The Small Bachelor

reflection on the subject of the illogical nature of the infatuation in which he had allowed himself to become involved, would have brought remorse to so clear and ruthless a thinker as Hamilton Beamish. It was not so, but far otherwise. As Hamilton Beamish sat in the antechamber of Madame Eulalie’s office next day, he gloried in his folly: and when his better self endeavoured to point out to him that what had happened was that he had allowed himself to be ensnared by a girl’s face⁠—that is to say, by a purely fortuitous arrangement of certain albuminoids and fatty molecules, all Hamilton Beamish did was to tell his better self to put its head in a bag. He was in love, and he liked it. He was in love, and proud of it. His only really coherent thought as he waited in the anteroom was a resolve to withdraw the booklet on “The Marriage Sane” from circulation and try his hand at writing a poem or two.

“Madame Eulalie will see you now, sir,” announced the maid, breaking in upon his reverie.

Hamilton Beamish entered the inner room. And, having entered it, stopped dead.

“You!” he exclaimed.

The girl gave that fleeting pat at her hair which is always Woman’s reaction to the unexpected situation. And Hamilton Beamish looking at that hair emotionally, perceived that he had been right in his yesterday’s surmise. It was, as he had suspected, a gleamy mass, sparkling with life and possessing that incomparable softness, freshness and luxuriance.

“Why, how do you do?” said the girl.

“I’m fine,” said Hamilton Beamish.

“We seem fated to meet.”

“And I’m not quarrelling with fate.”

“No?”

“No,” said Hamilton Beamish. “Fancy it being you!”

“Fancy who being me?”

“Fancy you being you.” It occurred to him that he was not making himself quite clear. “I mean, I was sent here with a message for Madame Eulalie, and she turns out to be you.”

“A message? Who from?”

“From whom?” corrected Hamilton Beamish. Even in the grip of love, a specialist on Pure English remains a specialist on Pure English.

“That’s what I said⁠—Who from?”

Hamilton Beamish smiled an indulgent smile. These little mistakes could be corrected later⁠—possibly on the honeymoon.

“From Molly Waddington. She asked me to.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, then you don’t want me to read your hand?”

“There is nothing I want more in this world,” said Hamilton Beamish warmly, “than to have you read my hand.”

“I don’t have to read it to tell your character, of course,” said the girl. “I can see that at a glance.”

“You can?”

“Oh, certainly. You have a strong, dominating nature and a keen incisive mind. You have great breadth of vision, iron determination, and marvellous insight. Yet with it all you are at heart gentle, kind and lovable; deeply altruistic and generous to a fault. You have it in you to be a leader of men. You remind me of Julius Caesar, Shakespeare and Napoleon Bonaparte.”

“Tell me more,” said Hamilton Beamish.

“If you ever fell in love.⁠ ⁠…”

“If I ever fell in love.⁠ ⁠…”

“If you ever fell in love,” said the girl, raising her eyes to his and drawing a step closer, “you would.⁠ ⁠…”

“Mr. Delancy Cabot,” announced the maid.

“Oh, darn it!” said Madame Eulalie. “I forgot I had an appointment. Send him in.”

“May I wait?” breathed Hamilton Beamish devoutly.

“Please do. I shan’t be long.” She turned to the door. “Come in, Mr. Cabot.”

Hamilton Beamish wheeled around. A long, stringy person was walking daintily into the room. He was richly, even superbly, dressed in the conventional costume of the popular clubman and pet of Society. He wore lavender gloves and a carnation in his buttonhole, and a vast expanse of snowy collar encircled a neck which suggested that he might be a throwback to some giraffe ancestor. A pleasing feature of this neck was an Adam’s apple that could have belonged to only one man of Hamilton Beamish’s acquaintance.

“Garroway!” cried Hamilton Beamish. “What are you doing here? And what the devil does this masquerade mean?”

The policeman seemed taken aback. His face became as red as his wrists. But for the collar, which held him in a grip of iron, his jaw would no doubt have fallen.

“I didn’t expect to find you here, Mr. Beamish,” he said apologetically.

“I didn’t expect to find you here, calling yourself De Courcy Bellville.”

“Delancy Cabot, sir.”

“Delancy Cabot, then.”

“I like the name,” urged the policeman. “I saw it in a book.”

The girl was breathing hard.

“Is this man a policeman?” she cried.

“Yes, he is,” said Hamilton Beamish. “His name is Garroway, and I am teaching him to write poetry. And what I want to know,” he thundered, turning on the unhappy man, whose Adam’s apple was now leaping like a young lamb in the springtime, “is what are you doing here, interrupting a⁠—interrupting a⁠—in short interrupting, when you ought either to be about your constabulary duties or else sitting quietly at home studying John Drinkwater. That,” said Hamilton Beamish, “is what I want to know.”

Officer Garroway coughed.

“The fact is, Mr. Beamish, I did not know that Madame Eulalie was a friend of yours.”

“Never mind whose friend she is.”

“But it makes all the difference, Mr. Beamish. I can now go back to headquarters and report that Madame Eulalie is above suspicion. You see, sir, I was sent here by my superior officers to effect a cop.”

“What do you mean, effect a cop?”

“To make an arrest, Mr. Beamish.”

“Then do not say ‘effect a cop.’ Purge yourself of these vulgarisms, Garroway.”

“Yes, sir. I will indeed, sir.”

“Aim at the English Pure.”

“Yes, sir. Most certainly, Mr. Beamish.”

“And what on earth do you mean by saying that you were sent here to arrest this lady?”

“It has been called to the attention of my superior officers, Mr. Beamish, that Madame Eulalie is in the habit of telling fortunes for a monetary consideration. Against the law, sir.”

Hamilton Beamish snorted.

“Ridiculous! If that’s the law, alter it!”

“I will do my best, sir.”

“I have had the privilege of watching Madame Eulalie engaged upon her art, and she reveals nothing but the most limpid truth. So go back to your superior officers and tell them