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 up, and, almost immediately after doing so, had
discovered that he had been stewed to the eyebrows all the time. The
shock must have been severe. No girl likes to feel that a chap has got to
be thoroughly plastered before he can ask her to marry him. It wounds the
pride.

Nevertheless, I persevered.

"But have you considered," I said, "that you may have got a wrong line on
Gussie's performance this afternoon? Admitted that all the evidence
points to a more sinister theory, what price him simply having got a
touch of the sun? Chaps do get touches of the sun, you know, especially
when the weather's hot."

She looked at me, and I saw that she was putting in a bit of the old
drenched-irises stuff.

"It was like you to say that, Bertie. I respect you for it."

"Oh, no."

"Yes. You have a splendid, chivalrous soul."

"Not a bit."

"Yes, you have. You remind me of Cyrano."

"Who?"

"Cyrano de Bergerac."

"The chap with the nose?"

"Yes."

I can't say I was any too pleased. I felt the old beak furtively. It was
a bit on the prominent side, perhaps, but, dash it, not in the Cyrano
class. It began to look as if the next thing this girl would do would be
to compare me to Schnozzle Durante.

"He loved, but pleaded another's cause."

"Oh, I see what you mean now."

"I like you for that, Bertie. It was fine of you--fine and big. But it is
no use. There are things which kill love. I can never forget Augustus,
but my love for him is dead. I will be your wife."

Well, one has to be civil.

"Right ho," I said. "Thanks awfully."

Then the dialogue sort of poofed out once more, and we stood eating
cheese straws and cold eggs respectively in silence. There seemed to
exist some little uncertainty as to what the next move was.

Fortunately, before embarrassment could do much more supervening, Angela
came in, and this broke up the meeting. Then Bassett announced our
engagement, and Angela kissed her and said she hoped she would be very,
very happy, and the Bassett kissed her and said she hoped she would be
very, very happy with Gussie, and Angela said she was sure she would,
because Augustus was such a dear, and the Bassett kissed her again, and
Angela kissed her again and, in a word, the whole thing got so bally
feminine that I was glad to e