Love Lies Dreaming by C S Forester Read Free Book Online Page B

employment of that person the world would be the less efficiently run. And although with me efficiency is only an ideal, yet it ought to be an ideal.
    Since I wrote that last paragraph Mrs. Rundle has gone. The flat has been cleaned and polished up to a state of transcendent perfection all ready to impress Mrs. Rundle’s successor when she comes on Monday. At least, Constance says it is in a state of perfection. I find it very difficult to see any difference.
    At twelve o’clock I heard the two women whispering together outside by study door. Then there was a knock.
    â€œCome in,” I said. Enter Mrs. Rundle.
    â€œI just want to say good-by, sir,” said she.
    What the devil was I to say? How does one bid farewell to a retiring charwoman—especially one who knows as much about one as does Mrs. Rundle. Shamefacedly I mumbled something about “the best of luck.” Then, as she turned to go, I dived for my pocketbook.
    â€œHere,” I said, “half a minute.”
    My fingers seemed all thumbs as I tugged the thing open and scrabbled for its contents.
    â€œMind you keep that you yourself. Don’t let that husband of yours know you’ve got it,” I said. Then I dived for the typewriter and started it rattling tremendously, without any paper in it, while Mrs. Rundlewithdrew, defeated in her efforts to thank me. At least I have the satisfaction of knowing that young Tommy Rundle will not go short of bread and butter for a week or two to come.
    I don’t know how Constance guessed about it. Mrs. Rundle may have told her, or she may have seen the notes in her hand. My own personal opinion is that she listened at the door, for Constance would have no morals at all about a thing like that under those circumstances. If I were to tax her with it she would be perfectly brazen, and admit it too charmingly for me to be able to take any further action.
    But she knows, and I think it has counted in my favor. At lunch she was friendlier to me than ever—I had been anticipating that tete-a-tete meal with apprehension. It is a curious sensation to woo one’s wife all over again. Somehow I was transported back over nearly five years, to the time when one of Constance’s smiles meant a victory—another niche cut in the difficult ascent that lay before me. today Constance smiled at me across the table with a brilliance that dazzled me, just as it used to do in the old days, before I grew spoiled. Constance is delicious and most tantalizinglyinaccessible. She doesn’t seem in the least degree to be my wife. I feel much more like a relieved widower making my first advances to number two.
    After lunch I gazed regretfully out of the window at the streaming rain.
    â€œOnly tennis for you this week-end, my lad,” said Constance.
    Our unvoiced arrangement is that I play golf at the club on a Saturday, and tennis with Constance on Sunday. Constance (who has the profoundest contempt for golf) says that that gives me a chance to gossip on Saturday and some healthy exercise on Sunday. There is always unblushing triumph in Constance’s demeanor on a wet Saturday.
    â€œIf I did the right and proper thing a husband ought to do,” I said (I felt extraordinarily daring at using the word “husband”), “I’d shake you until you said you were sorry I’m missing my golf.”
    â€œPoop!” said Constance, “you wouldn’t dare. Besides, it’ll do you good to stop at home for once and entertain your wife.”
    There was half a look and half a gesture when Constance uttered the word “wife” that made me perfectlycertain that Constance’s thoughts had been following the same lines as had my own. She was teasing me. Constance flirts rather nicely.
    â€œHaven’t you anything better to do?” I asked, countering. “There’s no tennis, I admit. But aren’t there any women you want to go and gossip with over the