Right Ho, Jeeves

had I not, in the emotion of seeing her, dropped a glass of the best with which I was endeavouring to bring about a calmer frame of mind. The noise caused her to turn, and for an instant embarrassment supervened. A slight flush mantled the cheek, and the eyes popped a bit.
    “Oh!” she said.
    I have always found that there is nothing that helps to ease you over one of these awkward moments like a spot of stage business. Find something to do with your hands, and it’s half the battle. I grabbed a plate and hastened forward.
    “A touch of salmon?”
    “Thank you.”
    “With a suspicion of salad?”
    “If you please.”
    “And to drink? Name the poison.”
    “I think I would like a little orange juice.”
    She gave a gulp. Not at the orange juice, I don’t mean, because she hadn’t got it yet, but at all the tender associations those two words provoked. It was as if someone had mentioned spaghetti to the relict of an Italian organ-grinder. Her face flushed a deeper shade, she registered anguish, and I saw that it was no longer within the sphere of practical politics to try to confine the conversation to neutral topics like cold boiled salmon.
    So did she, I imagine, for when I, as a preliminary to getting down to brass tacks, said “Er,” she said “Er,” too, simultaneously, the brace of “Ers” clashing in mid-air.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “You were saying–-”
    “You were saying–-”
    “No, please go on.”
    “Oh, right-ho.”
    I straightened the tie, my habit when in this girl’s society, and had at it:
    “With reference to yours of even date–-”
    She flushed again, and took a rather strained forkful of salmon.
    “You got my note?”
    “Yes, I got your note.”
    “I gave it to Jeeves to give it to you.”
    “Yes, he gave it to me. That’s how I got it.”
    There was another silence. And as she was plainly shrinking from talking turkey, I was reluctantly compelled to do so. I mean, somebody had got to. Too dashed silly, a male and female in our position simply standing eating salmon and cheese at one another without a word.
    “Yes, I got it all right.”
    “I see. You got it.”
    “Yes, I got it. I’ve just been reading it. And what I was rather wanting to ask you, if we happened to run into each other, was—well, what about it?”
    “What about it?”
    “That’s what I say: What about it?”
    “But it was quite clear.”
    “Oh, quite. Perfectly clear. Very well expressed and all that. But—I mean—Well, I mean, deeply sensible of the honour, and so forth—but–-Well, dash it!”
    She had polished off her salmon, and now put the plate down.
    “Fruit salad?”
    “No, thank you.”
    “Spot of pie?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “One of those glue things on toast?”
    “No, thank you.”
    She took a cheese straw. I found a cold egg which I had overlooked. Then I said “I mean to say” just as she said “I think I know”, and there was another collision.
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Do go on.”
    “No, you go on.”
    I waved my cold egg courteously, to indicate that she had the floor, and she started again:
    “I think I know what you are trying to say. You are surprised.”
    “Yes.”
    “You are thinking of–-”
    “Exactly.”
    “—Mr. Fink-Nottle.”
    “The very man.”
    “You find what I have done hard to understand.”
    “Absolutely.”
    “I don’t wonder.”
    “I do.”
    “And yet it is quite simple.”
    She took another cheese straw. She seemed to like cheese straws.
    “Quite simple, really. I want to make you happy.”
    “Dashed decent of you.”
    “I am going to devote the rest of my life to making you happy.”
    “A very matey scheme.”
    “I can at least do that. But—may I be quite frank with you, Bertie?”
    “Oh, rather.”
    “Then I must tell you this. I am fond of you. I will marry you. I will do my best to make you a good wife. But my affection for you can never be the flamelike passion I felt for Augustus.”
    “Just the very point I was working round to. There, as you say, is the snag. Why not chuck the whole idea of hitching up with me? Wash it out altogether. I mean, if you love old Gussie–-”
    “No longer.”
    “Oh, come.”
    “No. What happened this afternoon has killed my love. A smear of ugliness has been drawn across a thing of beauty, and I can never feel towards him as I did.”
    I saw what she meant, of course. Gussie had bunged his heart at her feet; she had picked it