if I just can't hit it off with that poet?"
"Then I won't think about it," replied Pen. "I'll never, never consider the possibility of marrying any one who isn't leading a useful life, and educating himself, and living on less than a thousand a year. Can you do that, too?"
"Dashed if I see how it can be done," said Plantagenet Goby. "But I'll try, oh, yes, I'll try."
"Now you talk to Chloe," said Penelope, and she went away to the rescue of the poet. For Bob had got him in a corner.
CAPTAIN PLANTAGENET GOBY, V.C., LATE OF THE GUARDS. Who was ordered to read poetry
"I say, Mr. de Vere, wasn't that ripping of old Goby to say he'd give me a real pedigree bull-pup? He knows a bull-pup from a window-shutter, as Baker says. You don't like them? No, but you would if you had one. I feed mine myself, and I wear thick gloves, so's not to get hydrophobia when he bites. He's a most interesting dog, and not so good-tempered as most bulldogs. When he sees a cat, oh, my, it's fun! Look here, when Goby gives me the new pup with the pedigree, you can have mine, if you like, cheap. I know you have a place in the country, and you must want a bulldog. Will you buy him?"
"Good heavens, no!" said the poet.
"Humph!" cried Bob, who of course had quite forgotten that he was doing all this for Goby, and was just enjoying himself. "Why, what do you do in the country without a dog? Do you ride?"
"No," said De Vere.
"Well, of all—I say, Mr. de Vere, what do you do? Do you walk about and make poetry, and do you like making it? Old Guth, I mean Mr. Guthrie, he's my tutor, and he's over there talking to Mrs. Cadwallader, he reads a lot, and some of yours, too."
"Oh, does he!" said De Vere, who began to take some interest. "Does he?"
"Oh, a lot of yours, he says; most of it, I think."
"And does he like it?"
Bob put his head on one side.
"Well, he says it's not bad, some of it."
De Vere flinched at this faint praise.
"Indeed! And what does he like best?" he asked.
"Oh, the beastliest rot," returned Bob, "Browning and Shelley, and I say, do you see that bulge in his pocket? That's Catullus. He reads him all day. But here comes Pen. I say, won't you have my bull-pup? I'll let you have him for half a sovereign; I got him for a sovereign, at least, Baker did. I think your poetry's very fine, sir; Mr. Guthrie lent me some."
But Penelope came across the lawn, and De Vere forgot Bob and the bull-pup, and fell down and worshipped. And the goddess took hold of him, and stripped a lot of his poetry away, and set a few facts before him and made him gasp.
"I heard a very strange rumour, Lady Penelope," he said, when he was once more standing upright before Aphrodite. "I heard—oh, but it was absurd! I can't believe it."
"Then it is probably true," said the goddess, breathlessly, "for I mean to have my own way and to initiate a reform in marriages, Mr. de Vere. I have been reading the accounts of some fashionable weddings lately, and they made me ill. What you have heard is quite true."
The poet shook his head.
"I have had the honour to beg you to believe a thousand times that I am devoted to you—"
"Three times, I think," said Pen, who was good at arithmetic.
"Is it only thrice? But do I understand that, if I were to have the inexpressible delight of winning your love, Lady Penelope, that the marriage would be a secret one, that no one would know of it?"
"I mean that," said Penelope, enthusiastically. "It is a new departure, an assertion of a just individualism, although I am a socialist. I abhor ceremonies, and will not be interfered with. I have stated with the utmost clarity to all my relations that I shall not consult them or let them know until I choose, and I shall only get married (if I ever do) on these terms."
"I agree to them," said the poet. "Lady Penelope, will you do me the inexpressible honour to be my wife?"
"Oh, dear, no," said Pen. "Why, certainly not, Mr. de Vere. I don't love any one yet, and perhaps I never shall. But what I say is this: I'll think as to whether I shall marry you if you do as I wish about this matter and about others."
"My blessed lady," said the poet, "is there anything I would not dare or do?"
"I've told Captain Goby exactly the same thing," said Penelope, thereby putting her pretty foot upon the sudden flowers of De Vere's imagination, "and what I want of you is to be more an out-of-door man. You live too much in rooms, hothouses, Mr. de Vere, and in your own garden."
"I was in a garden, I a poet, with one who was (oh, and is) an angel," said De Vere, "but now I dwell in arid deserts, shall I say the Desert of Gobi? What have I to do with him? Shall he dare to pretend to you, dear lady?"
"He's a very good chap," said Pen, quite shortly, "and I think it would do you good to associate with him more. I've told him so, and he agrees. I want you to make him read a little, and exercise his imagination. And he can take you out rowing and shooting perhaps, and I think a little hunting wouldn't do you harm. You might ask him to stay with you, and he'll ask you. And I want you to go out in motor-cars."
"Good heavens!" said De Vere.
"I know it will be hard," said Pen, consolingly. "But you know what I want. It's not enough to be rich and write poetry, Mr. de Vere. I think you might read statistics; statistics are a tonic, and I want you to be a useful citizen, too. There are things to be done. Just look at my cousin Bob. Now he'll be a splendid man."
"He wanted to sell me a bull-pup," murmured the poet.
"He's a good boy," said Pen, affectionately, "and his instincts are to be trusted. I think a bulldog would do you good perhaps. And I shall expect to hear you have asked Captain Goby to stay with you. And don't forget the statistics."
"I'll do it," said the unhappy poet, "for while the One Hope I have exists, and until 'vain desire at last and vain regret go hand in hand to death,' I am your slave."
And, as he went away, he called Bob to him.
"I'll give you half a sovereign for that bulldog," he said, bitterly.
"Oh, I say. But Baker says he's worth two sovereigns," cried Bob.
"I'll give you two," said the poet.
And Bob danced on the lawn.
CHAPTER IV.
If Penelope had had any sense of humour, she would have deprived the round world of much to laugh at in sad times, when laughter was wanted. But thanks be to whatever gods there are, some folks have no humour, and some have a little, and a few much, and thus the world gets on in spite of the spirit of gravity, which, as may be remembered by students of philosophy, Nietzsche branded as the enemy. Pen went ahead, bent on cutting her own swath in the hay-field, and she cut a big one. Goby
