How different it all would have been, I not but reflect, if this girl had been the of girl one to over the telephone and takes for in the old two-seater. In that case, I would have said, "Listen," and she would have said, "What?" and I would have said, "You know Gussie Fink-Nottle," and she would have said, "Yes," and I would have said, "He loves you," and she would have said either, "What, that mutt? Well, thank for one good laugh today," or else, in more vein, "Hot dog! Tell me more."
I to say, in either event the whole thing over and done with in under a minute.
But with the Bassett something less and a good more was indicated. What with all this daylight-saving stuff, we had the great open at a moment when had not yet to it in of the of night. There was a fag-end of still functioning. Stars were to out, were round, the garden was full of the of those white flowers which only start to put in their work at the end of the day—in short, the was on the and all the air a stillness, and it was plain that this was having the on her. Her were enlarged, and her whole map a good too of the soul's for comfort.
Her was that of a girl who was something from Bertram.
In these circs., a bit. I am at my best when the to call for a soupiness, and I've other members of the Drones say the same thing about themselves. I Pongo Twistleton telling me that he was out in a with a girl by moonlight once, and the only time he spoke was to tell her that old about the who was so good at that they him a traffic in Venice.
Fell flat, he me, and it wasn't much later when the girl said she it was a little and how about pushing to the hotel.
So now, as I say, the talk fire. It had been all very well for me to promise Gussie that I would cut to this girl about hearts, but you want a for that of thing. And when, along, we the of the and she spoke, my when I that what she was talking about was stars.
Not a of good to me.
"Oh, look," she said. She was a Oh-looker. I had noticed this at Cannes, where she had my attention in this manner on occasions to such objects as a French actress, a Provençal station, the over the Estorels, Michael Arlen, a man selling spectacles, the of the Mediterranean, and the late of New York in a one-piece suit. "Oh, look at that sweet little star up there all by itself."
I saw the one she meant, a little in a of way above a spinney.
"Yes," I said.
"I wonder if it lonely."
"Oh, I shouldn't think so."
"A must have been crying."
"Eh?"
"Don't you remember? 'Every time a a tear, a star is in the Milky Way.' Have you that, Mr. Wooster?"
I had. Most improbable, I considered, and it didn't to me to check up with her that the were God's chain. I mean, you can't have it ways.
However, I was in no mood to and criticize. I saw that I had been in that the were not to the issue. Quite a they had provided, and I on it Promptly: "Talking of tears——"
But she was now on the of rabbits, of which were about in the park to our right.
"Oh, look. The little bunnies!"
"Talking of tears——"
"Don't you love this time of the evening, Mr. Wooster, when the sun has gone to and all the come out to have their little suppers? When I was a child, I used to think that were gnomes, and that if I my and still, I should see the queen."
Indicating with a that this was just the of thing I should have her to think as a child, I returned to the point.
"Talking of tears," I said firmly, "it may you to know that there is an in Brinkley Court."
This her. She the theme. Her face, which had been with what I was a animation, clouded. She a that like the wind going out of a duck.
"Ah, yes. Life is very sad, isn't it?"
"It is for some people. This heart, for instance."
"Those of hers! Drenched irises. And they used to like of delight. And all through a about a shark. What a are. That and over just Mr. Glossop would that it was a flatfish."
I saw that she had got the crossed.
"I'm not talking about Angela."
"But her is aching."
"I know it's aching. But so is somebody else's."
She looked at me, perplexed.
"Somebody else? Mr. Glossop's, you mean?"
"No, I don't."
"Mrs. Travers's?"
The of of the Woosters me her one on the ear-hole, but I would have a to be able to do it. There to me something fat-headed in the way she in missing the gist.
"No, not Aunt Dahlia's, either."
"I'm sure she is upset."
"Quite. But this I'm talking about isn't of Tuppy's with Angela. It's for a different altogether. I to say—dash it, you know why ache!"
She to a bit. Her voice, when she spoke, was whispery: "You mean—for love?"
"Absolutely. Right on the bull's-eye. For love."
"Oh, Mr. Wooster!"
"I take it you in love at sight?"
"I do, indeed."
"Well, that's what to this heart. It in love at sight, and since it's been itself out, as I the is."
There was a silence. She had away and was a out on the lake. It was into weeds, a thing I've been able to anyone wanting to do. Though I suppose, if you it squarely, they're no than spinach. She it in for a bit, and then it on its and disappeared, and this to the spell.
"Oh, Mr. Wooster!" she said again, and from the of her voice, I see that I had got her going.
"For you, I to say," I proceeded, starting to put in the touches. I say you have noticed on these occasions that the is to plant the main idea, to the of the thing well fixed. The is detail work. I don't say I at this juncture, but I a than I had been.
"It's having the of a time. Can't eat, can't sleep—all for love of you. And what makes it all so particularly is that it—this heart—can't itself up to the and tell you the position of affairs, your profile has gone and it cold feet. Just as it is about to speak, it of you sideways, and fail it. Silly, of course, but there it is."
I her give a gulp, and I saw that her had moistish. Drenched irises, if you to put it that way.
"Lend you a handkerchief?"
"No, thank you. I'm all right."
It was more than I say for myself. My had left me weak. I don't know if you in the same way, but with me the act of talking anything in the nature of potatoes always a of and a of shame, together with a marked starting of the pores.
I at my Aunt Agatha's place in Hertfordshire once being put on the spot and to the role of King Edward III saying goodbye to that girl of his, Fair Rosamund, at some of in of the Distressed Daughters of the Clergy. It some dialogue, I recall, of the days when they called a a spade, and by the time the blew, I'll no Daughter of the Clergy was as as I was. Not a stitch.
My now was very similar. It was a liquid Bertram who, his vis-à-vis give a of and start to speak an ear.
"Please don't say any more, Mr. Wooster."
Well, I wasn't going to, of course.
"I understand."
I was to this.
"Yes, I understand. I won't be so as to not to know what you mean. I this at Cannes, when you used to and at me without speaking a word, but with whole in your eyes."
If Angela's had me in the leg, I couldn't have more convulsively. So had I been on Gussie's that it hadn't so much as my mind that another and an be on those of mine. The persp., already my brow, a regular Niagara.
My whole upon a woman's word. I to say, I couldn't out. If a girl thinks a man is to her, and on that books him up, he can't to her that she has got of the end of the and that he hadn't the smallest of anything of the kind. He must let it ride. And the of being to a girl who talked openly about being their noses, or it was, me.
She was on with her remarks, and as I I my till I shouldn't wonder if the didn't out white under the strain. It as if she would to the nub.
"Yes, all through those days at Cannes I see what you were trying to say. A girl always knows. And then you me here, and there was that same dumb, look in your when we met this evening. And then you were so that I should come out and walk with you in the twilight. And now you out those words. No, this not come as a surprise. But I am sorry——"
The word was like one of Jeeves's pick-me-ups. Just as if a of meat sauce, red pepper, and the of an egg—though, as I say, I am that these are not the ingredients—had been into me, I like some flower in the sunshine. It was all right, after all. My had not been asleep at the switch.
"—but I am it is impossible."
She paused.
"Impossible," she repeated.
I had been so saved from the that I didn't on to it for a moment that an early reply was desired.
"Oh, right ho," I said hastily.
"I'm sorry."
"Quite all right."
"Sorrier than I can say."
"Don't give it another thought."
"We can still be friends."
"Oh, rather."
"Then shall we just say no more about it; keep what has as a little ourselves?"
"Absolutely."
"We will. Like something and away in lavender."
"In lavender—right."
There was a pause. She was at me in a of way, much as if I had been a she had to her French on, and I to tell her that it was all right, and that Bertram, so from being the of despair, had in his life. But, of course, one can't do that of thing. I said nothing, and there looking brave.
"I wish I could," she murmured.
"Could?" I said, for my had been wandering.
"Feel you as you would like me to feel."
"Oh, ah."
"But I can't. I'm sorry."
"Absolutely O.K. Faults on sides, no doubt."
"Because I am of you, Mr.—no, I think I must call you Bertie. May I?"
"Oh, rather."
"Because we are friends."
"Quite."
"I do like you, Bertie. And if were different—I wonder——"
"Eh?"
"After all, we are friends.... We have this common memory.... You have a right to know.... I don't want you to think——Life is such a muddle, isn't it?"
To many men, no doubt, these would have appeared and would have been as such. But the Woosters are quicker-witted than the ordinary and can read the lines. I what it was that she was trying to off the chest.
"You there's someone else?"
She nodded.
"You're in love with some other bloke?"
She nodded.
"Engaged, what?"
This time she the pumpkin.
"No, not engaged."
Well, that was something, of course. Nevertheless, from the way she spoke, it looked as if old Gussie might as well his name off the entry list, and I didn't at all like the of having to the news to him. I had the man closely, and it was my that this would about be his finish.
Gussie, you see, wasn't like some of my pals—the name of Bingo Little is one that to the lips—who, if by a girl, would say, "Well, bung-oh!" and off to another. He was so a bird who, having failed to score in the chukker, would turn the thing up and the of his life over his and long whiskers, like one of those you read about in novels, who live in the great white house you can just see over there through the trees and themselves off from the world and have faces.
"I'm he doesn't for me in that way. At least, he has said nothing. You that I am only telling you this because——"
"Oh, rather."
"It's odd that you should have asked me if I in love at sight." She closed her eyes. "'Who loved that loved not at sight?'" she said in a voice that to me—I don't know why—the picture of my Aunt Agatha, as Boadicea, at that I was speaking of. "It's a little story. I was with some friends in the country, and I had gone for a walk with my dog, and the got a in his little and I didn't know what to do. And then this man came along——"
Harking once again to that pageant, in sketching out for you my on that occasion, I you only the of the picture. There was, I should now mention, a when, having out of my of and off to the local pub, I entered the and mine to start pouring. A moment later, a of their special home-brewed was in my hand, and the of that is still green in my memory. The of the through which I had passed was just what was needed to make it perfect.
It was the same now. When I realized, to her words, that she must be to Gussie—I to say, there couldn't have been a whole of men taking out of her dog that day; the animal wasn't a pin-cushion—and aware that Gussie, who an had, to all appearances, gone so in the as not to be a quotation, was the big after all, a positive the and there my a "Wow!" so and that the Bassett a and a from firma.
"I your pardon?" she said.
I a hand.
"Nothing," I said. "Nothing. Just there's a I have to tonight without fail. If you don't mind, I think I'll be going in. Here," I said, "comes Gussie Fink-Nottle. He will look after you."
And, as I spoke, Gussie came out from a tree.
I passed away and left them to it. As these two, was a question in order. All Gussie had to do was keep his and not press. Already, I felt, as I it to the house, the happy must have to function. I to say, when you a girl and a man, each of has in set terms that she and he loves him and her, in close in the twilight, there doesn't much more to do but start fish slices.
Something attempted, something done, to me to have two-penn'orth of in the smoking-room.
I thither.
