F. Anstey

“ At the same time, I am distinctly of opinion that he has received sufficient provocation to excuse even such extreme measures, and that the fate he threatens will, if summary, at least be richly deserved."
"I think so too," said Sophia, "though it would be painful to be compelled to witness it!"
"Terrible!" agreed Miss Tyrrell. "Let us hide our eyes, dear!"
"Stay, Alfred!" Miss Davenport implored, "have some pity! Think—with all your faults, you are a keen sportsman—you would not shoot even a rabbit sitting! Give Mr. Tourmalin a start of a few seconds—let him have a run before you fire!" ”

“ With all his attachment to Sophia, he could hardly be insensible to the privilege of suddenly finding himself the friend—and more than that, the dear friend—of so delightful a girl as this Miss Tyrrell.
There was a strange charm, a peculiar and quite platonic tenderness about an intimacy of this peculiar and unprecedented nature, which increased at every fresh recollection of it. It increased so rapidly indeed, that almost unconsciously he drew the cheque-book towards him, and began to fill up another cheque with a view to an immediate return to the Boomerang. ”

“ Ah, Peter, never treat me as Helmer did Nora! Never shut me out from the serious side of your life, and think to make amends by calling me your 'little lark,' or your 'squirrel;' you must not look upon me as a mere doll!"
"My dear Sophia!" he exclaimed, "I should never think of addressing you as either a squirrel or a lark; and anyone less like a doll in every respect, I never met!" ”

“ Peter knew better than that.
"It's merely your fancy," he said, soothingly, "Who can be there? They are all at the other end of the ship, dancing. Go on telling me about Alfred. I don't yet understand how I have managed to offend him."
"Are you really so dull," she said, with a slight touch of temper, "that you can't see that a man who thought he was going to meet the woman he was engaged to, and finds she has learnt to care for—for somebody else, is likely, even if he was the mildest man in the world—which Alfred is far from being—to betray some annoyance?" ”

“ I know you so well, Peter!"
"I wish you could show a little more confidence in me," he had answered, in a wounded tone. "Since I met you, Sophia, I have ceased to be the butterfly I was. But as you seem to doubt me, it may relieve your mind if I promise faithfully that, while I am away from you, I will never, under any inducement, allow myself to overstep the limits of the most ordinary civility towards [8] any woman with whom I may be brought in contact. I swear it, Sophia! Are you satisfied now?" ”

“ As he expected, he was not alone; but, as he had not expected, his companion was neither Miss Tyrrell nor Miss Davenport, but a grim and portly matron, who was eyeing him with a look of strong disfavor, which made Peter wish he had not come. "What," he wondered, "was he in for now?" His uneasiness was increased as he glanced down upon his trousers, which, being new and of a delicate lavender tint, reminded him that in his impatience he had come away in his wedding garments. ”

“ Miss Tyrrell made no comment, but she dropped his arm as if it had scorched her fingers, whereupon Miss Davenport clung to it in her stead, to Peter's infinite dismay and confusion.
"He is faithful!" she cried. "It is only a mistaken sense of honour that made him apparently [156] false. Yes, Alfred, what I wrote to you, and the postscript he added, is the simple truth. We cannot command our own hearts. Such love as I once had for you is dead—it died on the fatal day which brought him across my path. We met—we love; deal with us as you will! ”

“ That is all, sir!"
"Thank you—it's quite enough!" murmured Peter, thinking that Alfred himself could hardly be much more formidable; and he slipped down the companion to the cabin-saloon, where he found Miss Davenport anxiously expecting him.
"He is here," she whispered. "I have just seen him through the port-hole."
"What—the old lady's brother!" he replied.
"He has no sister who is an old lady. I mean Alfred."
"Alfred?" he almost yelped. "Alfred here!"
"Of course he is here. Is not his battalion quartered at Gibraltar? You knew it; we were to meet him here!" ”

“ And on the built-up chimneypiece there was a clock, a small faience affair surmounted by a Japanese monster in peacock-blue. Moreover, by some chance, this clock was actually going—he could hear it ticking as he sat there. Should he present his cheque or not; he was feeling a little aggrieved at Sophia's treatment of him, she had snubbed him so unmercifully over the carpets; it was pleasant to think that, if he chose, he could transport himself that very instant to the society of a sweet and appreciative companion from whom snubbing was the last thing to be apprehended. ”

“ Why not spare him, poor fellow, at all events for the time? It will only upset him just now. Let him suppose that we are strangers to one another; and you can break the truth to him gently when you reach England, you know. I 'm sure that's much the more sensible plan!"
She broke into strange mirthless laughter.
"Your prudence comes too late," she said. "You forget that the truth was broken to him some days ago, in the letter I wrote from Brindisi."
"You wrote and broke it to him at Brindisi!" cried Peter. ”

“ He reflected that, even if he emerged from the agonies of drowning, to find himself bi-metalizing with Sophia, the experience would be none the less unpleasant while it lasted. There really must be some limit to his complaisance, and he set it at suicide.
"No," he said at last; "I have always held that to escape a difficulty by putting an end to one's own life is a cowardly proceeding."
"I am a coward," she said; "but, oh, Peter, be a coward with me for once!" ”

“ Peter, you don't know what Alfred is!"
Peter did not even know who Alfred was, but he was unmoved.
"You leave Alfred to me," he said confidently, "I'll settle him!"
"But I must tell you all. I—I led you to believe that Alfred would raise no objections; that he would quietly accept facts which it is useless to contend against. He will do nothing of the sort! He is a man of violent passions—fierce and relentless when wronged. ”

“ But, Miss Tyrrell, do you think that it is really all over? She—she may come round after all!"
"She may—but of course, if it is true that she is engaged to another, she can have no possible claim on you."
What a sensible right-minded way this girl had of looking at things! thought Peter, not for the first time.
"Why, of course she can't!" he cried. "And it is true. She is engaged—to a fellow of the name of Alfred." ”

“ Tourmalin had gone out to Australia, had seen something of the country during his stay in the colony, and was now, as we have seen, on his return; and during the whole time his oath, to his great credit, had been literally and faithfully kept.
During the voyage out, he had been too persistently unwell to be inclined to dally with sentiment; but in his subsequent wanderings, he had avoided, or rather escaped, all intercourse with any Colonial ladies who might by any possibility affect his allegiance to Sophia, whose image consequently still held undisputed possession of his heart. ”

“ I do assure you that I am the victim—we are all the victims of a series of unfortunate cheques—I should say, mistakes. It's absurd to make me responsible for the irregular proceedings of a nonsensical Bank. If I had spent my time as I ought to have done at the time, instead of putting it out on deposit, I should never have dreamed of employing it in any kind of philandering!"
"That," said Sophia, "is undeniable: but you spent it as you ought not to have done!" ”

“ Peter glanced down between his feet, and saw two swarthy Lascars climbing the rigging like cats. Lower still, he had a bird's-eye view of the deck, about which his enemies were posted in readiness for his arrival: the Manager exhibiting his spiked boots to Sir William, who shook his head in mild deprecation; the old lady brandishing her sunshade in angry denunciation, while her brother flourished his horsewhip; and Alfred stood covering him with his revolver, prepared to pick him off the instant he came within range! ”

“ I was even afraid that my brain must be slightly affected, for I had always prided myself upon having my imagination under thorough control. But by degrees, Peter—by degrees—I began to doubt again whether it was really nothing but fancy on my part. I noticed that your manner was suspiciously odd at times. I discovered that there was one drawer in your secretary that you kept carefully locked. I caught your eye wandering towards the clock from time to time. What I suspected I hardly know; but I felt certain that I should find the explanation of that mystery in the locked drawer. ”

“ What Ibsen insists upon is, the absolute necessity of one-ness between man and wife, Peter. They must belong to each other, complete each other—they must be Twin Souls. Are you a Twin Soul, Peter?"
"Upon my word, my dear, I can't say!" he replied, in some perplexity. In the present very divided state of his sympathies, he could not help thinking that his Soul was more like a Triplet.
"But think," persisted Sophia, earnestly: "have you shared all your Past with me? Is there nothing you have kept back—no feelings, no experiences, which you confine to your own bosom? ”

“ Still, if he could only stay quietly up aloft till his time was up, he might escape the worst yet. Surely it was a sufficient penalty for his folly to have embroiled himself with every creature he knew; to have been chivied about the deck of an ocean steamer by three violent men, each thirsting [163] for his blood; and to be reduced to mount the rigging like an escaped monkey! ”

“ Our love is too precious to be publicly denied. I cannot suffer it; I will acknowledge it, though it costs me my life! You," she added, turning to Sophia,—"you can prove that I speak [155] the truth. It was to you that I confided, that day we met on deck, the story of our fatal attachment."
"I really think you must be mistaken," said Sophia, coldly. "If you confided such a story to anybody, it could not have been to me; for, until a few minutes ago, I had never set foot upon this ship." ”

“ Mr. Peter Tourmalin was sitting, or rather lying, in a steamer-chair on the first-class saloon-deck of the P. and O. steamer Boomerang, which had not been many days as yet on the voyage home from Sydney. He had been trying to read; but it was a hot morning, and the curry, of which he had partaken freely at breakfast, had made him feel a little heavy and disinclined for mental exertion just then, particularly as Buckle's History of Civilisation, the first volume of which he had brought up from the ship's library, is not exactly light literature at any time. ”

“ She may have been trying to frighten you; she is just the kind of girl who would. But she may have been in earnest, after all!"
"You see, Sophia," said Peter, "it doesn't matter whether she was or not—it isn't as if it had ever really happened."
"Not really happened? But I was there; I heard, I saw it—nothing could be more real!"
"At any rate," he said, "it only happens when I use those cheques; and she can't possibly carry out her rash intention until I draw another—which I promise you faithfully I will never do. If you doubt me, I will burn the book now before your eyes!" ”

“ She would abandon him, no doubt, if she ever knew; but who was going to tell her, and how could she possibly discover the truth unaided, especially now that her awakening suspicions had been lulled? His secret was perfectly safe, and he could unravel the tangled thread of the history of his remaining extra hours on board the Boomerang without any other hindrance than that of his own scruples—which practically amounted to no hindrance at all. ”

“ He could have wished for some indication as to whether she was Lady Tyrrell or Mrs. Davenport; but, as he had none at present, "Oh" seemed the safest remark to make.
"Life on board a large passenger-ship, Mr. Tourmalin," she went on to observe, "though relaxed in some respects, is still not without decencies which a gentleman is bound to respect."
"Quite so," said Peter, unable to discover the bearings which lay in the application of this particular observation.
"You say 'Quite so'; but what has your behavior been, sir?"
"That," said Peter, "is exactly what I should like to know myself!" ”

“ First you call me 'Miss Tyrrell' and then 'Miss Davenport,' and then you will have it that we were introduced by a monkey! As if I should ever allow a monkey to introduce anybody to me! Is saving a girl's life such an ordinary event with you, that you forget all about such a trifle? ”