FullReads

‘Sure,’ murmured Archibald, blushfully.

The wire hummed with McCay’s congratulations.

‘Thanks,’ said Archibald. ‘Thanks, old man. What? Oh, yes. Milsom’s her name. By the way, her family have taken a cottage at Cape Pleasant for the summer. Some distance from the links. Yes, very convenient, isn’t it? Good-bye.’

He hung up the receiver and resumed his task of gathering up the fragments. Now McCay happened to be of a romantic and sentimental nature. He was by profession a chartered accountant, and inclined to be stout; and all rather stout chartered accountants are sentimental. McCay was the sort of man who keeps old ball programmes and bundles of letters tied round with lilac ribbon. At country houses, where they lingered in the porch after dinner to watch the moonlight flooding the quiet garden, it was McCay and his colleague who lingered longest. McCay knew Ella Wheeler Wilcox by heart, and could take Browning without anaesthetics. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that Archibald’s remark about his fiancee coming to live at Cape Pleasant should give him food for thought. It appealed to him.

He reflected on it a good deal during the day, and, running across Sigsbee, a fellow Cape Pleasanter, after dinner that night at the Sybarites’ Club, he spoke of the matter to him. It so happened that both had dined excellently, and were looking on the world with a sort of cosy benevolence. They were in the mood when men pat small boys on the head and ask them if they mean to be President when they grow up.

‘I called up Archie Mealing today,’ said McCay. ‘Did you know he was engaged?’

‘I did hear something about it. Girl of the name of Wilson, or–‘

‘Milsom. She’s going to spend the summer at Cape Pleasant, Archie tells me.’

‘Then she’ll have a chance of seeing him play in the championship competition.’

McCay sucked his cigar in silence for a while, watching with dreamy eyes the blue smoke as it curled ceiling-ward. When he spoke his voice was singularly soft.

‘Do you know, Sigsbee,’ he said, sipping his Maraschino with a gentle melancholy–‘do you know, there is something wonderfully pathetic to me in this business. I see the whole thing so clearly. There was a kind of quiver in the poor old chap’s voice when he said: “She is coming to Cape Pleasant,” which told me more than any words could have done. It is a tragedy in its way, Sigsbee. We may smile at it, think it trivial; but it is none the less a tragedy. That warm-hearted, enthusiastic girl, all eagerness to see the man she loves do well–Archie, poor old Archie, all on fire to prove to her that her trust in him is not misplaced, and the end–Disillusionment–Disappointment–Unhappiness.’

‘He ought to keep his eye on the ball,’ said the more practical Sigsbee.

‘Quite possibly,’ continued McCay, ‘he has told her that he will win this championship.’

‘If Archie’s mutt enough to have told her that,’ said Sigsbee decidedly, ‘he deserves all he gets. Waiter, two Scotch highballs.’

McCay was in no mood to subscribe to this stony-hearted view.

‘I tell you,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry for Archie! I’m sorry for the poor old chap. And I’m more than sorry for the girl.’

‘Well, I don’t see what we can do,’ said Sigsbee. ‘We can hardly be expected to foozle on purpose, just to let Archie show off before his girl.’

McCay paused in the act of lighting his cigar, as one smitten with a great thought.

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Why not, Sigsbee? Sigsbee, you’ve hit it.’

‘Eh?’

‘You have! I tell you, Sigsbee, you’ve solved the whole thing. Archie’s such a bully good fellow, why not give him a benefit? Why not let him win this championship? You aren’t going to tell me that you care whether you win a tin medal or not?’

Sigsbee’s benevolence was expanding under the influence of the Scotch highball and his cigar. Little acts of kindness on Archie’s part, here a cigar, there a lunch, at another time seats for the theatre, began to rise to the surface of his memory like rainbow-coloured bubbles. He wavered.