‘Well?’

‘That woman asked you to marry her.’

Malkin leapt from his chair, and sank back again.

’It came to that.  Yes, upon my word, it came to that.  She said she had fallen in love with me—­that was the long and short of it.  And I had never said a word that could suggest—­Oh, confound it!  What a frightful scene it was!’

‘You took a final leave of her?’

Malkin stared with eyes of anguish into his friend’s face, and at length whispered thickly: 

‘I said I would!’

‘What?  Take leave?’

‘Marry her!’

Earwaker had much ado to check an impatiently remonstrant laugh.  He paused awhile, then began his expostulation, at first treating the affair as too absurd for grave argument.

‘My boy,’ he concluded, ’you have got into a preposterous scrape, and I see only one way out of it.  You must flee.  When does your brother start for the Antipodes?’

‘Thursday morning.’

‘Then you go with him; there’s an end of it.’

Malkin listened with the blank, despairing look of a man condemned to death.

‘Do you hear me?’ urged the other.  ’Go home and pack.  On Thursday I’ll see you off.’

‘I can’t bring myself to that,’ came in a groan from Malkin.  ’I’ve never yet done anything to be seriously ashamed of, and I can’t run away after promising marriage.  It would weigh upon me for the rest of my life.’

’Humbug!  Would it weigh upon you less to marry the mother, and all the time be in love with the daughter?  To my mind, there’s something peculiarly loathsome in the suggestion.’

’But, look here; Bella is very young, really very young indeed.  It’s possible that I have deluded myself.  Perhaps I don’t really care for her in the way I imagined.  It’s more than likely that I might be content to regard her with fatherly affection.’

’Even supposing that, with what sort of affection do you regard Mrs Jacox?’

Malkin writhed on his chair before replying.

‘You mustn’t misjudge her!’ he exclaimed.  ’She is no heartless schemer.  The poor thing almost cried her eyes out.  It was a frightful scene.  She reproached herself bitterly.  What could I do?  I have a tenderness for her, there’s no denying that.  She has been so vilely used, and has borne it all so patiently.  How abominable it would be if I dealt her another blow!’

The journalist raised his eyebrows, and uttered inarticulate sounds.

‘Was anything said about Bella?’ he asked, abruptly.

’Not a word.  I’m convinced she doesn’t suspect that I thought of Bella like that.  The fact is, I have misled her.  She thought all along that my chief interest was in her.’

’Indeed?  Then what was the ground of her self-reproach that you speak of?’

‘How defective you are in the appreciation of delicate feeling!’ cried Malkin frantically, starting up and rushing about the room.  ’She reproached herself for having permitted me to get entangled with a widow older than myself, and the mother of two children.  What could be simpler?’