Yes! It was all of a piece with the fiascoes of the day that my little watch gained ten minutes, hurrying me through my dressing and down, before I’d any need for such haste, into the drawing-room.

Here, big and black-and-white against the giant pink roses of the chintz couch, I found (as I needn’t have hoped not to find, on this day of contretemps!) my employer alone.

He sprang to his feet, of course, and wheeled forward a chair for me (looking as if he wished he could have pushed it and me through the French windows and out of the house for ever!—Goodness knows I reciprocated that wish!) and I sat down.

Then ensued what I’m beginning to call to myself “one of our pauses.”

But I felt that this evening my nerves wouldn’t stand silence—that nothing could float me over these quicksands of awkwardness but an unceasing ripple of small-talk. If he wouldn’t, I must say something; anything! The first thing that came into my head!

“H—how close it is! Do you think there will be thunder to-night?”

There was suppressed thunder enough on his face as he answered politely: “It is getting rather stifling. Perhaps you would like the window open?” and he rose and walked across to it.

Then, from under the chintz valance of the couch where he’d been sitting, there emerged at small and cringing form with an enormous white satin bow tied to his collar.

“Poor Cariad!” I went on, patting the unusually subdued little dog, “you have got a smart new tie! Don’t you like it?”

A one-sided conversation didn’t meet the case, so the “dumb animal” (as they call it) gave me the cue for my next remark to the almost equally dumb human being.

“I’ve always wanted to know where he got his rather curious name,” I said. “What does it mean?”

“It’s Welsh,” explained my employer abruptly, still standing by the open window. “It means ‘Sweetheart’”—if you must know, his tone concluded.

“Oh.... Is he a Welsh terrier?”

“We got him from Wales. From a little place in Anglesey where my people sometimes go for the summer holidays,” my employer vouchsafed, with an effort. “Porth Cariad the name of it is—‘Port Sweetheart.’”

“Fancy calling a place that!” I took up, with the one idea of keeping this conversation from coming to a dead stop. “But some people call anything that!” (I was wondering inwardly what this last remark could possibly mean even as I went on.) “Is it by the sea?”

“Er—I think so.”

“Oh, yes; ports generally are, of course.... Is it—is it a pretty place at all?”

“Quite. It hasn’t been spoilt yet. Charming little bay. The usual sort of thing.” (Pause.)

“Yes—? Do tell me about it!”

“Oh! I don’t know—There are about two cottages. No end of gorse—heather.”

“How lovely!” Then, scenting another pause, I hurried on—“Isn’t there anything else there?”

“Well—There’s a sort of woman.”

“A woman? Really? How interesting! What sort of a woman?”

“Oh, a wooden one,” returned the Governor, who was too obviously thinking about something else. A wooden woman! What could he mean by it? But before I could begin my next question the door opened; the Governor turned quickly, then, seeing who came in, he exclaimed in accents of concentrated disgust:

“Theo! Isn’t it time you were in bed?”

“No! Because I’m not going! I’m going to sit up for dinner, just for this once!” announced the child, triumphantly advancing upon us in a Prize-Day “effect” of let-down white skirts and long, cream-silk-stockinged legs. “I asked Mother, and that nice old man” (Poor Major Montresor!) “begged her to let me, and I may! So there! Nancy, don’t you like the way I’ve done my hair for it?”

She had tied a fillet of white satin—a bit of the same ribbon which was disconcerting Cariad—about her short curls.

“What’s that for? To keep your brains from bursting through?” demanded her brother crossly. But Theodora only tossed that yellow posy of a head of hers, retorting that Major Montresor thought she was sixteen, and was going to sit next her, and that there would be a surprise at dinner!

The surprise—or the series of surprises—didn’t dawn upon me in its full hideousness all at once.

In the dim-shaded dining-room, where the tall maids flitted noiselessly to and from the hatch at one end, the round table about which the seven of us sat down seemed, with its many candles in the curving arms of Sheffield candlesticks, its gleaming white porcelain, and its winking, patterned array of silver and cut glass, like some great oasis of softly-radiant light. Upon it, as table-centre, there was set the silver-bordered pool of an oval mirror, reflecting a large silver goblet, round which I could read part of the inscription:

1896
FIFTY YARDS SWIM——
SECS. 6——
W. WAT——

that upheld a pyramid of creamy, perfumed blossom, softened with sprays of feathery white. Budding spikes of the same blossom were massed about the pedestals of four little winged Loves, offering baskets that held tiny bouquets of the white sprays, mingled with chocolates wrapped up in silver-foil. Gradually but surely I realized the effect of all this decoration; it was indescribably, unmistakably, blatantly—bridal!

And then I realized who was responsible for it. That gift of Heaven, Theodora, was beaming upon her handiwork.

It must have been her innocent hands, too, that had tied up each table-napkin with a white bow and a spray of buds; had cut silver-paper out of a chocolate-box into the miniature horseshoes that lay strewn negligently but broadcast all over the tablecloth; and had encircled the place where I sat with a wreath of crystallized rose-leaves in the shape of a heart.

With one frantic sweep of my hand I brushed these last into the table-napkin on my lap. I must pretend I’d noticed nothing, and then (though I knew that thunder-cloud was deepening every moment on the Governor’s brow) perhaps the others really wouldn’t notice!

Vain hope!

It was dashed even before the two usually so sedate maids, who seemed, this evening, to emanate some subtle atmosphere of sympathy and giggle, had finished handing round the soup.

“Dear me! Who arranged the flowers like this?” murmured Mrs. Waters, with a mildly bewildered glance at this white-and-silver display. “I thought Blanche was going to have just the little crystal tubs with the pink Maman Cochets and some maidenhair fern?”

“Yes, Mumsie, I was. But Theo would put white heather and syringa!”

“Because—Oh, can’t you see why?” broke in the cornet voice of the youngest of the family, who sat between me and the Major.

And before anyone could answer or check her, this appalling child went on to give chapter and verse for each of her enormities.

“It’s because, you see, syringa’s so awfully like orange-blossoms!—They call it ‘mock orange!’ And I meant it for Billy and Nancy!”

She paused for breath (so did everybody else), then she hurried on.

“Yes! I did the table, because I wanted it to be appropriate! So I took away those everyday bon-bon dishes and fetched out these little china Cupids to hold the choc’lates instead! Aren’t they ducky?”

No one responded, but every eye was upon Theo, who took it all for approval and beamed again, enlarging upon her arrangements.

“And that’s why I got Nancy to put on her white satin”—

(Ah!)

—“with those lace lilies round her front, so’s she could look more like a bride!”

(What I did look like at that moment I don’t know. But the Governor couldn’t have looked more like the executioner in a cloak-and-dagger film drama.)

“And do you see the confetti, of those teeny silver horseshoes, and the pink rose-leaves strewn over—Oh, Nancy!”—reproachfully—“Look what’s happened to the Heart! And that was supposed to be Billy’s!”

Here I saw the mouth of Uncle Albert, who was sitting facing me at Mrs. Waters’ right hand, open in readiness for that approving bellow of his. “Never mind, I’ll make another. I wanted to do it all like this the first evening she came down,” explained Theo further. “Only, of course, we weren’t quite sure then whether she’d like it—”

(Like it!)

—“but it was all my idea!”

Then came the bellow of laughter, and—“A jolly good idea too, Kiddie!” from the other of my employer’s “loud relations,” his odious uncle. “Very pretty, Theo!”

“Yes, I thought it would be rather sweet! Doesn’t Billy?” said the child, with a half-defiant look towards the Head of the House, who looked—there is no denying it—as if he were longing to kick someone. He did kick—a smothered yelp from under the table told me what. He had vented some of his feelings upon the little dog whose name meant “Sweetheart” in Welsh—who came from that port—one of those by the sea! where there are two cottages and a wooden woman—whatever that meant! The taller of the parlour-maids, handing lobster soufflÉ to her master, wasn’t wooden enough, nor quick enough in repressing her smile.

A glare of reproof was her portion as he refused the dish, and a peremptory, “Move that—er—thing. It’s in the way!” with a jerk towards the silver pot that held the spraying conservatory plant.

“Oh, what a shame!” protested Theo loudly, as this emblem was borne away. “And I’d specially put it so that it shouldn’t be in his way when he wanted to look at Nancy!”

“‘Comes there much more of it?’” I quoted to myself, but I caught Major Montresor’s eye; he was looking puzzled, almost sorry for me! And that nerved me up to laughing (I flatter myself, quite naturally!) as I murmured to Theo that she was a sentimental little goose!

“Sentimental? A good thing if she is!” took up Theo’s irrepressible uncle. “I like it. In these highly-educated days it’s a good sign! Yes, I like to see the young folks still taking an interest in watching a real Romance, instead of stuffing up their heads with nothing but mixed hockey and hunger-strikes and rubbish of that sort! That never brought a girl a sweetheart yet, did it, Mary? Does it, Nancy? And that’s all a girl’s there for, when you get down to bedrock. I may be a bit behind the times——”

As he was the only person talking at the table, he was considerably “behind” with his dinner. Unheeding, he discoursed on all through the entrÉe and the saddle of mutton.

“Yes! I may be hackneyed and old-fashioned, but that’s what I feel. What do you say, Major?”

What chance had the Major of saying anything? The whole conversation had been pretty equally divided between the two enfants terribles—the girl of thirteen and the man of sixty.

“Plenty of Romance in our young days! All over for us now! Still, we enjoy seeing the rising generation keep it up! Good luck to ’em. White heather for luck, eh? Yes, yes! Must have one of those little sprigs in my button-hole—memento of a very happy occasion!—Bless my soul, everybody finished except me? I talk too much, ha-ha!—must get on.”

He went on eating very quickly, talking between mouthfuls.

“‘Mock-orange,’ eh? Capital! Hope it won’t be long before we all see real orange-blossom, a wreath of it, round the pretty head of a certain young lady in white! Yes! dash it all, Mary, I must drink that in champagne.”

He took champagne.

So did I. I felt I was going to need it!

Mrs. Waters let it foam and sizzle into her glass; Blanche, though murmuring that the horrid stuff always reminded her of seltzer-water that the knives had been washed in, sipped at it for the sake of the “occasion.” Major Montresor took it—reverting afterwards to his invariable whisky and soda.

The only “grown-up” who didn’t take it was my employer. Still Waters refused his usual peg and drank plain water.

Every now and then he seemed to be making spasmodic efforts to remember that he had guests under his roof; but they weren’t successful! This added to my discomfort! I saw his mother glance at him, but only once, and with a half-humorous little smile! Didn’t she mind the fact of the host remaining well over the verge of unmitigated sulks? Apparently not! Possibly she’s seen him in his tantrums before now—even though she didn’t know the reason of these! I was feeling almost thankful that one of the guests was such a host in himself; thankful, up to a point, for Theo’s gusto! For the child who was “sitting-up” grew more excited as each course was handed round. With her rose-flushed cheeks, her tossed curls from which the white fillet had slipped crookedly down over one eyebrow, her roving brown gaze, and her giggling spirits that raced higher and higher with the bubbles in the glasses (of the others), she was the model of an infant Bacchante. “Sitting-up!” It was her wretched brother whom she was causing to sit up, and his still more wretched official fiancÉe! The only thing to do was for both of us to rise to the situation. Only he wouldn’t—or couldn’t. So, once more I had to.

There is after all a certain relief in feeling you’ve reached the climax of all things, and that Fate cannot have anything worse in store!

And this I did feel when Uncle Albert, having tossed off his toast, expressed a wish to know what sort of place the young folks fancied for their honeymoon.

“Oh, the Riviera!” was what I rushed into the breach with here. “It would be so glorious to see palms and flowering oleanders, and casinos, and scent all growing wild!—I mean the Parma violets for it—against a brilliant blue sea—such a treat to see a really bright blue bay and golden sunshine in the middle of winter——”

“Winter?” put in Uncle Albert quite indignantly. “But my dear, we’re well on into June now; you aren’t going to keep this poor Billy of yours”—with a wave of the hand towards the head of the table—“waiting for his wedding till November or December, surely?”

“Oh—er—why not?—we thought so.”

“We thought—that is, Miss—er—she said,” blurted out the Governor desperately, “that a year’s engagement was——”

“Far too long, my boy!” interrupted his uncle peremptorily, “far too long! Don’t you give in to her about that! Why wait, Billy? What the dickens is there to wait for? (What’s this—ice? No, thanks.) Why, when I was a fine young fellow of your age, if I’d got a bonnie girl like that to look kindly at me, and enough money to keep her in style, I’d not have rested until I’d clapped a plain gold ring on the top of those diamonds on her finger. Nothing like settling down happily as soon as you’ve got the chance. Like that picture—what is it—oh, you know! Finest picture that ever was painted, I consider—in the Royal Academy years ago—prints of it in every shop-window—what’s the name of the thing?”

“‘My friend Mr. White’?” suggested the Major.

“No, no; what the dickens is it? A really beautiful thing, now, if I could only remember——”

“‘Hope,’ by G. F. Watts?” put in the Governor’s mother softly.

“No!”

“‘Harmony’?” suggested Blanche.

“‘Simple Aveu’—no—‘The Soul’s Awakening,’ Uncle Albert?” fortissimo from Theo.

“No—none o’ those. You all know it, though. I shall think of the name in a minute. Anyhow, I shall give these two young people the best print to be got of it, to hang up in their hall.”

And his prominent grey eyes seemed to be staring over my head at some imaginary plan of this entrance!

“Only, they must hurry up, mind! No more of this nonsense about their waiting a twelve-month and courting all the love away! Happy’s the wooing that’s not long a-doing: isn’t that right, Major?”

“Quite, quite!” Major Montresor got his word in edge-ways at last. “To my sorrow” (old humbug!) “be it spoken! You see, Waters, the longer you play your fish, the more likely he—that is, she—is to get away! You’ve got to put on all the strain your tackle will bear at once!”

“Hear that, Bill?” (The Governor was looking as if he would not be able to stand much more strain of this kind.) “Put it all on at once—excellent advice! And where are you going to have the wedding, Mary? Here, I daresay?”

“I had hoped so,” said Mrs. Waters, with her pretty smile at me.

“Oh, yes; here, Uncle Albert!” cried Blanche, who, I know, would regard this wedding as a dress-rehearsal of her own. And then she and Theo began to enlarge, in a kind of two-part pÆon, on this function that will never be.

“A big tent on the lawn——”

“Red carpet across the gravel——”

“A huge wedding-cake just in that very place”—with a bacchanalian gesture towards the mirrored table-centre. “All the lovely presents put out in the den——”

“Too small, Blanche! I know Uncle Albert will want to give them all his furniture.”

“In mother’s bedroom, then! We could easily get it to look like not that at all!”

“Yes, and Billy and Nancy standing up in the drawing-room together for all the people to look at and shake hands with, and kiss——”

(Here a sound as of the word “Pup-chick!” from the other parlourmaid, who was disposing the finger-glasses.)

“Yes, and showers of confetti dropping out of everybody’s hat for weeks afterwards——”

“And the band playing like anything all the time—all the wedding-marches and glides and rag time and all the waltzes that make you feel you must dance——”

“And a white satin slipper tied on to the back of the motor when they go away——”

“Yes! One of mine, so’s you can see it! Oh, won’t it be a gorgeous day!” trumpeted Theo, bounding up and down as if wire springs only held her to her chair. “Oh, why isn’t it going to be next week? Still, even this evening is almost as good as a sort of wedding-breakfast! Don’t you think so, everybody? With Nancy looking so sweet in that dress, and the way I’ve done the table, and the champagne, and everything? Only, in one way”—crescendo—“it’s better! Because, if it were the real wedding, the bride and bridegroom would be leaving us to-night! And as it is, they’re staying on,” concluded Theodora, with a peal of rapturous laughter, “and there’ll be no horrid good-byes to say, and no crying!”

“Won’t there!” came from the straight lips of her brother, in a grimmer and more deadly tone than even I had ever heard. “You’ll be crying, miss, before the evening’s over.”

And, to anticipate a little, she was.

In half an hour or so, the easily-wounded heart of thirteen was being sobbed out on her pillow. For when, after the gratifications of a “quite grown-up bow” from Major Montresor and a prophecy from Uncle Albert that it wouldn’t be many years now before Theo had a wedding-breakfast-table of her own to decorate, the child had turned a glowing face up to her brother’s, she had received only the curtest of “good nights” dropped over his shoulder.

To me the thought of that farewell glimpse of him was nothing less than a reprieve.

“Thank goodness that, as he’s got two men-guests to attend to, it’ll be the last of him that I shall be obliged to put up with this evening!” thought I, as I rose to follow Mrs. Waters. “He’ll have to disappear into the den or the billiard-room with them. I shall have an evening off. Yes! a regular ‘evening off,’ like the maids! Only, I suppose, a housemaid uses those evenings to see her young man. With me, it’s just the other way round. ‘No followers allowed’ indeed! ‘Nothing BUT following’ has been my trouble. So hurray for a nice peaceful evening in the drawing-room with his mother and Blanche. After that ghastly meal, how I shall enjoy the rest!”

Even as I was congratulating myself upon it, my hopes were again dashed to the ground—this time, of course, by the hand of Uncle Albert.

“No, no, Billy. The Major and I are too old not to let you have your bit of time to yourselves now, aren’t we, Montresor?”

“Rather!” with hollow geniality from the Major.

Apparently it’s one thing for a man to mention his “declining years” and add about fifteen of them to his age. It’s quite another to find himself claimed as a contemporary by a man who’s ten years older than he is!

“We two old fogies can look after ourselves, my boy. We’re not going to keep you in here, away from your girl. Not a word!—that’s quite all right—quite understood! Been young ourselves once, though you may not believe it—off with you!”

And, to my unspeakable fury, he closed the dining-room door upon what he’s pleased to call “these young people.” The door of the drawing-room had already been shut upon Mrs. Waters and Blanche!

Was there to be no respite, then, after the awful meal I had just sat through? A nice evening it had been—this dinner which I suppose had been meant to be so jolly for all of us, as well as for the two guests! Well! at the end of it all here was Major Montresor piqued; Theo in tears; the parlour-maids glared at, and Cariad kicked! Even Uncle Albert hadn’t been able to remember the name of the horrible picture, whatever it was, that he meant to give “us.”

And now here was I, left stranded once more face to face with my fuming employer; only, this time, with the memory of that child’s light-hearted mockery of stage-management between us!