. There was going to be no personal interview with sister, if he had to dodge about London like a snipe.

We sat for a long time without speaking. Then I became rather subtle. I had a brainwave, and saw my way to making things right for Percy and at the same time squaring myself with Florence. After all, I thought, the old boy couldn't keep away from the ancestral for the rest of his life. He would have to go to Weeting sooner or later. And my scheme made it pleasant and easy for him.

"I'll tell you what I should do if I were you," I said. "I'm not sure I didn't read some book or see some play somewhere or other where they tried it on, and it worked out all right. Chap got engaged to a girl and the family didn't like it, but, instead of cutting up rough, they pretended they didn't object, and had the chap and the girl down to stay with them. And then, after the chap had seen the girl with the home-circle as a background, don't you know, he came to the conclusion that the shot wasn't on the board, and broke off the engagement."

It seemed to strike her.

"I hardly expected so sensible a suggestion from you, Reginald," she said. "It is a very good plan. It shows that you really have a definite substratum of intelligence; and it is all the more deplorable that you should idle your way through the world as you do, when you might be performing some really useful work."

That was Florence all over. Even when she patted you on the head she did it with her knuckles.

"I will invite them down next week," she went on. "You had better come, too."

"It's awfully kind of you, but the fact is"

"Next Wednesday. Take the three forty-seven."

I met Percy next day. He was looking happy but puzzled, like a man who has found a sixpence in the street and is wondering if there's a string tied to it. I congratulated him on his engagement.

"Reggie," he said, "a pretty rum thing has happened. I feel as if I'd trodden on the last step when it wasn't there. I've just had a letter from my sister Florence asking me to bring Dorothy to Weeting on Wednesday. Florence doesn't seem to mind the idea of the engagement a bit; and I'd expected that I'd have to put myself under police protection. I believe there's a catch somewhere."

I tapped him on the breast-bone.