“I don’t blame you,” said Wimsey.
“Don’t you?”
“No. It sounds to me as if the fellow was a prig—not to say a bit of a cad. Like that horrid man who pretended to be a landscape painter and then embarrassed the unfortunate young woman with the burden of an honour unto which she was not born. I’ve no doubt he made himself perfectly intolerable about it, with his ancient oaks and family plate, and the curtseying tenantry and all the rest of it.”
Harriet Vane laughed once more.
“Yes—it’s ridiculous—but humiliating too. Well, there it is. I thought Philip had made both himself and me ridiculous, and the minute I saw that—well, the whole thing simply shut down—flop!”
She sketched a gesture of finality.
“I quite see that,” said Wimsey. “Such a Victorian attitude, too, for a man with advanced ideas. He for God only, she for God in him, and so on. Well, I’m glad you feel like that about it.”
“Are you? It’s not going to be exactly helpful in the present crisis.”
“No; I was looking beyond that. What I mean to say is, when all this is over, I want to marry you, if you can put up with me and all that.”
Harriet Vane, who had been smiling at him, frowned, and an indefinable expression of distaste came into her eyes.
“Oh, are you another of them? That makes forty-seven.”
“Forty-seven what?” asked Wimsey, much taken aback.
“Proposals. They come in by every post. I suppose there are a lot of imbeciles who want to marry anybody who’s at all notorious.”
“Oh,” said Wimsey. “Dear me, that makes it very awkward. As a matter of fact you know, I don’t need any notoriety. I can get into the papers off my own bat. It’s no treat to me. Perhaps I’d better not mention it again.”
His voice sounded hurt, and the girl eyed him rather remorsefully.
“I’m sorry—but one gets rather a bruised sort of feeling in my position. There have been so many beastlinesses.”
“I know,” said Lord Peter. “It was stupid of me—”
“No, I think it was stupid of me. But why—?”
“Why? Oh, well—I thought you’d be rather an attractive person to marry. That’s all. I mean, I sort of took a fancy to you. I can’t tell you why. There’s no rule about it, you know.”
“I see. Well, it’s very nice of you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t sound as if you thought it was rather funny. I know I’ve got a silly face, but I can’t help that. As a matter of fact, I’d like somebody I could talk sensibly to, who would make life interesting. And I could give you a lot of plots for your books, if that’s any inducement.”
“But you wouldn’t want a wife who wrote books, would you?”
“But I should; it would be great fun. So much more interesting than the ordinary kind that is only keen on clothes and people. Though of course, clothes and people are all right too, in moderation. I don’t mean to say I object to clothes.”
“And how about the old oaks and the family plate?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t be bothered with them. My brother does all that. I collect first editions and incunabulae, which is a little tedious of me, but you wouldn’t need to bother with them either unless you liked.”
“I don’t mean that. What would your family think about it?”
“Oh, my mother’s the only one that counts, and she likes you very much from what she’s seen of you.”
“So you had me inspected?”
“No—dash it all, I seem to be saying all the wrong things today. I was absolutely stunned that first day in court, and I rushed off to my mater, who’s an absolute dear, and the kind of person who really understands things, and I said, ‘Look here! here’s the absolutely one and only woman, and she’s being put through a simply ghastly awful business and for God’s sake come and hold my hand!’ You simply don’t know how foul it was.”
“That does sound rather rotten. I’m sorry I was brutal. But, by the way, you’re bearing in mind, aren’t you, that I’ve had a lover?”
“Oh, yes. So have I, if it comes to that. In fact, several. It’s the sort of thing that might happen to anybody. I can produce quite good testimonials. I’m told I make love rather nicely—only I’m at a disadvantage at the moment. One can’t be very convincing at the other end of a table with a bloke looking in at the door.”
“I will take your word for it. But, however entrancing it is to wander unchecked through a garden of bright images, are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance? It seems probable—”
“And if you can quote Kai Lung, we should certainly get on together.”
“It seems very probable that I shall not survive to make the experiment.”
“Don’t be so damned discouraging,” said Wimsey. “I have already carefully explained to you that this time I am investigating this business. Anybody would think you had no confidence in me.”
“People have been wrongly condemned before now.”
“Exactly; simply because I wasn’t there.”
“I never thought of that.”
“Think of it now. You will find it very beautiful and inspiring. It might even help to distinguish me from the other forty-six, if you should happen to mislay my features, or anything. Oh, by the way—I don’t positively repel you or anything like that, do I? Because, if I do, I’ll take my name off the waiting list at once.”
“No,” said Harriet Vane, kindly and a little sadly. “No, you don’t repel me.”
“I don’t remind you of white slugs or make you go gooseflesh all over?”
“Certainly not.”
“I’m glad of that. Any minor alterations, like parting the old mane, or growing a toothbrush, or cashiering the eyeglass, you know, I should be happy to undertake, if it suited your ideas.”
“Don’t,” said Miss Vane, “please don’t alter yourself in any particular.”
“You really mean that?” Wimsey flushed a little.
