useful leisure?

Drummle.

Where? On the shore of that same sea.

Misquith.

And, pray, what have you been waiting for?

Drummle.

For some of my best friends to come up. [Aubrey utters a half-stifled exclamation of impatience; then he hurriedly gathers up his papers from the writing-table. The three men turn to him.] Eh?

Aubrey.

Oh, I—I'll finish my letters in the other room if you'll excuse me for five minutes. Tell Cayley the news.

[He goes out.

Drummle.

[Hurrying to the door.] My dear fellow, my jabbering has disturbed you! I'll never talk again as long as I live!

Misquith.

Close the door, Cayley.

[Drummle shuts the door.

Jayne.

Cayley——

Drummle.

[Advancing to the dinner table.] A smoke, a smoke, or I perish!

[Selects a cigar from the little cabinet.

Jayne.

Cayley, marriages are in the air.

Drummle.

Are they? Discover the bacillus, doctor, and destroy it.

Jayne.

I mean, among our friends.

Drummle.

Oh, Nugent Warrinder's engagement to Lady Alice Tring. I've heard of that. They're not to be married till the spring.

Jayne.

Another marriage that concerns us a little takes place to-morrow.

Drummle.

Whose marriage?

Jayne.

Aubrey's.

Drummle.

Aub——! [Looking towards Misquith.] Is it a joke?

Misquith.

No.

Drummle.

[Looking from Misquith to Jayne.] To whom?

Misquith.

He doesn't tell us.

Jayne.

We three were asked here to-night to receive the announcement. Aubrey has some theory that marriage is likely to alienate a man from his friends, and it seems to me he has taken the precaution to wish us good-bye.

Misquith.

No, no.

Jayne.

Practically, surely.

Drummle.

[Thoughtfully.] Marriage in general, does he mean, or this marriage?

Jayne.

That's the point. Frank says——

Misquith.

No, no, no; I feared it suggested——

Jayne.

Well, well. [To Drummle.] What do you think Of it?

Drummle.

[After a slight pause.] Is there a light there? [Lighting his cigar.] He—wraps the lady—in mystery—you say?

Misquith.

Most modestly.

Drummle.

Aubrey's—not—a very—young man.

Jayne.

Forty-three.

Drummle.

Ah! L'age critique!

Misquith.

A dangerous age—yes, yes.

Drummle.

When you two fellows go home, do you mind leaving me behind here?

Misquith.

Not at all.

Jayne.

By all means.

Drummle.

All right. [Anxiously.] Deuce take it, the man's second marriage mustn't be another mistake!

[With his head bent he walks up to the fireplace.

Jayne.

You knew him in his short married life, Cayley. Terribly unsatisfactory, wasn't it?

Drummle.

Well—— [Looking at the door.] I quite closed that door?

Misquith.

Yes.

[Settles himself on the sofa; Jayne is seated in an armchair.

Drummle.

[Smoking, with his back to the fire.] He married a Miss Herriott; that was in the year eighteen—confound dates—twenty years ago. She was a lovely creature—by Jove, she was; by religion a Roman Catholic. She was one of your cold sort, you know—all marble arms and black velvet. I remember her with painful distinctness as the only woman who ever made me nervous.

Misquith.

Ha, ha!

Drummle.

He loved her—to distraction, as they say. Jupiter, how fervently that poor devil courted her! But I don't believe she allowed him even to squeeze her fingers. She was an iceberg! As for kissing, the mere contact would have given him chapped lips. However, he married her and took her away, the latter greatly to my relief.

Jayne.

Abroad, you mean?

Drummle.

Eh? Yes. I imagine he gratified her by renting a villa in Lapland, but I don't know. After a while they returned, and then I saw how wofully Aubrey had miscalculated results.

Jayne.

Miscalculated——?

Drummle.

He had reckoned, poor wretch, that in the early days of marriage she would thaw. But she didn't. I used to picture him closing his doors and making up the fire in the hope of seeing her features relax. Bless her, the thaw never set in! I believe she kept a thermometer in her stays and always registered ten degrees below zero. However, in time a child came—a daughter.

Jayne.

Didn't that——?

Drummle.

Not a bit of it; it made matters worse. Frightened at her failure to stir up in him some sympathetic religious belief, she determined upon strong measures with regard to the child. He opposed her for a miserable year or so, but she wore him down, and the insensible little brat was placed in a convent, first in France, then in Ireland. Not long afterwards the mother died, strangely enough, of fever, the only warmth, I believe, that ever came to that woman's body.

Misquith.

Don't, Cayley!

Jayne.

The child is living, we know.