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Updated: May 27, 2025
Throughout the drive westwards scarcely a word was spoken. At the end of the journey Archie turned deliberately and addressed Wingarde. His face was white and dogged. "I should like a word with you in private," he said. Wingarde looked at him for a moment as if he meant to refuse. Then abruptly he gave way. "I am at your service," he said formally.
He clenched his hands abruptly, and Wingarde saw it. "Please understand," he said curtly, "that I will listen to you only so long as you keep your temper! I believe that you know what I mean what circumstances I refer to. If you wish me to put them into plain language I will do so. But I don't think you will like it." Archie pounced upon the words.
"Oh, yes," she answered, "long ago; with Archie." Wingarde turned his head and looked at her attentively. She tried to appear unconscious of his scrutiny, and failed signally. Before she could control it, the blood had rushed to her face. "And you found it worth doing?" he asked. The question seemed to call for no reply, and she made none. But yet again she felt as if he had insulted her.
I forget what they were called. We had great fun, I remember." Her face flushed at the remembrance. Archie had been very romantic in those days, quite foolishly so. But somehow she had enjoyed it. Wingarde said no more. He rose directly the meal was over. It was a perfect summer morning. The view from the windows was exquisite.
"I am going to tell you the truth," he said again, and, though his voice still shook perceptibly there was dignity in his bearing. "Three years ago I was in love with her." "Calf love?" suggested Wingarde carelessly. "You may call it what you like," Archie rejoined. "That is to say, anything honourable. I was hard hit three years ago, and it lasted off and on till her marriage to you.
"Next?" he suggested. "No!" she said again. He was looking at her full and deliberately, but she would not look at him. She was quaking in every limb. There was a pause. Then Wingarde spoke again. "Why not next week?" he asked. "Have you any particular reason?" She glanced at him. "It would be so soon," she faltered. "What difference does that make?" A very strange smile touched his grim lips.
"And so you saved my life," he said in a quiet tone. "I had to," she said faintly. Archie here reappeared with a glass of water. "The fellow is in a fit," he reported. "They are taking him away. Jove, Wingarde! You ought to be a dead man. If Nina hadn't spoilt that shot " Nina was shuddering, and he broke off. "You'd better give up cornering gold fields," he said lightly.
And Archie marched into the house in Nina's wake. In the hall Wingarde touched his shoulder. "Come into the smoking-room!" he said quietly. "I want to know what you mean," said Archie. He stood up very straight, with the summer sunlight full in his face, and confronted Nina's husband without a hint of dismay in his bearing. Wingarde looked at him with a very faint smile on his grim lips.
Wingarde looked back at her with complete composure. He also seemed faintly contemptuous. "You probably know as much of the one as of the other," he coolly responded. "So Nina has made up her mind to retrieve the family fortunes," yawned Leo, the second son of the house. "Uncommonly generous of her. My only regret is that it didn't occur to her that it would be a useful thing to do some time back.
And so, when she saw him that evening, when his momentous interview with her father was over, she was moved to graciousness for the first time. A passing glimpse of her father's face assured her that all had gone well, aye, more than well. As for Wingarde, he waived the money question altogether when he found himself alone with his fiancée.
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