The Magistrate - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
You misunderstand me! I was his G.o.dfather; I gave him a silver cup.
AGATHA POSKET.
Oh, do excuse me. How did I become acquainted with such a vulgar expression? I don't know where I pick up my slang. It must be through loitering at shop windows. Oh, oh, oh!
LUKYN.
Pray compose yourself. I'll leave you for a moment.
[_Going to the window._
AGATHA POSKET.
[_To CHARLOTTE._] How shall I begin, Charley?
CHARLOTTE.
Make a bold plunge, do! The odour of cooking here, to a hungry woman, is maddening.
[_VALE softly opens the window and comes into the recess, but remains concealed by the curtain._
VALE.
[_To himself._] This is too bad of Lukyn! I'm wet to the skin and frightfully hungry! Who the deuce are these women?
AGATHA POSKET.
Colonel Lukyn!
LUKYN.
Madam. [_Listening._] No crash yet.
AGATHA POSKET.
[_Impulsively laying her hand upon his arm._] Friend of twenty years!
I will be quite candid with you. You are going to dine with us, to-morrow?
LUKYN.
Madam, I will repay your candour as it deserves. I am.
AGATHA POSKET.
My husband knows of your acquaintance with the circ.u.mstances of my first marriage. I know what men are. When the women leave the dinner-table, men become retrospective. Now, to-morrow night, over dessert, I beg you not to give my husband dates.
LUKYN.
Eh?
AGATHA POSKET.
Keep anything like dates from him.
LUKYN.
Mustn't eat stone fruit?
AGATHA POSKET.
No, I mean years, months, days, dates connected with my marriage with Mr. Farringdon.
LUKYN.
Dear me, sore subject!
AGATHA POSKET.
I will be more than candid with you. My present husband, having a very short vacation in the discharge of his public duties, wooed me but for three weeks; you, who have in your time courted and married, know the material of which that happy period is made up. The future is all-engrossing to the man; the presents--I mean the present, a joyous dream to the woman. But in dealing with my past I met with more than ordinary difficulties.
LUKYN.
Don't see why--late husband died a natural death--wasn't stood on a balcony or anything.
AGATHA POSKET.
Colonel Lukyn, you know I was six-and-thirty at the time of my recent marriage!
LUKYN.
You surprise me!
AGATHA POSKET.
You know it! Be frank, Lukyn! Am I not six-and-thirty?
LUKYN.
You are.
AGATHA POSKET.
Very well, then. In a three weeks' engagement how was it possible for me to deal with the various episodes of six-and-thirty years? The past may be pleasant, golden, beautiful--but one may have too much of a good thing.
LUKYN.
[_To himself._] I am in that position now.
