Short Fiction by P. G. Wodehouse (me reader .txt) 📕

name. She turned, and saw her father, dapper as ever, standing beside her.

“What an evening, my dear!” said Mr. Warden. “What an evening! Smell the sea!”

Mr. Warden appeared to be in high spirits. He hummed a tune and twirled his cane. He chirruped frequently to Bill, the companion of his walks abroad, a wiry fox-terrier of a demeanour, like his master’s, both jaunty and slightly disreputable. An air of gaiety pervaded his bearing.

“I called in at the mont-de-piete but you had gone. Gandinot told me you had come here. What an ugly fellow that Gandinot is! But a good sort. I like him. I had a chat with him.”

The high spirits were explained. Ruth knew her father. She guessed, correctly, that M. Gandinot, kindest of pawnbrokers, had obliged, in his unofficial capacity, with a trifling loan.

“Gandinot ought to go on the stage,” went on Mr. Warden, pursuing his theme. “With that face he would make his fortune. You can’t help laughing when you see it. One of these days⁠—”

He broke off. Stirring things had begun to occur in the neighbourhood of his ankles, where Bill, the fox-terrier, had encountered an acquaintance, and, to the accompaniment of a loud, gargling noise, was endeavouring to bite his head off. The acquaintance, a gentleman of uncertain breed, equally willing, was chewing Bill’s paw with the gusto of a gourmet. An Irish terrier, with no personal bias towards either side, was dancing round and attacking each in turn as he came uppermost. And two poodles leaped madly in and out of the melee, barking encouragement.

It takes a better man than Mr. Warden to break up a gathering of this kind. The old gentleman was bewildered. He added his voice to the babel, and twice smote Bill grievously with his cane with blows intended for the acquaintance, but beyond that he effected nothing. It seemed probable that the engagement would last till the combatants had consumed each other, after the fashion of the Kilkenny cats, when there suddenly appeared from nowhere a young man in grey.

The world is divided into those who can stop dogfights and those who cannot. The young man in grey belonged to the former class. Within a minute from his entrance on the scene the poodles and the Irish terrier had vanished; the dog of doubtful breed was moving off up the hill, yelping, with the dispatch of one who remembers an important appointment, and Bill, miraculously calmed, was seated in the centre of the Promenade, licking honourable wounds.

Mr. Warden was disposed to effervesce with gratitude. The scene had shaken him, and there had been moments when he had given his ankles up for lost.

“Don’t mention it,” said the young man. “I enjoy arbitrating in these little disputes. Dogs seem to like me and trust my judgement. I consider myself as a sort of honorary dog.”

“Well, I am bound to say, Mr.⁠—?”

“Vince⁠—George Vince.”

“My name is Warden. My daughter.”

Ruth inclined her head, and was conscious of a pair of very penetrating brown eyes looking eagerly into hers in a manner which she thoroughly resented. She was not used to the other sex meeting her gaze and holding it as if confident of a friendly welcome. She made up her mind in that instant that this was a young man who required suppression.

“I’ve seen you several times out here since I arrived, Miss Warden,” said Mr. Vince. “Four in all,” he added, precisely.

“Really?” said Ruth.

She looked away. Her attitude seemed to suggest that she had finished with him, and would be obliged if somebody would come and sweep him up.

As they approached the casino restlessness crept into Mr. Warden’s manner. At the door he stopped and looked at Ruth.

“I think, my dear⁠—” he said.

“Going to have a dash at the petits chevaux?” inquired Mr. Vince. “I was there just now. I have an infallible system.”

Mr. Warden started like a warhorse at the sound of the trumpet.

“Only it’s infallible the wrong way,” went on the young man. “Well, I wish you luck. I’ll see Miss Warden home.”

“Please don’t trouble,” said Ruth, in the haughty manner which had frequently withered unfortunate fellow-exiles in their tracks.

It had no such effect on Mr. Vince.

“I shall like it,” he said.

Ruth set her teeth. She would see whether he would like it.

They left Mr. Warden, who shot in at the casino door like a homing rabbit, and walked on in silence, which lasted till Ruth, suddenly becoming aware that her companion’s eyes were fixed on her face, turned her head, to meet a gaze of complete, not to say loving, admiration. She flushed. She was accustomed to being looked at admiringly, but about this particular look there was a subtle quality that distinguished it from the ordinary⁠—something proprietorial.

Mr. Vince appeared to be a young man who wasted no time on conventional conversation-openings.

“Do you believe in affinities, Miss Warden?” he said,

“No,” said Ruth.

“You will before we’ve done,” said Mr. Vince, confidently. “Why did you try to snub me just now?”

“Did I?”

“You mustn’t again. It hurts me. I’m a sensitive man. Diffident. Shy. Miss Warden, will you marry me?”

Ruth had determined that nothing should shake her from her icy detachment, but this did. She stopped with a gasp, and stared at him.

Mr. Vince reassured her.

“I don’t expect you to say ‘Yes.’ That was just a beginning⁠—the shot fired across the bows by way of warning. In you, Miss Warden, I have found my affinity. Have you ever considered this matter of affinities? Affinities are the⁠—the⁠—Wait a moment.”

He paused, reflecting.

“I⁠—” began Ruth.

“Sh!” said the young man, holding up his hand.

Ruth’s eyes flashed. She was not used to having “Sh!” said to her by young men, and she resented it.

“I’ve got it,” he declared, with relief. “I knew I should, but these good things take time. Affinities are the zero on the roulette-board of life. Just as we select a number on which to stake our money, so do we select a type of girl whom we think we should like to marry. And just as zero pops up instead of the number, so does our