DOI article:
Dowie, Ménie Muriel: An idyll in millinery
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26393#0043
By Menie Muriel Dowie 39
feeling about her, he couldn’t—well, in point of fact, he loved
her ; hang it, he respected her ; he’d sooner be kicked out of his
Club than say one word to her that he’d mind a fellow saying to
his sister.
Thus the Liphook of March, ’95, argued with the Liphook of
the past two and thirty years !
Ill
Liphook’s position was awkward—all the other Liphooks in the
world have said it was beastly awkward, supposing they could have
been made to understand it. To many another kind of man this
little love story might not have been inappropriate ; occurring in
the case of Liphook it was nothing less than melancholy. Not that
he felt melancholy about it, no indeed ; just sometimes, when he
happened to think how it was all going to end, he had rather a
bad moment, but thanks to his nature and training he did not
think often.
Meantime, he had sent a diamond heart to Mrs. Percival; there
was more sentiment about a heart than a horse-shoe ; women
looked at that kind of thing, and she would feel that he wasn’t
cooling off; so it had been a heart. That secured him several more
weeks of freedom at any rate, and he wouldn’t have the trouble of
putting notes in the fire. For on receiving the diamond heart
Mrs. Percival behaved like a python after swallowing an antelope;
she was torpid in satiety, and no sign came from her.
But one morning Liphook got home to Half Moon Street after
his Turkish bath, and heard that a gentleman was waiting to see
him.
“ At least, hardly a gentleman, my lord; I didn’t put him in
the library,” explained the intuitive Sims.
Some
feeling about her, he couldn’t—well, in point of fact, he loved
her ; hang it, he respected her ; he’d sooner be kicked out of his
Club than say one word to her that he’d mind a fellow saying to
his sister.
Thus the Liphook of March, ’95, argued with the Liphook of
the past two and thirty years !
Ill
Liphook’s position was awkward—all the other Liphooks in the
world have said it was beastly awkward, supposing they could have
been made to understand it. To many another kind of man this
little love story might not have been inappropriate ; occurring in
the case of Liphook it was nothing less than melancholy. Not that
he felt melancholy about it, no indeed ; just sometimes, when he
happened to think how it was all going to end, he had rather a
bad moment, but thanks to his nature and training he did not
think often.
Meantime, he had sent a diamond heart to Mrs. Percival; there
was more sentiment about a heart than a horse-shoe ; women
looked at that kind of thing, and she would feel that he wasn’t
cooling off; so it had been a heart. That secured him several more
weeks of freedom at any rate, and he wouldn’t have the trouble of
putting notes in the fire. For on receiving the diamond heart
Mrs. Percival behaved like a python after swallowing an antelope;
she was torpid in satiety, and no sign came from her.
But one morning Liphook got home to Half Moon Street after
his Turkish bath, and heard that a gentleman was waiting to see
him.
“ At least, hardly a gentleman, my lord; I didn’t put him in
the library,” explained the intuitive Sims.
Some