«What does he say?» cried her father, grasping his malacca.
«Is he black?» cried her mother.
«What does he—? How do you know it is not a she-devil?» cried her fiancé.
«But how does he appear?» asked her mother.
«Frequently I find him beside me, when I have got into bed,» said Angela, with the greatest composure in the world.
«I have always asked you to let me order a wider bed for that loom,» observed her mother to the Colonel.
«This fiend must be exorcised at once,» said Angus Fairfax, «for there is no bed wide enough to sleep three, once we are married.»
«I'm not sure that he wants to be exorcised,» said Angela. «In any case, I must ask him first.»
«Colonel Bradshaw,» said Angus Fairfax, «I hope you realize my position. In face of these revelations, and of all that lies behind them, I cannot but withdraw from the engagement.»
«A good riddance, I say,» observed the fiend, now speaking for the first time.
«Be quiet, dear,» said Angela.
Mr. Fairfax rapped on the glass, stopped the taxi, and got out
«In face of what we have just heard,» said he, «no action for breach of promise can possibly lie.»
«It is not the custom of the Bradshaws to bring actions for breach of promise,» said the Colonel. «No more shall we sue you for your share of the taxi-fare.»
The fiend, while Mr. Fairfax hastily fumbled for his money, recited a valedictory quatrain, rhyming most obscenely upon his name.
To resume our tale: they got home. The Colonel immediately telephoned for the old Madame to come, regardless of cost
«I'll have this fiend out before eleven tonight, anyway, Miss,» said he to his daughter, who laughed.
The old Madame turned up, bearing a great box of powders, herbs, bones, symbols, and heaven knows what else. She had the drawing-room darkened, and the wireless disconnected from its aerial, just in case, and, as an afterthought, had the Colonel go out with a sardine to tempt a cat in from the street. «They often like to go into a cat,» she said. «I don't know why.»
Then, Angela being seated in the middle of the room, and the ornamental paper being taken out of the fireplace, because fiends very frequently like to make an exit by way of the chimney, the old woman lit a joss-stick or two, and began to mumble away for dear life.
When she had said all that was required, she set fire to a saucerful of Bengal Light. «Come forth, Asmodeus!» she cried.
«Wrong,» said the fiend, with a chuckle.
«Bother!» cried the old woman in dismay, for the flare had shown the cat eating one of the bones she had brought «That was a bone of St. Eulalia, which was worse than Keating's Powder to devils, and cost me twenty guineas,» she said. «No devil win go into that cat now, and the bone must go into the bill, and the Colonel must go into the street to fetch a fresh cat»
When everything was resettled, she began again, and, lighting a new saucerful, «Come forth, Beelzebub!» she demanded.
«Wrong again,» said the fiend, with a louder chuckle than before.
«They'll never guess, darling,» said Angela.
The old bedlam went on, at a prodigious expense of the Bengal Light, which was of a special kind. She called on Belial, Belphegor, Mahound, Radamanth, Minos, all the fiends ever heard of, and all she brought forth was taunts and laughter.
«Then who the devil are you?» cried the Colonel at last
«William Wakefield Wall,» replied the fiend.
«You might have asked that at the beginning,» said Angela quietly.
«And who, if you please, is William Wakefield Wan?» inquired her mother, with dignity. «At least dear, he is not one of those foreign fiends,» she added to the Colonel
«He is some charlatan,» said the old woman. «I have never heard of him.»
«Very few Philistines have,» rejoined the fiend, with great equanimity. «However, if there is, by any odd chance, anyone in this suburb who is familiar with the latest developments of modem poetry, I advise you to make your inquiries there.»
«Do you mean to say you're a poet?» cried the Colonel
«I am not a Poona jingler,» replied the other, «if that is what you mean by the term. Nor do I describe in saccharine doggerel such scenes as are often reproduced on coloured calendars. If, however, by the word 'poetry' you imply a certain precision, intensity, and clarity of —»
«He is a poet, Father,» said Angela, «and a very good one. He had a poem in a magazine printed in Paris. Didn't you, Will?»
«If the rascal is a poet,» cried the Colonel, «bring in a bottle of whiskey. That'll get him out, if I know the breed.»
«A typical army idea!» replied the poet. «Perhaps the only one. No, Colonel, you need not bring whiskey here, unless you need some yourself, and you may send away that old woman, at whom I do nothing but laugh. I shall come out on my own terms, or not at all»
«And your terms are —?» said the Colonel
«Permission to marry your daughter,» said the poet. «And the settlement upon her of a sum commensurate with the honour which my profession will bestow upon the family.»
«And if I refuse?» cried the outraged father.
«I am very comfortable where I am,» replied William Watt. «Angela can eat enough for two, and we are both as happy as anything. Aren't we, Angela?»
«Yes, dear,» said Angela. «Oh, don't!»
«We shall continue to have our bit of fun, of course,» added the poet.
«My dear,» said the Colonel to his wife, «I think we had better sleep on this.»
«I think it must be settled before eleven, my dear,» said Mrs. Bradshaw.
They could see no way out of it, so they had to come to an agreement. The poet at once emerged, and proved to be quite a presentable young man, though a little free in his mode of speech, and he was able to satisfy them that he came of an estimable family.
He explained that he had first seen Angela in the foyer of a theatre, during the entr'acte, and, gazing into her eyes (for he was much attracted), he had been amazed and delighted to find himself enter into possession of her. He was forced to reply in the affirmative to a certain question of Mrs. Bradshaw's, but after all young people have their own standards in these days. They were married at once, and, as he soon took to writing novels, the financial side worked out very satisfactorily, and they spent all their winters on the Riviera.
CANCEL ALL I SAID
Give the commuter Spring! Because, where the white walls are clustered close among the rocks and woods, the first daffodil is a portent most regarded; because among the companionable roofs there are more planes, more variously coloured lilac, plum and rose, for the last hoarfrost to moisten, glisten, and steam upon; because of the ice-break tinkle in the voices of children, and the appeal of their small rubbers; because of the untrustworthy lustre of the sky over Tarrytown and the east wind yet guerrilla on the plain, because of the glad heartbreaking babble at the breakfast table, and the bill beside the plate, give the commuter Spring!
Henry Sanford II, somewhat sloping about the shoulders, but dark, slim, and hollow of abdomen, clad in loosely fitting grey with a tweedy touch to it, and a well-worn tweedy touch at that, was granted his full share of this delectable season. It was the last morning in April. The wood's edge, round two sides of the garden, smoked and flashed in the stainless air, the buds were bursting, the twigs glistened, birds flickered in and out, their songs were liquid among the awakening trees. Edna's foot was on the stair. She, too, was early for breakfast
Last night she had been so tired, having come all the way from California — and little Joyce a handful all the way — that it might have been said she had not got home at all, but, having slept, was arriving now, and with this spring morning to welcome her. «After breakfast,» thought Henry, «there'll be time to walk round the garden together, before I catch the train.»