Tourmalin's Time Cheques

"Have we?" he exclaimed, blankly. "I – I mean —haven't we?"

"I was so blind – so wilfully, foolishly blind! I told myself we were friends!"

"Surely we are?" he said, retaking possession of her hand; he had entirely forgotten Sophia in the ironmongery department, at Tottenham Court Road. "I – I understood we were on that footing?"

"No," she said; "let us have no subterfuges any more – we must look facts in the face. After what we have both said to-night, we can no longer deceive ourselves by words… Peter," she broke off suddenly, "I am going to ask you a question, and on your answer my fate – and yours too, perhaps – will depend! Tell me truthfully…" Her voice failed her for the moment, as she bent over towards him, and clutched his arm tightly in her excitement; her eyes shone with a wild, intense eagerness for his reply… "Would you – " she repeated…

"Would you have the bottle-jack all brass, or japanned? The brass ones are a shilling more."

Peter gave a violent start, for the voice in which this most incongruous and irrelevant question was put was that of Sophia!

Miss Davenport with her hysterical appeal, the steamer-chairs, and the starlight, all had fled, and he stood, supporting himself limply by the arm of the chimney-nook in the upholsterer's showroom, staring at Sophia, who stood there, sedate and practical, inviting his attention to a couple of bottle-jacks which an assistant was displaying with an obsequious smile: the transition was rather an abrupt one.

"Oh, I think the brass one is very nice," he stammered, feebly enough.

"Then that settles it," remarked Sophia; "we'll take the japanned one, please," she said to the assistant.

"Aren't you feeling well, Peter dear?" she asked presently, in an undertone. "You look so odd!"

"Quite well," he said; "I – ah! – was thinking of something else for the moment, and you startled me, that's all."

"You had such a far-away expression in your eyes," said Sophia, "and you did jump so when I spoke to you; you should really try to conquer that tendency to let yourself wander, Peter."

"I will, my love," he said; and he meant it, for he had let himself wander farther than he quite intended.

CHAPTER III.

The Third Cheque

As the reader may imagine, this second experience had an effect upon Peter that was rather deterrent than encouraging.

It was a painful piece of self-revelation to find that, had he chosen to avail himself of the extra hours on board the Boomerang as they occurred, he would have so employed them as to place himself in relations of considerable ambiguity towards two distinct young ladies. How far he was committed to either, or both, he could not tell; but he had an uneasy suspicion that neither of them would have been quite so emotional had he conducted himself with the same prudence that had marked his behaviour throughout the time which he was able to account for.

And yet his conscience acquitted him of any actual default; if he had ever really had any passages at all approaching the sentimental with either Miss Tyrrell or Miss Davenport, his mind could hardly be so utterly blank on the subject as it certainly was. No; at the worst, his failings were only potential peccadillos, the kind of weaknesses he might have given way to if he had not wisely postponed the hours in which the occasions were afforded.

He had had a warning, a practical moral lesson which had merely arrived, as such things often do, rather after date.

But, so far as it was possible to profit by it, he would: at least, he would abstain from making any further inroads upon the balance of extra time which still remained to his credit at the bank; he would draw no further cheques; he would return to that P. and O. steamer no more. For an engaged man whose wedding-day was approaching by leaps and bounds, it was, however innocent, too disturbing and exciting a form of distraction to be quite safely indulged in.

The resolution cost him something, nevertheless. Peter was not a man who had hitherto been spoilt by feminine adoration. Sophia was fond of him, but she never affected to place him upon any sort of pinnacle; on the contrary, she looked down upon him protectingly and indulgently from a moral and intellectual pedestal of her own. He had not objected to this, in fact he rather liked it, but it was less gratifying and stimulating to his self-esteem than the romantic and idealising sentiments which he had seemingly inspired in two exceedingly bewitching young persons with whom he felt so much in sympathy. It was an agreeable return from the bread-and-butter of engaged life to the petits fours of semi-flirtation. After all, Peter was but human, and a man is seldom esteemed for being otherwise. He could not help a natural regret at having to abandon experiences which, judging from the fragmentary samples he had obtained, promised so much and such varied interest. That the interest was not consecutive, only made it the more amusing, – it was a living puzzle-picture, the pieces of which he could fit together as he received them. It was tantalising to look at his cheque-book and feel that upon its leaves the rest of the story was written, but that he must never seek to decipher it: it became so tantalising, that he locked the cheque-book up at last.

But already some of the edge had worn off his resolution, and he had begun to see only the more seductive side of interviews which, at the time, had not been free from difficulty and embarrassment. Having put himself beyond the reach of temptation, he naturally began to cast about for some excuse for again exposing himself to it.

It was the eve of his wedding-day; he was in his chambers for the last time, and alone, for he would not see Sophia again until he met her in bridal array at the church door, and he had no bachelor friends whom he cared to invite to help him to keep up his spirits.

Peter was horribly restless and nervous; he needed a sedative of some kind, and even trying on his wedding garments failed to soothe him, as he felt almost certain there was a wrinkle between the shoulders, and it was too late to have it altered.

The idea of one more visit to the Boomerang, – one more interview, the last, with one or other of his amiable and fascinating friends – it did not matter very much which, – presented itself in a more and more attractive light. If it did nothing else, it would provide him with something to think about for the rest of the evening.

Was it courteous, was it even right, to drop his friends without the slightest apology or explanation? Ought he not, as a gentleman and a man of honour, to go back and bid them "Good-bye"? Peter, after carefully considering the point, discovered that it was clearly his duty to perform this trifling act of civility.

As soon as he had settled that, he got out his cheque-book from the despatch-box, in which he had placed it for his own security, and, sitting down just as he was, drew another fifteen minutes, and cashed them, like the first, at the ormolu clock…

This time he found himself sitting on a cushioned bench in the music-room of the Boomerang. It was shortly after sunset, as he could tell from the bar of dusky crimson against the violet sea, which, framed in the ports opposite, rose and sank with each roll of the ship. There was a swell on, and she rolled more than he could have wished.

As he expected, he was not alone; but, as he had not expected, his companion was neither Miss Tyrrell nor Miss Davenport, but a grim and portly matron, who was eyeing him with a look of strong disfavour, which made Peter wish he had not come. "What," he wondered, "was he in for now?" His uneasiness was increased as he glanced down upon his trousers, which, being new and of a delicate lavender tint, reminded him that in his impatience he had come away in his wedding garments. He feared that he must present rather an odd appearance on board ship in this festal attire; but there he would have to stay for the next quarter of an hour, and he must make the best of it.

"I repeat, Mr. Tourmalin," said the matron, "you are doubtless not unprepared for the fact that I have requested a few minutes' private conversation with you?"

"Pardon me," said Peter, quaking already at this alarming opening, "but I am – very much unprepared." "Surely," he thought, "this could not be another dear friend? No, that was too absurd – he must have drawn the line somewhere!"

"Then permit me to enlighten you," she said raspingly. "I sent for you, at a time when we are least likely to be interrupted, to demand an explanation from you upon a very delicate and painful matter which has recently come to my knowledge."

"Oh!" said Peter – and nothing more. He guessed her purpose at once: she was going to ask him his intentions with regard to her daughter! He could have wished for some indication as to whether she was Lady Tyrrell or Mrs. Davenport; but, as he had none at present, "Oh" seemed the safest remark to make.

"Life on board a large passenger-ship, Mr. Tourmalin," she went on to observe, "though relaxed in some respects, is still not without decencies which a gentleman is bound to respect."

"Quite so," said Peter, unable to discover the bearings which lay in the application of this particular observation.

"You say 'Quite so'; but what has your behaviour been, sir?"

"That," said Peter, "is exactly what I should like to know myself!"

"A true gentleman would have considered the responsibility he incurred by giving currency to idle and malicious gossip!"

His apprehensions were correct then: it was one of the young ladies' mothers – but which?

"I can only assure you, madam," he began, "that if unhappily I have – er – been the means of furnishing gossip, it has been entirely unintentional."

She seemed so much mollified by this, that he proceeded with more confidence:

"As to anything I may have said to your daughter – " when she almost bounded from her seat with fury.

"My daughter, sir! Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you had the audacity to so much as hint of such a thing to my daughter, of all people?"

"So – so much depends on who your daughter is!" said Peter, completely losing his head.

"You dared to strike this cruel and unmanly blow at the self-respect of a sensitive girl – to poison her defenceless ears with your false, dastardly insinuations – and you can actually admit it?"

"I don't know whether I can admit it or not yet," he replied. "And – and you do put things so very strongly! It is like this: if you are referring to any conversation I may have had with Miss Tyrrell – "

"Miss Tyrrell? You have told her too!" exclaimed this terrible old matron, thereby demonstrating that, at least, she was not Lady Tyrrell.

"I – I should have said Miss Davenport," said Peter, correcting himself precipitately.

"Miss Davenport as well? Upon my word! And pray, sir, may I ask how many other ladies on board this ship are in possession of your amiable confidences?"

He raised his hands in utter despair.