The Incomplete Amorist

There was a silence.

"Come, my pretty Jasmine lady, speak the truth."

"I will: What a brute you are!"

"So another lady told me a few months ago. Come, tell me."

"Why should I tell you anything?" She tried to touch her tone with scorn.

"Because I choose. You thought you could play with me and fool me and trick me out of what I mean to have--"

"What you mean to have?"

"Yes, what I mean to have. I mean to marry Miss Desmond--if she'll have me."

"You--mean to marry? Saul is among the prophets with a vengeance!" The scorn came naturally to her voice now.

Vernon stood as if turned to stone. Nothing had ever astonished him so much as those four words, spoken in his own voice, "I mean to marry." He repeated them. "I mean to marry Miss Desmond, if she'll have me. And it's your doing."

"Of course," she shrugged her shoulders. "Naturally it would be. Won't you sit down? You look so uncomfortable. Those French tragedy scenes with the hero hat in one hand and gloves in the other always seem to me so comic."

That was her score, the first. He put down the hat and gloves and came towards her. And as he came he hastily sketched his plan of action. When he reached her it was ready formed. His anger was always short lived. It had died down and left him competent as ever to handle the scene.

He took her hands, pushed her gently into a chair near the table, and sat down beside her with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.

"Forgive me, dear," he said. "I was a brute. Forgive me--and help me. No one can help me but you."

It was a master-stroke: and he had staked a good deal on it. The stake was not lost. She found no words.

"My dear, sweet Jasmine lady," he said, "let me talk to you. Let me tell you everything. I can talk to you as I can talk to no one else, because I know you're fond of me. You are fond of me--a little, aren't you--for the sake of old times?"

"Yes," she said, "I am fond of you."

"And you forgive me--you do forgive me for being such a brute? I hardly knew what I was doing."

"Yes," she said, speaking as one speaks in dreams, "I forgive you."