âMr. Woosterâ before. âHow wet you are!â
âYes, I am wet.â
âYou had better hurry into the house and change.â
âYes.â
I wrung a gallon or two of water out of my clothes.
â You
are
funny!â she said again. âFirst proposing in that extraordinary roundabout way, and then pushing poor little Oswald into the lake so as to impress me by saving him.â
I managed to get the water out of my throat sufficiently to try to correct this fearful impression. âNo, no!â
âHe said you pushed him in, and I saw you do it. Oh, Iâm not angry, Bertie. I think it was too sweet of you. But Iâm quite sure itâs time that I took you in hand. You certainly want someone to look after you. Youâve been seeing too many moving-pictures. I suppose the next thing you would have done would have been to set the house on fire so as to rescue me.â She looked at me in a proprietary sort of way. âI think,â she said, âI shall be able to make something of you, Bertie. It is true yours has been a wasted life up to the present, but you are still young, and there is a lot of good in you.â
âNo, really there isnât.â
âOh, yes, there is. It simply wants bringing out. Now you run straight up to the house and change your wet clothes or you will catch cold.â
And, if you know what I mean, there was a sort of motherly note in her voice which seemed to tell me, even more than her actual words, that I was for it.
As I was coming downstairs after changing, I ran into young Bingo, looking festive to a degree.
âBertie!â he said. âJust the man I wanted to see. Bertie, a wonderful thing has happened.â
âYou blighter!â I cried. âWhat became of you? Do you knowâ?â
âOh, you mean about being in those bushes? I hadnât time to tell you about that. Itâs all off.â
âAll off?â
âBertie, I was actually starting to hide in those bushes when the most extraordinary thing happened. Walking across the lawn I saw the most radiant, the most beautiful girl in the world. There is none like her, none. Bertie, do you believe in love at first sight? You do believe in love at first sight, donât you, Bertie, old man? Directly I saw her, she seemed to draw me like a magnet. I seemed to forget everything. We two were alone in a world of music and sunshine. I joined her. I got into conversation. She is a Miss Braythwayt, BertieâDaphne Braythwayt. Directly our eyes met, I realized that what I had imagined to be my love for Honoria Glossop had been a mere passing whim. Bertie, you do believe in love at first sight, donât you? She is so wonderful, so sympathetic. Like a tender goddessâââ
At this point I left the blighter.
Two days later I got a letter from Jeeves.
â⦠The weather,â it ended, âcontinues fine. I have had one exceedingly enjoyable bathe.â
I gave one of those hollow, mirthless laughs, and went downstairs to join Honoria. I had an appointment with her in the drawing-room. She was going to read Ruskin to me.
Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch
I HAD met Sir Roderick Glossop before, of course, but only when I was with Honoria; and there is something about Honoria which makes almost anybody you meet in the same room seem sort of under-sized and trivial by comparison. I had never realized till this moment what an extraordinarily formidable old bird he was. He had a pair of shaggy eyebrows which gave his eyes a piercing look which was not at all the sort of thing a fellow wanted to encounter on an empty stomach. He was fairly tall and fairly broad, and he had the most enormous head, with practically no hair on it, which made it seem bigger and much more like the dome of St Paulâs. I suppose he must have taken about a nine or something in hats. Shows what a rotten thing it is to let your brain develop too
H.B. Gilmour, Randi Reisfeld