A Knight on Wheels Part 62

"Yes, I forgive you," replied Timothy, rea.s.suming his air of possession at once. "But it must not occur again."

"All right," agreed Peggy meekly.

Then she looked at Timothy with a troubled expression.

"Tim," she said, "I want to talk to you like a mother. I have been thinking."

"And have you come to the conclusion that you don't love me!" exclaimed Timothy in a tragic voice. "I know: don't explain! That is a woman all over. A couple of hours--"

"I wasn't going to say anything of the kind, Tim," interposed Peggy quietly; "but I have been thinking." She fingered the b.u.t.tons of Timothy's immaculate waistcoat. "I have been wondering if a man like you _ought_ to marry at present. What lovely b.u.t.tons!" She played a little tune on them to show her appreciation.

"Don't treat me like a child, please," said Timothy stiffly.

"At this moment," replied Peggy, "that is just the way I am _not_ treating you."

"You think me too young, I know," insisted Tim.

"I wasn't thinking of you at all," said Peggy calmly.

"I see," said Timothy in a hollow voice. "Yourself? Quite so!" He laughed sardonically.

"No," replied Peggy patiently; "of something bigger. Something bigger than either of us. I was thinking--well, of the nation at large."

"Peggy," enquired Timothy, entirely befogged but considerably intrigued, "what are you talking about?"

"Sit down, and listen," replied Peggy.

Timothy obeyed, and the girl continued:--

"It's this way, Tim. Many a man of promise has ruined his prospects by an early marriage. You are a man of promise, Tim."

"Oh, rot!" protested Timothy, kindling none the less.

"If you were to marry now," continued Peggy, in the same thoughtful voice, "you would settle down into a contented, domesticated husband."

Tim nodded.

"It's about time I did," he said darkly.

"No," countered Peggy; "not yet. You are a man of action, Tim. You ought to be free, at present--free to fight, and climb high, and become famous--"

"By Jove!" exclaimed Timothy, despite himself.

"--and to reach the great place you are ent.i.tled to. If I were a man, I would let nothing come between me and my career. A career! Would you sacrifice all that, Tim, just to get married?"

"But, Peggy," exclaimed Timothy, "you would help me. At least, you wouldn't be a bit in the way."

"You do say kind things to me, Tim," replied Peggy gratefully. "But it would never do. Even a man of your personality would find it hard to get on without friends and without influence; and very young married men have few friends and less influence. They are back numbers: n.o.body wants them. It's the rising young bachelors who go everywhere, and can command interest and popularity and fame. A wife would be a dreadful drag. She might make s.h.i.+pwreck of your life."

Tim drew in his breath, and was on the point of making a gallant interjection of protest; but Peggy concluded swiftly:--

"So you _must_ establish yourself in the public eye before you settle down. Don't you agree with me?"

She lay back in her chair again, looking interrogatively up into Timothy's perplexed countenance.

"There's a good deal in what you say, Peggy," he admitted. "But I simply could not leave you in the cart, after--"

A sudden inspiration seized him.

"Look here--I have it!" he cried. "Supposing we get married in five years from now--what?"

Peggy was silent, and Tim waited impatiently for her to make up her mind. At last she spoke.

"It would be a very difficult five years for you, Tim. Imagine yourself going about this big world, meeting all sorts of famous and influential people, and growing more and more famous and influential yourself. Girls would be falling in love with you--"

"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Timothy, much confused.

"Yet all the time," continued Peggy in a tragic voice, "you would be able to give them no encouragement, because you felt bound to come at the end of five years and marry _me_--getting on for thirty! It wouldn't be a very comfortable five years for either of us, would it?"

By this time Timothy was once more striding about the room. But he was not posing now: he was thinking hard. Peggy sat motionless. Her face was serene, but her hands gripped the arms of the chair until her pink finger-nails grew white. Once she wondered where Philip was. She did not know that he was walking up and down Sloane Street in the fog, fighting with all the devils in h.e.l.l.

At last Timothy appeared to arrive at some decision. He came and sat down upon the edge of Peggy's chair.

"Peggy," he announced, "you have a sense of proportion quite unusual in your s.e.x. You are the most farsighted woman I have ever known."

"I believe I am," said Peggy.

"And the most unselfish," added the youthful Grand Turk on the arm of her chair.

"I'm not so sure of that," said Peggy.

"What you say about my making a career, and all that," continued the newly awakened Timothy--"well, there is something in it, you know! By Gad, there's something in it! I rather see myself in Parliament, letting some of those chaps have it in the neck! Wow-wow!" He bubbled enthusiastically: already, with the simple fervour of the hereditary ruling cla.s.s, he felt himself at grips with the enemies of the State.

"And I am sure you are right, too, about my not tying myself down to an early marriage. I consider it a jolly sporting and unselfish view for you to take. Still, I must not allow you to suffer." He laid his hand upon Peggy's arm. "Look here, Peggy, if I come to you in five years from now and ask you to marry me--will you?"

"Yes," said Peggy.

"Cheers!"

"On one condition."

"And that is--"

"That neither of us has married any one else in the meanwhile,"

concluded Peggy sedately.

Timothy laughed loudly at this flight of fancy.

"You can set your mind at rest on that point, Peggy," he said. "I will stick to you." He was a single-minded egoist, was young Timothy. "Then it's a deal?"