There
isn't another man, or likely to be. That's just the trouble. If there
were, my mother wouldn't be so angry with me for refusing this chance of
marriage, brilliant though she thinks it. But I was quite desperate. Do
you think it was very wrong of me?"
"No," said Rivington deliberately, "I don't. I lie myself--when
necessary."
"He was furious," she said. "He swore that no other man should stand in
his way. And then--I don't know how it was; perhaps I wasn't very
convincing--he began to suspect that I had lied. That drove me into a
corner. I didn't know what to say or do. And then, quite suddenly, in my
extremity, I thought of you. I really don't know what made me. I didn't
so much as know if you were in town. And in a flash I thought of sending
that announcement to the paper. That would convince him if nothing else
would, and it would mean at least a temporary respite. It was a mad
thing to do, I know. But I thought you were elderly and level-headed and
a confirmed bachelor and--and a sort of cousin as well----"
"To the tenth degree," murmured Rivington.
"So I told him," she hurried on, unheeding, "that we were engaged, and
it was just going to be announced. When he heard that, he lost his head.
I really think he was mad for the moment. He sprang straight at me like
a wild beast, and I--I simply turned and fled. I'm pretty nimble, you
know, when--when there are mad bulls about.
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