“You expected it!” gasped Veronica.
“Of course.”
“But why — I can’t believe—”
“My dear Veronica, I’m no fool. You have never wanted to marry me. And I knew you had the courage to say so, so it was merely a matter of time. But, by Jove, I’ve been frightened lately. I was afraid you were going to wait till we were actually at the altar — I was, really. That would have been awful. For of course we would have had to call it off.”
Veronica was too amazed to speak.
“But why—” she stammered.
“Well?”
“Aren’t you going — to insist on it?”
“On what?”
“On my marrying you.”
“Good heavens, no!”
He smiled at her. His sincerity was unmistakable. She couldn’t understand it. But what was it she couldn’t understand? Oh, yes. She put the question:
“Then why didn’t you — call it off — yourself?”
It was Crevel’s turn to hesitate and search for words. He seemed suddenly stricken with a terrible embarrassment. The smile left his lips.
“I don’t think I can tell you that,” he said finally.
“Why not?”
“Well, I will.” He took a breath. “You will probably laugh, but I can stand it.”
Another breath.
“Because I love you.”
Then he went on hurriedly, “You won’t understand, but I’ll try to explain. I’ve thought you knew all along, the past month or so. I do love you. The funny part of it is, I know just when it began, the very day and hour. It was when I first saw that you didn’t want to marry me, one day last July at Newport.”
Veronica glanced at him. She remembered that day very well, but she hadn’t supposed he did. This began to sound interesting.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” he went on, “that I loved you. It seemed so absurd. I’d known you nearly all my life — that is, I’d been acquainted with you. You know how it was: they had it all fixed up for us to marry each other a long time ago. Then after I came of age I kept putting it off. I didn’t know you very well, and I didn’t like you. Neither did you like me, though I didn’t know it then. Finally I had to give in and I asked you to marry me. That was the tenth of last December.”
He paused. Veronica nodded, and he went on:
“So we were engaged. I thought about it as little as possible, and I saw you only when I had to, to keep up appearances. I began to think I hated you and I regarded it as a weakness, because I knew we were doing only what others do in our set. And besides, you — well, you—”
“I know,” said Veronica shortly. “I was sentimental. You needn’t remind me of it.”
“Then came that day at Newport. I was positively amazed to find that you hated me too. Conceit, I suppose, but you cured it. And it changed me entirely — I mean it changed you. You didn’t seem to be the same person. In a single hour, in one minute, I think, my hate was changed to love. I laughed at myself, I cursed myself, I went out on DuMont’s yacht with the Halloway crowd. I did everything, but the result was that when I saw you again I loved you more than ever.”
Veronica stirred uneasily. Her eyes were on the floor.
“So you see what a fix I was in,” Crevel continued. “As a matter of fact, I had some pretty bad times with myself. But I finally decided to leave it up to you. Several times I resolved to tell you — to try to show you — but every time you did or said something that sent me back to cover. It’s an impossible thing to tell a girl you love her after you’re engaged if you haven’t told her before. So I decided that if you went through with it perhaps it would be all right in the end. But I knew all the time that sooner or later you’d call it off. And you see,” he finished, “I was right.”
“It may be,” Veronica said in a low tone, as if to herself, in answer to her thoughts, “that you are merely — clever.”
“No. Because I am not asking you for anything. You must not misunderstand that. You must believe in my frankness, for I admit I am not giving up hope either. You have had no reason for disliking me except that you were engaged to me. Now, thank heaven, it’s all over, and I can take my chance.”
“Your chance—?”
“Of making you love me. I don’t want to marry you now. That’s past and forgotten. Thank God, you had the courage to do it! I couldn’t; I wanted you too much for that. Listen: You will understand — you will feel it better if you do something. Give me back my ring.”
As she heard the word Veronica glanced involuntarily at the solitaire diamond on the third finger of her left hand. Then, with a hasty, impulsive movement, she drew it off. There she stopped, and gazed at it as it lay in her palm, a symbol of misery and suffering, never to end. And now, merely by stretching out her hand, she could be rid of it forever.
She glanced at Crevel, a fugitive, wild glance, then down again at the ring.
“I think I must be crazy,” she said slowly. “I don’t want to give it to you.”
“But you must. Of course it doesn’t mean anything, but still you must give it to me. You will feel better then.”
“I know.” She paused. “But I don’t want to.”
He merely held out his hand. She did not move. He waited a moment, then rose to his feet and stood before her and spoke in a tone of impatience.
“This is absurd. We are acting like children. Come, give it to me.”
Still she did not move.
“Look here, Veronica,” he said, and his voice began to tremble a little. “You don’t by any chance imagine you love me, do you?”
“No,” she replied, without looking up.
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
“Do you want to marry me?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“Do you?” He demanded. “Look at me.”
She raised her eyes as far as his chin.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” she said almost pathetically. “I thought I hated you, but now it all seems to be changed.” She appeared to recover herself a little. “The truth is I haven’t the slightest idea whether I want to marry you or not. Not the slightest idea.”
Crevel sat down, then got up. Suddenly he took a determined step forward.
“Look here,” he said in a new tone, “there’s a way of finding out. It won’t hurt you, at least.”
And the next thing Victoria knew an arm was passed around her neck and a pair of firm lips was planted on hers. Mr. Crevel also was no bungler. He did the thing expertly, firmly and thoroughly. There was no roughness in it, but nevertheless, his encircling arm held her as in a vise. This exhibition of the oldest art in the world lasted while a watch would tick off five seconds.
He released her and stepped back, his face pale as death.
“Now,” he said, “you will know — if you hate me—”
She did not speak, but she saw a quivering movement pass over her body from head to foot. Something fell from her hand and rolled on the floor, but neither of them moved. Then suddenly a tiny spot of color appeared on her cheeks and spread slowly, like the birth of a summer’s dawn, until her whole face and neck were suffused with a rosy flaming blush. More slowly still she raised her eyes to his.
It was half an hour later that they found the ring. They found it on the floor under the piano bench.
Ask the Egyptians
This intriguing story is one of Rex Stout’s few stories to feature hints of the supernatural. In it, a poor golfer rises to stardom under the inspiration of a beloved dog. The story appeared in March 1916 in Golfers Magazine, which began serializing The Last Drive four months later.