And I also thought--If I don't get that woman for my own, I will never, never be the same man again.'
'Really, Frank, the very first day you saw me?'
'Yes, the very first day.'
'And then?'
'And then, day by day, and week by week, that feeling grew deeper and stronger, until at last you swallowed up all my other hopes, and ambitions, and interests. I hardly dare think, Maude, what would have happened to me if you had refused me.'
She laughed aloud with delight.
'How sweet it is to hear you say so! And the wonderful thing is that you have never seemed disappointed. I always expected that some day after marriage--not immediately, perhaps, but at the end of a week or so--you would suddenly give a start, like those poor people who are hypnotised, and you would say, "Why, I used to think that she was pretty! I used to think that she was sweet! How could I be so infatuated over a little, insignificant, ignorant, selfish, uninteresting--" O Frank, the neighbours will see you?'
'Well, then, you mustn't provoke me.'
'What WILL Mrs. Potter think?'
'You should pull down the blinds before you make speeches of that sort.'
'Now do sit quiet and be a good boy.'
'Well, then, tell me what you thought.'
'I thought you were a very good tennis-player.'
'Anything else?'
'And you talked nicely.'
'Did I? I never felt such a stick in my life. I was as nervous as a cat.'
'That was so delightful. I do hate people who are very cool and assured. I saw that you were disturbed, and I even thought--'
'Yes?'
'Well, I thought that perhaps it was I who disturbed you.'
'And you liked me?'
'I was very interested in you.'
'Well, that is the blessed miracle which I can never get over. You, with your beauty, and your grace, and your rich father, and every young man at your feet, and I, a fellow with neither good looks, nor learning, nor prospects, nor--'
'Be quiet, sir! Yes, you shall! Now?'
'By Jove, there IS old Mrs. Potter at the window! We've done it this time. Let us get back to serious conversation again.'
'How did we leave it?'
'It was that hog, I believe. And then Mr. Beeton. But where does the hog come in? Why should you weep over him? And what are the Lady's Observations on the Common Hog?'
'Read them for yourself.'
Frank read out aloud: '"The hog belongs to the order Mammalia, the genus sus scrofa, and the species pachydermata, or thick-skinned. Its generic characters are a long, flexible snout, forty-two teeth, cloven feet, furnished with four toes, and a tail, which is small, short, and twisted, while, in some varieties, this appendage is altogether wanting." --But what on earth has all this to do with housekeeping?'
'That's what _I_ want to know. It is so disheartening to have to remember such things. What does it matter if the hog HAS forty-two toes. And yet, if Mrs. Beeton knew it, one feels that one ought to know it also. If once I began to skip, there would be no end to it. But it really is such a splendid book in other ways. It doesn't matter what you want, you will find it here. Take the index anywhere. Cream. If you want cream, it's all there. Croup. If you want--I mean, if you don't want croup, it will teach you how not to get it. Crumpets--all about them. Crullers--I'm sure you don't know what a cruller is, Frank.'
'No, I don't.'
'Neither do I. But I could look it up and learn. Here it is-- paragraph 2847. It is a sort of pancake, you see. That's how you learn things.'
Frank Crosse took the book and dropped it. It fell with a sulky thud upon the floor.
'Nothing that it can teach you, dear, can ever make up to me if it makes you cry, and bothers you.--You bloated, pedantic thing!' he cried, in sudden fury, aiming a kick at the squat volume. 'It is to you I owe all those sad, tired looks which I have seen upon my wife's face. I know my enemy now. You pompous, fussy old humbug, I'll kick the red cover off you!'
But Maude snatched it up, and gathered it to her bosom.