"And I thought I had fooled you, Bettie! Well, I never could. I am sorry, though, if I have been annoyingly clumsy--"
"But you were doing it for me," she said. "You were doing it because you thought I'd like it. Oh, can't you understand that I _know_ you are worthless, and that you have never loved any human being in all your life except that flibbertigibbet Stella Blagden, and that I know, too, you have so rarely failed me! If you were an admirable person, or a person with commendable instincts, or an unselfish person, or if you were even in love with me, it wouldn't count of course. It is because you are none of these things that it counts for so much to see you honest with me--sometimes,--and even to see you scheming and play-acting--and so transparently!--just to bring about a little pleasure for me. Oh, Robin, I am afraid that nowadays I love you _because_ of your vices!"
"And I you because of your virtues," said I; "so that there is no possible apprehension of either affection ever going into bankruptcy. Therefore the affair is settled; and we will be married in November."
"Well," Bettie said, "I suppose that somebody has to break you of this habit of getting married next November--"
Then, and only then, my hands were lifted from her shoulders. And we began to talk composedly of more impersonal matters.
It was two days later that John Charteris came to Fairhaven; and I met him the same afternoon upon Cambridge street. The little man stopped short and in full view of the public achieved what, had he been a child, were most properly describable as making a face at me.
"That," he explained, "expresses the involuntary confusion of Belial on re-encountering the anchorite who escaped his diabolical machinations. But, oh, dear me! haven't you been translated yet? Why, I thought the carriage would have called long ago, just as it did for Elijah."
"Now, don't be an ass, John. I _was_ rather idiotic, I suppose--"
"Of course you were," he said, as we shook hands. "It is your unfailing charm. You silly boy, I came from the pleasantest sort of house-party at Matocton because I heard you were here, and I have been foolish enough to miss you. Anne and the others don't arrive until October. Oh, you adorable child, I have read the last book, and every one of the short stories as well, and I want to tell you that in their own peculiar line the two volumes are masterpieces. Anne wept and chuckled over them, and so did I, with an equal lack of restraint; only it was over the noble and self-sacrificing portions that Anne wept, and she laughed at the places where you were droll intentionally. Whereas I--!! Well, we will let the aposiopesis stand."