"Marjorie," said Mr. Magnet, "I love you."
She lifted a clear unhesitating eye to his face. "I'm sorry, Mr. Magnet," she said.
"I wanted to ask you to marry me," he said.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Magnet," she repeated.
They looked at one another. She felt a sort of scared exultation at having done it; her mother might say what she liked.
"I love you very much," he said, at a loss.
"I'm sorry," she repeated obstinately.
"I thought you cared for me a little."
She left that unanswered. She had a curious feeling that there was no getting away from this splashing, babbling pool, that she was fixed there until Mr. Magnet chose to release her, and that he didn't mean to release her yet. In which case she would go on refusing.
"I'm disappointed," he said.
Marjorie could only think that she was sorry again, but as she had already said that three times, she remained awkwardly silent.
"Is it because——" he began and stopped.
"It isn't because of anything. Please let's go back to the others, Mr. Magnet. I'm sorry if I'm disappointing."
And by a great effort she turned about.
Mr. Magnet remained regarding her—I can only compare it to the searching preliminary gaze of an artistic photographer. For a crucial minute in his life Marjorie hated him. "I don't understand," he said at last.
Then with a sort of naturalness that ought to have touched her he said: "Is it possible, Marjorie—that I might hope?—that I have been inopportune?"
She answered at once with absolute conviction.
"I don't think so, Mr. Magnet."
"I'm sorry," he said, "to have bothered you."
"I'm sorry," said Marjorie.
A long silence followed.
"I'm sorry too," he said.
They said no more, but began to retrace their steps. It was over. Abruptly, Mr. Magnet's bearing had become despondent—conspicuously despondent. "I had hoped," he said, and sighed.
With a thrill of horror Marjorie perceived he meant to look rejected, let every one see he had been rejected—after encouragement.
What would they think? How would they look? What conceivably might they not say? Something of the importance of the thing she had done, became manifest to her. She felt first intimations of regret. They would all be watching, Mother, Daffy, Lady Petchworth. She would reappear with this victim visibly suffering beside her. What could she say to straighten his back and lift his chin? She could think of nothing. Ahead at the end of the shaded path she could see the copious white form, the agitated fair wig and red sunshade of Lady Petchworth——
§ 4
Mrs. Pope's eye was relentless; nothing seemed hidden from it; nothing indeed was hidden from it; Mr. Magnet's back was diagrammatic. Marjorie was a little flushed and bright-eyed, and professed herself eager, with an unnatural enthusiasm, to play golf-croquet. It was eloquently significant that Mr. Magnet did not share her eagerness, declined to play, and yet when she had started with the Rev. Jopling Baynes as partner, stood regarding the game with a sort of tender melancholy from the shade of the big chestnut-tree.
Mrs. Pope joined him unobtrusively.
"You're not playing, Mr. Magnet," she remarked.
"I'm a looker-on, this time," he said with a sigh.
"Marjorie's winning, I think," said Mrs. Pope.
He made no answer for some seconds.
"She looks so charming in that blue dress," he remarked at last, and sighed from the lowest deeps.
"That bird's-egg blue suits her," said Mrs. Pope, ignoring the sigh. "She's clever in her girlish way, she chooses all her own dresses,—colours, material, everything."
(And also, though Mrs. Pope had not remarked it, she concealed her bills.)
There came a still longer interval, which Mrs. Pope ended with the slightest of shivers. She perceived Mr. Magnet was heavy for sympathy and ripe to confide. "I think," she said, "it's a little cool here. Shall we walk to the Water Garden, and see if there are any white lilies?"
"There are," said Mr. Magnet sorrowfully, "and they are very beautiful—quite beautiful."
He turned to the path along which he had so recently led Marjorie.
He glanced back as they went along between Lady Petchworth's herbaceous border and the poppy beds. "She's so full of life," he said, with a sigh in his voice.
Mrs. Pope knew she must keep silent.
"I asked her to marry me this afternoon," Mr. Magnet blurted out. "I couldn't help it."
Mrs. Pope made her silence very impressive.
"I know I ought not to have done so without consulting you"—he went on lamely; "I'm very much in love with her. It's——It's done no harm."
Mrs. Pope's voice was soft and low. "I had no idea, Mr. Magnet.... You know she is very young. Twenty. A mother——"
"I know," said Magnet. "I can quite understand. But I've done no harm. She refused me. I shall go away to-morrow. Go right away for ever.... I'm sorry."
Another long silence.
"To me, of course, she's just a child," Mrs. Pope said at last. "She is only a child, Mr. Magnet. She could have had no idea that anything of the sort was in your mind——"
Her words floated away into the stillness.
For a time they said no more. The lilies came into sight, dreaming under a rich green shade on a limpid pool of brown water, water that slept and brimmed over as it were, unconsciously into a cool splash and ripple of escape. "How beautiful!" cried Mrs. Pope, for a moment genuine.
"I spoke to her here," said Mr. Magnet.
The fountains of his confidence were unloosed.
"Now I've spoken to you about it, Mrs. Pope," he said, "I can tell you just how I—oh, it's the only word—adore her. She seems so sweet and easy—so graceful——"
Mrs. Pope turned on him abruptly, and grasped his hands; she was deeply moved. "I can't tell you," she said, "what it means to a mother to hear such things——"
Words failed her, and for some moments they engaged in a mutual pressure.
"Ah!" said Mr. Magnet, and had a queer wish it was the mother he had to deal with.
"Are you sure, Mr. Magnet," Mrs. Pope went on as their emotions subsided, "that she really meant what she said? Girls are very strange creatures——"
"She seems so clear and positive."
"Her manner is always clear and positive."
"Yes. I know."
"I know she has cared for you."
"No!"
"A mother sees. When your name used to be mentioned——. But these are not things to talk about. There is something—something sacred——"
"Yes," he said. "Yes. Only——Of course, one thing——"
Mrs. Pope seemed lost in the contemplation of water-lilies.
"I wondered," said Mr. Magnet, and paused again.
Then, almost breathlessly, "I wondered if there should be perhaps—some one else?"