The Girl on the Boat - Penn State University

“It will be terrible.”
“Not a bit of it. Why should you feel embarrassed?
He must have realised by now that you acted in the
only possible way. It was absurd his ever expecting
you to marry him. I mean to say, just look at it dispassionately
… Eustace … poor old Eustace … and you!
<strong>The</strong> Princess and the Swineherd!”
“Does Mr. Hignett keep pigs?” she asked, surprised.
“I mean that poor old Eustace is so far below you,
darling, that, with the most charitable intentions, one
can only look on his asking you to marry him in the
light of a record exhibition of pure nerve. A dear, good
fellow, of course, but hopeless where the sterner realities
of life are concerned. A man who can’t even stop a
dog-fight! In a world which is practically one seething
mass of fighting dogs, how could you trust yourself to
such a one? Nobody is fonder of Eustace Hignett than
I am, but … well, I mean to say!”
“I see what you mean. He really wasn’t my ideal.”
“Not by a mile!”
She mused, her chin in her hand.
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Girl</strong> on the Boat
56
“Of course, he was quite a dear in a lot of ways.”
“Oh, a splendid chap,” said Sam tolerantly.
“Have you ever heard him sing? I think what first
attracted me to him was his beautiful voice. He really
sings extraordinarily well.”
A slight but definite spasm of jealousy afflicted Sam.
He had no objection to praising poor old Eustace within
decent limits, but the conversation seemed to him to
be confining itself too exclusively to one subject.
“Yes?” he said. “Oh yes, I’ve heard him sing. Not
lately. He does drawing-room ballads and all that sort
of thing still, I suppose?”
“Have you ever heard him sing ‘My love is like a
glowing tulip that in an old-world garden grows’?”
“I have not had that advantage,” replied Sam stiffly.
“But anyone can sing a drawing-room ballad. Now
something funny, something that will make people
laugh, something that really needs putting across …
that’s a different thing altogether.”
“Do you sing that sort of thing?”
“People have been good enough to say ….”