Part 48 (1/2)
he told himself ... but the congestion of the streets made such intimacies impossible. They were constantly being separated by the hurrying foot-pa.s.sengers, and so they could only speak in short, dull sentences. He brought her at last to the quiet tea-shop where he ordered tea and home-made bread and honey!...
”Eleanor,” he said, when the waitress had taken his order and had departed to fulfil it, ”it's no good, you telling me that you can't go out with me. You must, my dear. I want to marry you!...”
”But it's absurd,” she expostulated. ”How can you possibly talk like that when we're such strangers to each other!”
”You're no stranger to me. I've loved you for two months now. I've hardly ever had you out of my mind. I was nearly demented mad when I lost you. I used to go and hang about that office of yours day after day in the hope that you'd come out!... And if ever I get the chance, I'll break that liftman's neck for him. He insulted me the day I asked him what office you were in. He called me a Nosey Parker!”
She laughed at him. ”But that was right, wasn't it?” she said. ”You wouldn't have him give information about me to any man who chooses to ask for it?”
”He should have known that I was all right. A child could have seen that I wasn't just playing the fool. But you're mebbe right. I'll think no more about him. Do you know what happened last night?”
”No.”
He told her of his relations.h.i.+p with the _Daily Sensation_.
”Then you've lost your work?” she said.
He nodded his head, and they did not speak again for a few moments. The waitress had brought the tea and bread and honey, and they waited until she had gone.
”I'm so sorry,” she said.
”It doesn't bother me,” he replied. ”I only told you to show you how much I love you. I'm not codding you, Eleanor. You matter so much to me that I'd sacrifice any job in the world for you. I told Clotworthy that ... he's the editor of the paper ... I told him I'd rather be your husband than have his job a hundred times over. And so I would. Will you marry me, Eleanor?”
”I've never met anyone like you before!...”
”I daresay you haven't but I'm not asking you about that. Will you marry me? We can fix the whole thing up in no time at all. I looked it up in a book this morning, and it says you can get married after three weeks' notice. If I give notice the morrow, we can be married in a month from to-day!”
”Oh, stop, stop,” she said. ”Your mind is running away with you. I spoke to you for the first time last night!...”
”Beg your pardon,” he said, ”you spoke to me the first day we met. I handed you your letter!...”
”Oh, but that doesn't count. That was nothing. I really only spoke to you last night, and I don't know you. I'm not in love with you ... no, please be sensible. How can I possibly love you when I don't know you!...”
”I love you, don't I?” he demanded.
”You say so!”
”Well, if I love you, you can love me, can't you. That's simple enough!”
She pa.s.sed a cup of tea to him. ”Do all Irishmen behave like this?” she said.
”I don't know and I don't care. It's the way I behave. I know my mind queer and quick, Eleanor, and when I want a thing, I don't need to go humming and hahhing to see whether I'm sure about it. I want you. I know that for a fact, and there's no need for me to argue about it.
I'll not want you any more this day twelvemonth than I want you now, and I won't want you any less. Will you marry me?”
”No!”
”How long will it be before you will marry me, then?”
She threw her hands with a gesture of comical despair. ”Really,” she said, ”you're unbelievable. You seem to think that I must want to marry you merely because you want to marry me. I take no interest whatever in you!...”
”No, but you will!”