“Let’s get this straight,” I said. “You’re really married?”
“Yes.”
“The same girl you were in love with the day before yesterday?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know what you’re like. Tell me, what made you commit this rash act?”
“I wish the deuce you wouldn’t talk like that. I married her because I love her, dash it. The best little woman,” said young Bingo, “in the world.”
“That’s all right, and deuced creditable, I’m sure. But have you reflected what your uncle’s going to say? The last I saw of him, he was by no means in a confetti-scattering mood.”
“Bertie,” said Bingo, “I’ll be frank with you. The little woman rather put it up to me, if you know what I mean. I told her how my uncle felt about it, and she said that we must part unless I loved her enough to brave the old boy’s wrath and marry her right away. So I had no alternative. I bought a buttonhole and went to it.”
“And what do you propose to do now?”
“Oh, I’ve got it all planned out! After you’ve seen my uncle and broken the news. …”
“What!”
“After you’ve. …”
“You don’t mean to say you think you’re going to lug me into it?”
He looked at me like Lilian Gish coming out of a swoon.
“Is this Bertie Wooster talking?” he said, pained.
“Yes, it jolly well is.”
“Bertie, old man,” said Bingo, patting me gently here and there, “reflect! We were at school—”
“Oh, all right!”
“Good man! I knew I could rely on you. She’s waiting down below in the hall. We’ll pick her up and dash round to Pounceby Gardens right away.”
I had only seen the bride before in her waitress kit, and I was rather expecting that on her wedding day she would have launched out into something fairly zippy in the way of upholstery. The first gleam of hope I had felt since the start of this black business came to me when I saw that, instead of being all velvet and scent and flowery hat, she was dressed in dashed good taste. Quiet. Nothing loud. So far as looks went, she might have stepped straight out of Berkeley Square.
“This is my old pal, Bertie Wooster, darling,” said Bingo. “We were at school together, weren’t we, Bertie?”
“We were!” I said. “How do you do? I think we—er—met at lunch the other day, didn’t we?”
“Oh, yes! How do you do?”
“My uncle eats out of Bertie’s hand,” explained Bingo. “So he’s coming round with us to start things off and kind of pave the way. Hi, taxi!”
We didn’t talk much on the journey. Kind of tense feeling. I was glad when the cab stopped at old Bittlesham’s wigwam and we all hopped out. I left Bingo and wife in the hall while I went upstairs to the drawing-room, and the butler toddled off to dig out the big chief.
While I was prowling about the room waiting for him to show up, I suddenly caught sight of that bally Woman Who Braved All lying on one of the tables. It was open at page two hundred and fifteen, and a passage heavily marked in pencil caught my eye. And directly I read it I saw that it was all to the mustard and was going to help me in my business.
This was the passage:
“What can prevail”—Millicent’s eyes flashed as she faced the stern old man—“what can prevail against a pure and all-consuming love? Neither principalities nor powers, my lord, nor all the puny prohibitions of guardians and parents. I love your son, Lord Windermere, and nothing can keep us apart. Since time first began this love of ours was fated, and who are you to pit yourself against the decrees of Fate?”
The earl looked at her keenly from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
“Humph!” he said.
Before I had time to refresh my memory as to what Millicent’s comeback had been to that remark, the door opened and old Bittlesham rolled in. All over me, as usual.
“My dear Mr. Wooster, this is an unexpected pleasure. Pray take a seat. What can I do for you?”
“Well, the fact is, I’m more or less in the capacity of a jolly old ambassador at the moment. Representing young Bingo, you know.”
His geniality sagged a trifle, I thought, but he didn’t heave me out, so I pushed on.
“The way I always look at it,” I said, “is that it’s dashed difficult for anything to prevail against what you might call a pure and all-consuming love. I mean, can it be done? I doubt it.”
My eyes didn’t exactly flash as I faced the stern old man, but I sort of waggled my eyebrows. He puffed a bit and looked doubtful.
“We discussed this matter at our last meeting, Mr. Wooster. And on that occasion. …”
“Yes. But there have been developments, as it were, since then. The fact of the matter is,” I said, coming to the point, “this morning young Bingo went and jumped off the dock.”
“Good heavens!” He jerked himself to his feet with his mouth open. “Why? Where? Which dock?”
I saw that he wasn’t quite on.
“I was speaking metaphorically,” I explained, “if that’s the word I want. I mean he got married.”
“Married!”
“Absolutely hitched up. I hope you aren’t ratty about it, what? Young blood, you know. Two loving hearts, and all that.”
He panted in a rather overwrought way.
“I am greatly disturbed by your news. I—I consider that I have been—er—defied. Yes, defied.”
“But who are you to pit yourself against the decrees of Fate?” I said, taking a look at the prompt book out of the corner of my eye.
“Eh?”
“You see, this love of theirs was fated. Since time began, you know.”
I’m bound to admit that if he’d said “Humph!” at this juncture, he would have had me stymied. Luckily it didn’t occur to him. There was a silence, during which he appeared to brood a bit. Then his eye fell on the book and he gave a sort of start.
“Why, bless my soul, Mr. Wooster, you have been quoting!”
“More or less.”
“I
