A Man of Means by P. G. Wodehouse (best novels for teenagers .txt) ๐
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- Author: P. G. Wodehouse
Read book online ยซA Man of Means by P. G. Wodehouse (best novels for teenagers .txt) ๐ยป. Author - P. G. Wodehouse
At this point in the discussion she folded up her crochet-work, and rose.
โIt is absolutely necessary for you, my dear, to make a good match, or you will all be ruined. I, of course, can always support my declining years with literary work, butโโโ
Lady Eva groaned. Against this last argument there was no appeal.
Lady Kimbuck patted her affectionately on the shoulder.
โThere, run along now,โ she said. โI daresay you've got a headache or something that made you say a lot of foolish things you didn't mean. Go down to the drawing-room. I expect Mr. Bleke is waiting there to say goodnight to you. I am sure he must be getting quite impatient.โ
Down in the drawing-room, Roland Bleke was hoping against hope that Lady Eva's prolonged absence might be due to the fact that she had gone to bed with a headache, and that he might escape the nightly interview which he so dreaded.
Reviewing his career, as he sat there, Roland came to the conclusion that women had the knack of affecting him with a form of temporary insanity. They temporarily changed his whole nature. They made him feel for a brief while that he was a dashing young man capable of the highest flights of love. It was only later that the reaction came and he realized that he was nothing of the sort.
At heart he was afraid of women, and in the entire list of the women of whom he had been afraid, he could not find one who had terrified him so much as Lady Eva Blyton.
Other womenโnotably Maraquita, now happily helping to direct the destinies of Paranoyaโhad frightened him by their individuality. Lady Eva frightened him both by her individuality and the atmosphere of aristocratic exclusiveness which she conveyed. He had no idea whatever of what was the proper procedure for a man engaged to the daughter of an earl. Daughters of earls had been to him till now mere names in the society columns of the morning paper. The very rules of the game were beyond him. He felt like a confirmed Association footballer suddenly called upon to play in an International Rugby match.
All along, from the very moment whenโto his unbounded astonishmentโshe had accepted him, he had known that he was making a mistake; but he never realized it with such painful clearness as he did this evening. He was filled with a sort of blind terror. He cursed the fate which had taken him to the Charity-Bazaar at which he had first come under the notice of Lady Kimbuck. The fatuous snobbishness which had made him leap at her invitation to spend a few days at Evenwood Towers he regretted; but for that he blamed himself less. Further acquaintance with Lady Kimbuck had convinced him that if she had wanted him, she would have got him somehow, whether he had accepted or refused.
What he really blamed himself for was his mad proposal. There had been no need for it. True, Lady Eva had created a riot of burning emotions in his breast from the moment they met; but he should have had the sense to realize that she was not the right mate for him, even tho he might have a quarter of a million tucked away in gilt-edged securities. Their lives could not possibly mix. He was a commonplace young man with a fondness for the pleasures of the people. He liked cheap papers, picture-palaces, and Association football. Merely to think of Association football in connection with her was enough to make the folly of his conduct clear. He ought to have been content to worship her from afar as some inaccessible goddess.
A light step outside the door made his heart stop beating.
โI've just looked in to say good night, Mr.โerโRoland,โ she said, holding out her hand. โDo excuse me. I've got such a headache.โ
โOh, yes, rather; I'm awfully sorry.โ
If there was one person in the world Roland despised and hated at that moment, it was himself.
โAre you going out with the guns to-morrow?โ asked Lady Eva languidly.
โOh, yes, rather! I mean, no. I'm afraid I don't shoot.โ
The back of his neck began to glow. He had no illusions about himself. He was the biggest ass in Christendom.
โPerhaps you'd like to play a round of golf, then?โ
โOh, yes, rather! I mean, no.โ There it was again, that awful phrase. He was certain he had not intended to utter it. She must be thinking him a perfect lunatic. โI don't play golf.โ
They stood looking at each other for a moment. It seemed to Roland that her gaze was partly contemptuous, partly pitying. He longed to tell her that, tho she had happened to pick on his weak points in the realm of sport, there were things he could do. An insane desire came upon him to babble about his school football team. Should he ask her to feel his quite respectable biceps? No.
โNever mind,โ she said, kindly. โI daresay we shall think of something to amuse you.โ
She held out her hand again. He took it in his for the briefest possible instant, painfully conscious the while that his own hand was clammy from the emotion through which he had been passing.
โGood night.โ
โGood night.โ
Thank Heaven, she was gone. That let him out for another twelve hours at least.
A quarter of an hour later found Roland still sitting, where she had left him, his head in his hands. The groan of an overwrought soul escaped him.
โI can't do it!โ
He sprang to his feet.
โI won't do it.โ
A smooth voice from behind him spoke.
โI think you are quite right, sirโif I may make the remark.โ
Roland had hardly ever been so startled in his life. In the first place, he was not aware of having uttered his thoughts aloud; in the second, he had imagined that he was alone in the room. And so, a moment before, he had been.
But the owner of the voice possessed, among other qualities, the cat-like faculty of entering a room perfectly noiselesslyโa fact which had won for him, in the course of a long career in the service of the best families, the flattering position of star witness in a number of England's raciest divorce-cases.
Mr. Teal, the butlerโfor it was no less a celebrity who had broken in on Roland's reverieโwas a long, thin man of a somewhat priestly cast of countenance. He lacked that air of reproving hauteur which many butlers possess, and it was for this reason that Roland had felt drawn to him during the
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