But it was quite clear.
Oh, quite. Perfectly clear. Very well expressed and all that. ButI meanWell, I mean, deeply sensible of the honour, and so forthbutWell, dash it!
She had polished off her salmon, and now put the plate down.
Fruit salad?
No, thank you.
Spot of pie?
No, thanks.
One of those glue things on toast?
No, thank you.
She took a cheese straw. I found a cold egg which I had overlooked. Then I said I mean to say just as she said I think I know", and there was another collision.
I beg your pardon.
I'm sorry.
Do go on.
No, you go on.
I waved my cold egg courteously, to indicate that she had the floor, and she started again:
I think I know what you are trying to say. You are surprised.
Yes.
You are thinking of
Exactly.
Mr. Fink-Nottle.
The very man.
You find what I have done hard to understand.
Absolutely.
I don't wonder.
I do.
And yet it is quite simple.
She took another cheese straw. She seemed to like cheese straws.
Quite simple, really. I want to make you happy.
Dashed decent of you.
I am going to devote the rest of my life to making you happy.
A very matey scheme.
I can at least do that. Butmay I be quite frank with you, Bertie?
Oh, rather.
Then I must tell you this. I am fond of you. I will marry you. I will do my best to make you a good wife. But my affection for you can never be the flamelike passion I felt for Augustus.
Just the very point I was working round to. There, as you say, is the snag. Why not chuck the whole idea of hitching up with me? Wash it out altogether. I mean, if you love old Gussie
No longer.
Oh, come.
No. What happened this afternoon has killed my love. A smear of ugliness has been drawn across a thing of beauty, and I can never feel towards him as I did.
I saw what she meant, of course. Gussie had bunged his heart at her feet; she had picked it up, and, almost immediately after doing so, had discovered that he had been stewed to the eyebrows all the time. The shock must have been severe. No girl likes to feel that a chap has got to be thoroughly plastered before he can ask her to marry him. It wounds the pride.
Nevertheless, I persevered.
But have you considered, I said, that you may have got a wrong line on Gussie's performance this afternoon? Admitted that all the evidence points to a more sinister theory, what price him simply having got a touch of the sun? Chaps do get touches of the sun, you know, especially when the weather's hot.
She looked at me, and I saw that she was putting in a bit of the old drenched-irises stuff.
It was like you to say that, Bertie. I respect you for it.
Oh, no.
Yes. You have a splendid, chivalrous soul.
Not a bit.
Yes, you have. You remind me of Cyrano.
Who?
Cyrano de Bergerac.
The chap with the nose?
Yes.
I can't say I was any too pleased. I felt the old beak furtively. It was a bit on the prominent side, perhaps, but, dash it, not in the Cyrano class. It began to look as if the next thing this girl would do would be to compare me to Schnozzle Durante.
He loved, but pleaded another's cause.
Oh, I see what you mean now.
I like you for that, Bertie. It was fine of youfine and big. But it is no use. There are things which kill love. I can never forget Augustus, but my love for him is dead. I will be your wife.
Well, one has to be civil.
Right ho, I said. Thanks awfully.
Then the dialogue sort of poofed out once more, and we stood eating cheese straws and cold eggs respectively in silence. There seemed to exist some little uncertainty as to what the next move was.
Fortunately, before embarrassment could do much more supervening, Angela came in, and this broke up the meeting. Then Bassett announced our engagement, and Angela kissed her and said she hoped she would be very, very happy, and the Bassett kissed her and said she hoped she would be very, very happy with Gussie, and Angela said she was sure she would, because Augustus was such a dear, and the Bassett kissed her again, and Angela kissed her again and, in a word, the whole thing got so bally feminine that I was glad to edge away.
I would have been glad to do so, of course, in any case, for if even there was a moment when it was up to Bertram to think, and think hard, this moment was that moment.
It was, it seemed to me, the end. Not even on the occasion, some years earlier, when I had inadvertently become betrothed to Tuppy's frightful Cousin Honoria, had I experienced a deeper sense of being waist high in the gumbo and about to sink without trace. I wandered out into the garden, smoking a tortured gasper, with the iron well embedded in the soul. And I had fallen into a sort of trance, trying to picture what it would be like having the Bassett on the premises for the rest of my life and at the same time, if you follow me, trying not to picture what it would be like, when I charged into something which might have been a tree, but was notbeing, in point of fact, Jeeves.
I beg your pardon, sir, he said. I should have moved to one side.
I did not reply. I stood looking at him in silence. For the sight of him had opened up a new line of thought.
This Jeeves, now, I reflected. I had formed the opinion that he had lost his grip and was no longer the force he had been, but was it not possible, I asked myself, that I might be mistaken? Start him off exploring avenues and might he not discover one through which I would be enabled to sneak off to safety, leaving no hard feelings behind? I found myself answering that it was quite on the cards that he might.
After all, his head still bulged out at the back as of old. One noted in the eyes the same intelligent glitter.
Mind you, after what had passed between us in the matter of that white mess-jacket with the brass buttons, I was not prepared absolutely to hand over to the man. I would, of course, merely take him into consultation. But, recalling some of his earlier triumphsthe Sipperley Case, the Episode of My Aunt Agatha and the Dog McIntosh, and the smoothly handled Affair of Uncle George and The Barmaid's Niece were a few that sprang to my mindI felt justified at least in offering him the opportunity of coming to the aid of the young master in his hour of peril.
But before proceeding further, there was one thing that had got to be understood between us, and understood clearly.
Jeeves, I said, a word with you.
Sir?
I am up against it a bit, Jeeves.
I am sorry to hear that, sir. Can I be of any assistance?
Quite possibly you can, if you have not lost your grip. Tell me frankly, Jeeves, are you in pretty good shape mentally?
Yes, sir.
Still eating plenty of fish?
Yes, sir.
Then it may be all right. But there is just one point before I begin. In the past, when you have contrived to extricate self or some pal from some little difficulty, you have frequently shown a disposition to take advantage of my gratitude to gain some private end. Those purple socks, for instance. Also the plus fours and the Old Etonian spats. Choosing your moment with subtle cunning, you came to me when I was weakened by relief and got me to get rid of them. And what I am saying now is that if you are successful on the present occasion there must be no rot of that description about that mess-jacket of mine.
Very good, sir.
You will not come to me when all is over and ask me to jettison the jacket?
Certainly not, sir.
On that understanding then, I will carry on. Jeeves, I'm engaged.
I hope you will be very happy, sir.
Don't be an ass. I'm engaged to Miss Bassett.
Indeed, sir? I was not aware
Nor was I. It came as a complete surprise. However, there it is. The official intimation was in that note you brought me.