"If I give in again, I'll be hanged," said Teddy to himself, and he
brought to bear the various resources he was master of with such effect
that Nina, driven into a corner, was fairly beaten and confessed to
herself that it served her right--"he's been allowed to go too far, and
this is the upshot of it."
She made these reflections however with a face that told no tales,
stepped into a hansom with a pretty air of being overruled by a will
stronger than her own, and only insisted on keeping up her ungainly
sized parasol because "the sun in one's eyes is so disagreeable."
Now, as chance would have it, instead of fishing in the country,
Captain Rowley Dacres was spending that day in London. Circumstances had
brought him to town early in the morning; but, to his discredit do I
tell it, he hated shopping, and hadn't Nina told him in every letter she
sent that she was with the dressmaker every hour of the day? If he went
home he should have to go with her there, or to some other confounded
place, for so long as a shop was near, Nina would be safe to have
something to buy in it. During those few months they were engaged, what
a purgatory he had gone trough. He was a lover then--he was a husband
now, and he whistled the air of a popular tune known by the name of "Not
for Joe."
The first few bars had but just escaped him, when who should he stumble
across but an old chum, Nick Walcot, who, hearing that up to seven
o'clock--when he was going to pop in upon Nina--Rowley had nothing to
do, gave a mysterious wink of his eye saying, "All right, old fellow;
I'm going somewhere, and I'll take you.
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