Frivolities Part 14

"Don't talk like that, don't! You don't know what a wife you've got!

You don't know how she loves you, worthless creature that you are!

Tommy, do say that you love me, just a little bit! There, you needn't squeeze me quite so tight. I can't explain to you all about it. I will some day! There's going to be a duel, perhaps to the death! between the Lord Chancellor and yours to command; and if that august personage, in the figure anyhow, of Sir Tristram Triggs, is not worsted and overthrown, I will give you leave, sir, to say that you do not admire my taste in dress. Tommy, don't."

II.

After dinner Miss Cullen, strolling about the great gla.s.shouse, all alone, came upon Sir Tristram, also all alone. Although not, probably, more than half an inch taller than the gentleman, she looked,--yes, down at him, as if, comparatively, he were but an insect at her feet.

"Well, Sir Tristram, what amends do you propose to make to me?"

"Miss Cullen?"

"Sir?"

She gazed at him; and this famous lawyer, who had been more than a match for the _olla podrida_ of the law courts, and the champions of the political ring, quailed before a young girl's eyes.

"I fear, Miss Cullen, that I fail to apprehend your meaning."

"Is it possible that you are an habitual desecrater of that law which you have sworn to uphold, and that, therefore, the details of your crimes are apt to escape your memory? More than three months have elapsed since you committed your crime. So far as I know you have not sought as yet to take advantage of any occasion to offer me atonement."

Sir Tristram faced round to her with something of the bulldog look which had come upon his face when he had found himself in front of Mr.

Stanham.

"May I inquire, Miss Cullen, why you go out of your way to use language of such extravagant exaggeration? It would be gross absurdity, amounting almost to prost.i.tution of language, to call the offence of which I was guilty, if it was an offence, a crime."

"Perhaps it is because you are a lawyer that you are unaware that not so very long ago a man was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for exactly the same thing."

Sir Tristram fidgeted. He seemed not to have complete control over his tongue.

"Miss Cullen, I trust that I may never be found lacking in respect to a lady. If I have been so unfortunate as to have offended you I proffer you my most sincere apologies, and I humbly entreat for your forgiveness."

Miss Cullen remained, obviously, wholly unmoved.

"When a criminal expresses his contrition, is he held, by so doing, to have sufficiently purged himself of his offence?"

"What is it that you require of me?"

"I am told that you are to be the new Lord Chancellor. I am a ward in chancery."

"I learn the fact with the greatest pleasure."

"Do you? Then your pleasure bears a strong resemblance to my pain. I am to remain a ward till I am twenty-five."

"Indeed?"

Sir Tristram began to rub his hands.

"Yes, indeed! I had an objectionable uncle who was so foolish as to suppose that I could not be a better judge of my own life's happiness than--a number of elderly gentlemen."

"Hem!" Sir Tristram coughed.

"If I was willing to overlook your offence"--Sir Tristram smiled--"I should require a _quid pro quo_."

"And what, my dear Miss Cullen, would be the nature of the _quid pro quo?_"

"I should want you to consent to my marrying."

"To consent to your marrying?--Ah!--I see!--If the matter is laid before me in due and proper form--it is possible that you have a certain individual in your mind's eye whom you are willing to make the happiest of men--and I was satisfied that he was a fit and a proper, person, and every care was taken to safeguard your interests--then, my dear Miss Cullen, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to give my consent to your being happily launched on what, I fear, is too often the troubled sea of marriage."

"That's not the sort of thing I want at all."

"No? Then what is the sort of thing you want, may I inquire?"

The young lady tapped her foot against the floor. For the first time she seemed to be not entirely at her ease.

"The fact is, I'm married already."

"Married--already? With the consent of the court?"

"Bother the court!"

"Young lady! Are you aware who it is to whom you are speaking?"

"I am perfectly aware. I am speaking to the person who kissed me against my will."

"Miss Cullen! I'm the Chancellor!"

"That for the Chancellor!"

She actually snapped her fingers in his face. He seemed to be speechless; though, perhaps, he only seemed so. When he did speak it was as if he were suffering positive pain.

"I find myself unable to believe that you are capable of realising the position in which I stand, the position in which you stand too.

Personal misusage I might endure. But, in this matter, I am impersonal. Take care! I represent in my poor person the majesty of English law."

He turned as if to go. If he supposed that he had crushed her he was very much mistaken.

"Is that your last word, Sir Tristram?"

"Miss Cullen, it is my last."

"Then, now, be so good as to listen to my last word. The Duke of Datchet is a magistrate. I will go straight to him and demand from him a warrant for your arrest."

"A warrant for my arrest? Girl!"

"I presume that it is because I am a girl that you are enough of a man first to a.s.sault and then to bully me."

Taking out his handkerchief Sir Tristram applied it to his brow.

"Am I mad, or you? Are you utterly impervious to any sort of reason?"