'Exactly my sentiments,' I said.
It was a delirious evening. I was still mad. Megan brought me down to earth when she said doubtfully, 'Oughtn't we to be going home?'
My jaw dropped. Yes, definitely I was mad. I had forgotten everything! I was in a world divorced from reality, existing in it with the creature I had created.
'Good Lord!' I said.
I realized that the last train had gone.
'Stay there,' I said. 'I'm going to telephone.'
I rang up the Llewellyn Hire people and ordered their biggest and fastest car to come around as soon as possible.
I came back to Megan.
'The last train has gone,' I said. 'So we're going home by car.'
'Are we? What fun!'
What a nice child she was, I thought. So pleased with everything, so unquestioning, accepting all my suggestions without fuss or bother.
The car came, and it was large and fast, but all the same it was very very late when we came into Lymstock.
Suddenly conscience-stricken, I said, 'They'll have been sending out search parties for you!'
But Megan seemed in an equable mood. 'Oh, I don't think so,' she said vaguely. 'I often go out and don't come home for lunch.'
'Yes, my dear child, but you've been out for tea and dinner too.'
However, Megan's lucky star was in the ascendant. The house was dark and silent. On Megan's advice, we went around to the back and threw stones at Rose's window. In due course Rose looked out and with many suppressed exclamations and palpitations came down to let us in.
'Well now, and I saying you were asleep in your bed. The master and Miss Holland -' (slight sniff after Miss Holland's name) – 'had early supper and went for a drive. I said I'd keep an eye to the boys. I thought I heard you come in when I was up in the nursery trying to quiet Colin, who was playing up, but you weren't about when I came down so I thought you'd gone up to bed. And that's what I said when the master came in and asked for you.'
I cut short the conversation by remarking that that was where Megan had better go now.
'Good night,' said Megan, 'and thank you awfully. It's been the loveliest day I've ever had.'
I drove home slightly lightheaded still, and tipped the chauffeur handsomely, offering him a bed if he liked. But he preferred to drive back through the night.
The hall door had opened during our colloquy and as he drove away it was flung wide open and Joanna said, 'So it's you at last, is it?'
'Were you worried about me?' I asked, coming in and shutting the door.
Joanna went into the drawing room and I followed her. There was a coffee-pot on the trivet and Joanna made herself coffee while I helped myself to a whisky-and-soda.
'Worried about you? No, of course not. I thought you'd decided to stay in town and have a binge.'
'I've had a binge – of a kind.'
I grinned and then began to laugh.
Joanna asked what I was laughing at and I told her.
'But, Jerry, you must have been mad – quite mad!'
'I suppose I was.'
'But, my dear boy, you can't do things like that – not in a place like this. It will be all around Lymstock tomorrow.'
'I suppose it will. But, after all, Megan's only a child.'
'She isn't. She's twenty. You can't take a girl of twenty to London and buy her clothes without a most frightful scandal. Good gracious, Jerry, you'll probably have to marry the girl.' Joanna was half serious, half laughing.
It was at that moment that I made a very important discovery.
'Damn it all,' I said. 'I don't mind if I do. In fact – I should like it.'
A very funny expression came over Joanna's face. She got up and said drily, as she went toward the door, 'Yes, I've known that for some time… '
She left me standing, glass in hand, aghast at my new discovery.
I don't know what the usual reactions are of a man who goes to propose marriage.
In fiction his throat is dry and his collar feels too tight and he is in a pitiable state of nervousness.
I didn't feel at all like that. Having thought of a good idea I just wanted to get it all settled as soon as possible. I didn't see any particular need for embarrassment.
I went along to the Symmingtons' house about eleven o'clock.
I rang the bell and when Rose came, I asked for Miss Megan.
It was the knowing look that Rose gave me that first made me feel slightly shy.
She put me in the little morning room and while waiting there I hoped uneasily that they hadn't been upsetting Megan.
When the door opened and I wheeled around, I was instantly relieved. Megan was not looking shy or upset at all.
Her head was still like a glossy chestnut, and she wore that air of pride and self-respect that she had acquired yesterday.
She was in her old clothes again but she had managed to make them look different. It's wonderful what knowledge of her own attractiveness will do for a girl. Megan, I realized suddenly, had grown up.
I suppose I must really have been rather nervous, otherwise I should not have opened the conversation by saying affectionately:
'Hullo, catfish!' It was hardly, in the circumstances, a loverlike greeting.
It seemed to suit Megan. She grinned and said, 'Hullo!'
'Look here,' I said. 'You didn't get into a row about yesterday, I hope?'
Megan said with assurance, 'Oh, no,' and then blinked, and said vaguely, 'Yes, I believe I did. I mean, they said a lot of things and seemed to think it had been very odd but then you know what people are and what fusses they make all about nothing.'
I was relieved to see that shocked disapproval had slipped off Megan like water off a duck's back.
'I came around this morning,' I said, 'because I've a suggestion to make. You see I like you a lot, and I think you like me -'
'Frightfully,' said Megan with rather disquieting enthusiasm.
'And we get on awfully well together, so I think it would be a good idea if we got married.'
'Oh,' said Megan.
She looked surprised. Just that. Not startled. Not shocked. Just mildly surprised.
'You mean you really want to marry me?' she asked with the air of one getting a thing perfectly clear.
'More than anything in the world,' I said – and I meant it.
'You mean, you're in love with me?'
'I'm in love with you.'
Her eyes were steady and grave. She said, 'I think you're the nicest person in the world – but I'm not in love with you.'
'I'll make you love me.'
'That wouldn't do. I don't want to be made.' She paused and then said gravely, 'I'm not the sort of wife for you. I'm better at hating than at loving.'
She said it with a queer intensity.
I said, 'Hate doesn't last. Love does.'
'Is that true?'
'It's what I believe.'
Again there was a silence. Then I said, 'So it's 'no,' is it?'
'Yes, it's 'no.''
'And you don't encourage me to hope?'
