Part 20 (1/2)
”You were here all the time,” I said.
”Do you mean after the roof fell in or before?”
Celia was crying quietly down the back of his neck.
”Oh, George!” she said, again.
He groped out feebly for her hand and patted it.
”Brave little woman!” he said. ”Brave little woman! She stuck by me all through. Tell me--I am strong enough to bear it--what caused the explosion?”
It seemed to me a case where much unpleasant explanation might be avoided by the exercise of a little tact.
”Well, some say one thing and some another,” I said. ”Whether it was a spark from a cigarette----”
Celia interrupted me. The woman in her made her revolt against this well-intentioned subterfuge.
”I hit you, George!”
”Hit me?” he repeated, curiously. ”What with? The Eiffel Tower?”
”With my niblick.”
”You hit me with your niblick? But why?”
She hesitated. Then she faced him bravely.
”Because you wouldn't stop talking.”
He gaped.
”Me!” he said. ”_I_ wouldn't stop talking! But I hardly talk at all. I'm noted for it.”
Celia's eyes met mine in agonized inquiry. But I saw what had happened.
The blow, the sudden shock, had operated on George's brain-cells in such a way as to effect a complete cure. I have not the technical knowledge to be able to explain it, but the facts were plain.
”Lately, my dear fellow,” I a.s.sured him, ”you have dropped into the habit of talking rather a good deal. Ever since we started out this afternoon you have kept up an incessant flow of conversation!”
”Me! On the links! It isn't possible.”
”It is only too true, I fear. And that is why this brave girl hit you with her niblick. You started to tell her a funny story just as she was making her eleventh shot to get her ball out of this ravine, and she took what she considered the necessary steps.”
”Can you ever forgive me, George?” cried Celia.
George Mackintosh stared at me. Then a crimson blush mantled his face.