Part 42 (2/2)
AN ADMIRABLE ARRANGEMENT.
Trevor took his departure, and the gay throng at Mrs. Simpson's laughed and joked and made merry.
Florence had now worked herself into apparent high spirits. She ceased to care whether she talked rubbish or not. She was no longer silent.
Many people asked to be introduced to the rising star, and many people congratulated her. Instead of being modest, and a little stupid and retiring, she now answered back badinage with flippant words of her own.
Her cleverness was such an established fact that her utter nonsense was received as wit, and she soon had throngs of men and women round her laughing at her words and privately taking note of them.
Franks all the while stood as a sort of bodyguard. He listened, and his cool judgment never wavered for a moment.
”I must give her a hint,” he said to himself; ”she requires training.
That sort of sparkling, effervescent nonsense is in itself in as bad taste and is as poor as the essay she sent me when she played her great practical joke. She is playing a practical joke now on these people, leading them to believe that her chaff is wit.”
He came up to her gravely in a pause in the conversation, and asked her if she would like to go in to supper. She laid her hand on his arm, and they threaded their way through the throng. They did not approach the supper-room, however. Franks led her into a small alcove just beside the greenhouse.
”Ah,” he said, ”I have been watching this place; couples have been in it the whole evening: couples making love, couples making arrangements for future work, couples of all sorts, and now this couple, you and I, find ourselves here. We are as alone as if we were on the top of Mont Blanc.”
”What a funny simile!” said Florence. She laughed a little uneasily. ”I thought,” she continued, ”you were going to take me in to supper.”
”I will presently; I want first to ask you a question, and to say something to you.”
”I am all attention,” replied Florence.
”There is no use in beating about the bush,” said Franks, after a pause.
”The thing admits of either 'yes' or 'no.' Miss Aylmer, I take a great interest in you.”
”Oh, don't, please,” said Florence.
”But I do; I believe I can help you. I believe that you and I together can have a most brilliant career. Shall we work in harness? Shall we become husband and wife? Don't start; don't say no at first. Think it over: it would be an admirable arrangement.”
”So it would,” said Florence. Her answer came out quietly. She looked full into Franks's cold grey eyes, and burst into a mirthless laugh.
”Why do you look at me like that? Are you in earnest when you admit that it would be an admirable arrangement?”
”I am absolutely in earnest. Nothing could be more--more--”
”Let me speak. You are not in earnest. It is your good pleasure to take a great many things in life in a joking spirit. Now, for instance, when you sent me that bald, disgraceful, girlish essay, you played a practical joke which a less patient man would never have forgiven.
To-night, when you talked that rubbish to that crowd of really clever men and women, you played another practical joke, equally unseemly.”
”I am not a society person, Mr. Franks. I cannot talk well in company.
You told me to talk, and I did the best I could.”
”Your chatter was nearly brainless; the people who listened to you to-night won't put up with that sort of thing much longer. It is impossible with a mind of your order that you should really wish to talk nonsense. But I am not going to scold you. I want to know if you will marry me.”
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