Love's Gamble. Love's Gamble . .

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 125, 22 November 1902, Page 17

Love's Gamble. Love' s Gamble . .

THE two sat upon a seat on the lawn . The mam was young, handsome, well tailored, and painfully ill at ease. The girl was radiant in an, exquisite Cup dress that had severely tested the lady journalsits' stock of ecstatic adjectives. She was pretty, composed, and obviously happy. ''What ever is the matter with you, Dick ?" "With me, Nell?" ''Are there so many Dicks? With you, of course I assure you your present expression is far from nattering to me.'' •Do I look blue?" 'You could not look more miserable if we had been married a month, instead of being merely engaged for that time." 'I'm all right dear. Got a bit of a head perhaps, nothing more." "Do \ou expect me to believe that?" ' Win , to be sure." "Hoh erv stupid you must think me. I can assure you that the readiness I showed in accepting you, Mr. Elvm. is not a fair thing on which to base an estimate of my general intelligence I am not nearly so foolish as I act." "Dearest you are the 'cutest htte woman in the world." "Indeed. Then you ha^ c pot something on your mind — something very senoius. Perhaps, not as serious as murder but something midway between that and forgery I sincerely hot>e it is not bigamy." "How can you. Nell? You know I am all right." "I beg yours. After all I know very little of you, sir. Presuming on an acquaintance extending over no more than six months you ask a ecirl to marry you, and she, with that blind trust in Fate peculiar to girls in such cases, actually accepts you Now, I come to think of it, we are almost strangers." "No, no, Nell." "Yes, yes. There are young men I have known for more years than I have known you for months, and they never ihad the audacity to want to marry me Your impudence amazes me the more I think of it." The girl was obviously trying to rail the vouixq: man into a more cheerful humour, but was succeeding badly. His nervousness increased under her badinage he was restless, and pale, and preoccupied, and a more serious expression gathered in the girl's face as she watched him. "You say I am 'cute," she said. ' Well, dear, admit my 'cuteness has found you out There is something wrong." "Well, well there is." He spoke like a man actin- under a sudden resolution. "Something serious?" "Yes, pietty serious." "For you and m©?" The young man nodded, and, after watching him for a moment, the girl continued "It beigan a fortnight ago; on the night of Mrs. Caston's affair?" "Yes, about then. I have not succeeded in deceiving you, Nell." "Then try no longer. Tell me all." "I — I cannot " He moved away from her, and sat with bowed head, nervously bitdne his lir> and digging his stick into the turf. "Oh. yes you can. Is — is it anything disgraceful anything you would dread to have known ?" "It is not diseraoeful — particularly," he answered sullenly. "Then sipeak." The cirl was no longer railing a strong calmness had come into her face and she st»oke as the dominant character. "It is hard to say Nell. I meant to wait till the race was over, but the excitement has on mv nerves, and I can scarcely contain myself. Nell, you do not know how much depends upon this race." "Perhaps I can guess. You have entangled yourself and to clear your way have risked much on Revenue." "Risked much 1 I have risked all." "If you lose does it mean — gaol?" She spoke with cold bluntness. He swung round, and stared at her for a moment. "Great Scot no, not gaol ; but it means that I will be in a frightful fix. and that I will have to go very slow for a year or two to- — to make up for things." "That our marriage will be off p " Her voice was cold, passionless. He turned away again, and sat prodding the earth for a few moments and then nodded his head slowly. "I am afraid it means that, Nell. That's what is worrying me all to bits. You see, it would be simply impossible unless I make a scoop." "So that I am to regard myself as something in the nature of a bet, to be won or lost according to> the speed of the horse you fancy?" "Oh. I say. Nell, you need not *Mit it like that. You do not seem to sympathise with a chap much." "I do not sympathise at all." "Perhaps you do not care whether Revenue wins or not."

"I find myself surprisingly indifferent." "Oil, come, Neil, do not let u& row. Revenue will win He must — he absolutely must. Ido not think of anything else being possible." ''There are more likely things. The favourite, for instance.' "Don't, don't!" The young man started to his feet. "I cannot stay to, be leproached by you, Nell. You want to quarrel, and lam not in the mood I shall go and see how the beoting moves. I will pick you up with the party later." He went away hastily, and for twenty minutes the frirl sat in a brown study, quite lost to her surroundings, thinking of her brief courtship, and the engagement now a month old and as she thought, a great surprise grew up v. rthin her. Why had she accepted Dick Elvin's attentions — why, of all things on earth, had she agreed to become his wife p It was unaccountable. She sat and wondered at herself What she had lust heiard had created a great revolution in heart and brain, a greater revolution than she was quite conscious of. Her wonder over her engagement arose out of the fact that she had iust received a new insight into Elvin's character, and she did not like it. "I might have forgiven him the gambling. Yes, that would be easy enough," she mused, "but the weakness, the cowardice of making me the stake. Had he been willing to clins to me, to fight his way out without abandoning me it would have been all right but. " Her musings were interrupted bv a laughing friend, an unpretentious, blithe young man, with thick fair hair, and mercurial grey eyes who had seated himself by her side without awakening her from her abstraction. "I thought I had better disturb you you were iust going to talk in your sleeo " he said. "You I" she said. "Dear me, it is strange that you should come upon me at tins moment." "No — is it? You were not thinking about me, were you?" "Oh, dear no." "Then, it is not a bit strange. I've met you three times before to-day, and I have bean watching for a chance to meet you again. Saw Elvin was with you, and backed out. Awful bore our friend Dickie isn't he?" Nell smiled a sly smile and answered "Yes, nerhaus he is." "Say, Nellie do you kno^ why I've been chasing you round for the last week ? " He had shifted nearer her. and his tone had changed. There was an unmistakable ring in it. "I'll tell you. It is because I love you and want you to take pity on a poor fellow, and marry him." "In the event of which horse winning p " "Eh. what?" He gazed blankly into her face, her composure amazed him. "Surely your marrying me depends on your nulling off something big over the Cup?" "Nellie, you are chaffing me I do not care a brass button what horse wins if you will only say yes " "Is that really so, Charley?" "Really so upon my soul " "Theni I'll—" ' You'll say yes?" "I'll think over it." ''Think over it with a bias in favour of petitioner won't you ?" he asked "I'm surprised ait myself," she said , "but I actually believe that bias exists, and I never suspected it till this moment." "That's good enough for me," he cried, enthusiastically. "God bless you, Nell. I have loved you ever since we were kiddies, dear, but never dared mention it before." Nell spent the rest of the afternoon in Charley's company. Revenue had won and Dick Elvin was hunting excitedly for his affianced bride all over the lawn and the stands. He found her at last, sitting in a shady nook, near the Maribyrnong with Charley Brierly by her side "It is all rights— it is all right'" he almost, gasped in his elation, "Revenue has won '" "Has he, though?" said Charley. "By Jove, we've been so absorbed in Dleasanter business that we have not looked at a race. The fact is. Dick, Nellie has promised to be my wife." "Your wife?" cried Elvin. "Yes," said Nellie. "Charlie is rather abrupt, but that is true." "But you are engaged to me," said Dick, white to the lips. "Oh, no, Mr. Elvin. You backed Revenue to win me, but you did not make me a party to the transaction. I repudiated the bet as soon as I heard of it " "You throw me over?" "I simply decline to figure as a wager, to be taken or lost, as the luok runs. You said that if you lost you could not marry me, and at that moment I resolved that if you won you should not marry me. A simple case of

heads I win, tails you lose." Dick looked at her for a moment, convulsed with rage, and then he said, "D !" and wheeled and fled. Charley and Nell were married two months later, but Charley ha® not yet deemed it wise to tell his little wife that he was induced to propose to her on Cup Day by reason of his having made so big a haul over the Derby winner that he could face matrimony with absolute composure. He thought, after hearing Dick's case, that it was wise to suppress that little detail. — By Ward Edson, in Melbourne "Punch."