'Engaged! I wish you'd explain. What on earth's wrong with you?
Don't you want to be engaged? What's your--?'
He broke off, as a sudden, awful suspicion dawned upon him. 'Who is
she?' he cried.
He gripped the stricken peer's shoulder, and shook it savagely.
Unfortunately, he selected the precise moment when the latter was in
the act of calming his quivering nerve-centers with a gulp of
brandy-and-soda, and for the space of some two minutes it seemed as
if the engagement would be broken off by the premature extinction of
the Dreever line. A long and painful fit of coughing, however, ended
with his lordship still alive and on the road to recovery.
He eyed Jimmy reproachfully, but Jimmy was in no mood for apologies.
'Who is she?' he kept demanding. 'What's her name?'
'Might have killed me!' grumbled the convalescent.
'Who is she?'
'What? Why, Miss McEachern.'
Jimmy had known what the answer would be, but it was scarcely less
of a shock for that reason.
'Miss McEachern?' he echoed.
Lord Dreever nodded a somber nod.
'You're engaged to her?'
Another somber nod.
'I don't believe it,' said Jimmy.
'I wish I didn't,' said his lordship wistfully, ignoring the slight
rudeness of the remark. 'But, worse luck, it's true.'
For the first time since the disclosure of the name, Jimmy's
attention was directed to the remarkable demeanor of his successful
rival.
'You don't seem over-pleased,' he said.
'Pleased! Have a fiver each way on 'pleased'! No, I'm not exactly
leaping with joy.'
'Then, what the devil is it all about? What do you mean? What's the
idea? If you don't want to marry Miss McEachern, why did you propose
to her?'
Lord Dreever closed his eyes.
'Dear old boy, don't! It's my uncle.'
'Your uncle?'
'Didn't I explain it all to you--about him wanting me to marry? You
know! I told you the whole thing.'
Jimmy stared in silence.
'Do you mean to say--?' he said, slowly.
He stopped. It was a profanation to put the thing into words.
'What, old man?'
Jimmy gulped.
'Do you mean to say you want to marry Miss McEachern simply because
she has money?' he said.
It was not the first time that he had heard of a case of a British
peer marrying for such a reason, but it was the first time that the
thing had filled him with horror. In some circumstances, things come
