Come, come, I said to myself, this is better. Spode had compared me to a member of the ensemble. In the view of L. P. Runkle I was at any rate one of the principals. Moving up in the world.
'Must be a great help to you in your business. Lulls people into a false security. They think there can't be any danger from someone who looks like you, they're off their guard, and wham! you've got away with their umbrellas and cameras. No doubt you owe all your successes to this. But you know the old saying about the pitcher going too often to the well. This time you're for it. This time --'
He broke off, not because he had come to an end of his very offensive remarks but because Florence had joined us, and her appearance immediately claimed his attention. She was far from being dapper. It was plain that she had been in the forefront of the late battle, for whereas Ginger had merely had egg in his hair, she was, as it were, festooned in egg. She had evidently been right in the centre of the barrage. In all political meetings of the stormier kind these things are largely a matter of luck. A escapes unscathed, B becomes a human omelette. A more tactful man than L. P. Runkle would have affected not to notice this, but I don't suppose it ever occurred to him to affect not to notice things.
'Hullo!' he said. 'You've got egg all over you.'
Florence replied rather acidly that she was aware of this.
'Better change your dress.'
'I intend to. Would you mind, Mr. Runkle, if I had a word with Mr. Wooster alone?'
I think Runkle was on the point of saying 'What about?', but on catching her eye he had prudent second thoughts. He lumbered off, and she proceeded to have the word she had mentioned. She kept it crisp. None of the 'Er' stuff which was such a feature of Ginger's oratory. Even Demosthenes would have been slower in coming to the nub, though he, of course, would have been handicapped by having to speak in Greek. 'I'm glad I found you, Bertie.'
A civil 'Oh, ah' was all the reply I could think of.
'I have been thinking things over, and I have made up my mind. Harold Winship is a mere lout, and I am having nothing more to do with him. I see now that I made a great mistake when I broke off my engagement to you. You have your faults, but they are easily corrected. I have decided to marry you, and I think we shall be very happy.'
'But not immediately,' said L. P. Runkle, rejoining us. I described him a moment ago as lumbering off, but a man like that never lumbers far if there is a chance of hearing what somebody has to say to somebody else in private. 'He'll first have to do a.longish stretch in prison.'
His re-appearance had caused Florence to stiffen. She now stiffened further, her aspect similar to that of the old ancestor when about to go into her grande dame act.
'Mr. Runkle ! '
'I'm here.' I8;
'I thought you had gone.'
'I hadn't.'
'How dare you listen to a private conversation ! '
'They're the only things worth listening to. I owe much of my large fortune to listening to private conversations.'
'What is this nonsense about prison?'
'Wooster won't find it nonsense. He has sneaked a valuable silver porringer of mine, a thing I paid nine thousand pounds for, and I am expecting a man any minute now who will produce the evidence necessary to convict. It's an open and shut case.'
'Is this true, Bertie?' said Florence with that touch of the prosecuting District Attorney I remembered so vividly, and all I could say was 'Well... I... er... well'.
With a guardian angel like mine working overtime, it was enough. She delivered judgment instantaneously.
'I shall not marry you,' she said, and went off haughtily to de-egg herself.
'Very sensible of her,' said L. P. Runkle. 'The right course to take. A man like you, bound to be in and out of prison, couldn't possibly be a good husband. How is a wife to make her plans... dinner parties, holidays, Christmas treats for the children, the hundred and one things a woman has to think of, when she doesn't know from one day to another whether the head of the house won't be telephoning to say he's been arrested again and no bail allowed? Yes?' said Runkle, and I saw that Seppings had appeared in the offing.
'A Mr. Bingley has called to see you, sir.'
'Ah, yes, I was expecting him.'
He popped off, and scarcely had he ceased to pollute the atmosphere when the old ancestor blew in. She was plainly agitated, the resemblance to a cat on hot bricks being very marked. She panted a good deal, and her face had taken on the rather pretty mauve colour it always does when the soul is not at rest.
'Bertie,' she boomed, 'When you went away yesterday, did you leave the door of your bedroom unlocked?'
'Of course I didn't.'
'Well, Jeeves says it's open now.'
'It can't be.'
'It is. He thinks Runkle or some minion of his has skeleton-keyed the lock. Don't yell like that, curse you.'
