But I
have allowed myself to be carried away. It was not really of Mr.
Benson that I was thinking when I said that delightful things go
on in this world, but of a certain pair of lovers, the tragedy of
whose story has been revealed to me in a two-line "agony" in a
morning paper. When anything particularly attractive happens in
real life, we express our appreciation by saying that it is the
sort of thing which one reads about in books --perhaps the
highest compliment we can pay to Nature. Well, the story
underlying this advertisement reeks of the feuilleton and the
stage.
"PAT, I was alone when you called. You heard me talking to the
dog. PLEASE make appointment. --DAISY."
You will agree with me when you read this that it is almost too
good to be true. There is a freshness and a naivet‚ about it
which is only to be found in American melodrama. Let us
reconstruct the situation, and we shall see at once how
delightfully true to fiction real life can be.
Pat was in love with Daisy--engaged to her we may say with
confidence (for a reason which will appear in a moment). But even
though she had plighted her troth to him, he was jealous,
miserably jealous, of every male being who approached her. One
day last week he called on her at the house in Netting Hill. The
parlour-maid opened the door and smiled brightly at him. "Miss
Daisy is upstairs in the drawing-room," she said.
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