The rite was quite a lengthy one, and at the conclusion the heartsmith said, "M--yes, there is a slight murmuring, certainly." He wrote me out a prescription, and I felt the murmur myself distinctly when parting with three of the greater Bradburys and three shillings. On the way home I ran into Beatrice. "Well, old thing," she said, "what's the matter? I saw you coming out of Dr. Cox's." "Yes," I said. "I've got a heart murmur. I don't know what the poor things been trying to say, but it's been murmuring like anything all the morning." "Perhaps you're in love," she suggested. "By Jove, I never thought of that. I wonder," I said, "if it's anything to do with you. If this were not such a public place you might like to put your head against my top left-hand waistcoat pocket and listen. Perhaps it's saying something about you." "Have you taken to writing poetry about me?" she said. "That's always a sign." "Now I come to think of it," I said, "I did feel a bit broody the other day, and hatched a line or two, but I can't say for certain that I had you in my mind. The lines ran like this:-- "Oh, glorious female, like a goddess decked, No wonder that we crawl on bended knee--" "Rotten," said Beatrice. "You couldn't have been thinking of me. I'm not a female." "You have the right plumage for the hen-bird," I said. "However, what did me was 'decked.' I could only think of three rhymes, 'wrecked,' 'flecked' and 'stiff-necked.' You're not any of those by any chance?" "There's 'circumspect', suggested Beatrice. "Ah! Come and have lunch," I said, "and we'll talk it over. Some place where I can hold your hand and really find out if you are the cause of it all." "Do you think I ought to?" she said. "Good heavens! Of course you ought," I said. "It's most important. My heart's only murmuring now, but it may start shouting soon, and a silly ass I shall look walking about in the street with a heart yelling 'Beatrice' at the top of its voice." As regards meat and drink I consider that Beatrice overdid it for a war-time lunch. She didn't give me any time to hold her hand, she was so busy. "It's curious," I said, as I watched the amount of food that was going her way, "but my heart seems to have stopped murmuring altogether." "Has it?" she said. "Oddly enough, mine's begun." "Your luncheon has overstrained you," I said. I had a letter from Beatrice the next morning. DEAR JIMMY (she wrote),--You were wrong. Mine was a real murmur. It's been coming on for some time, but not on your account. It's murmuring for Basil Fludger. He's on leave, and we fixed things up last Tuesday. I didn't tell you when I met you, because I was afraid you wouldn't want to take me to lunch, and I _did_ enjoy it. Yours ever, BEATRICE. If my heart gets really noisy I do hope it won't shout for Beatrice. It would be so useless. "Let us go hence, my heart; she will not hear" (_Swinburne_). * * * * *