Love In A Cold Climate : Popular Penguins

Oh! How exciting! You are engaged?'

He gave me a sidelong whimsical look.

'Oh yes,' he said 'engaged!'

'And are you to be married soon?'

But why, I wondered, had he come away alone, without her? If I had such a fascinating fiancé I would follow him everywhere, I knew, like a faithful spaniel.

'I don't imagine it will be very soon,' he said gaily. 'You know what it is with the Vatican, time is nothing to them, a thousand ages are like an evening gone. Do I not know a lot of English poetry?'

'If you call it poetry. It's a hymn, really. But what has your marriage got to do with the Vatican, isn't that in Rome?'

'It is. There is such a thing as the Church of Rome, my dear young lady, which I belong to, and this Church must annul the marriage of my affianced ? do you say affianced?'

'You could. It's rather affected.'

'My inamorata, my Dulcinea must annul her marriage before she is at liberty to marry me.'

'Goodness! Is she married already?'

'Yes, yes of course. There are very few unmarried ladies going about, you know. It's not a state that lasts very long with pretty women.'

'My Aunt Emily doesn't approve of people getting engaged when they are married. My mother is always doing it and it makes Aunt Emily very cross.'

'You must tell your dear Aunt Emily that in many ways it is rather convenient. But all the same, she is quite right, I have been a fiancé too often and far too long and now it is time I was married.'

'Do you want to be?'

'I am not sure. Going out to dinner every night with the same person, this must be terrible.'

'You might stay in?'

'To break a habit of a lifetime is rather terrible too. The fact is, I am so accustomed now to the engaged state that it is hard to imagine anything different.'

'But have you been engaged to other people before this one?'

'Many many times,' he admitted.

'What happened to them all?'

'Various unmentionable fates.'

'For instance, what happened to the last one before this?'

'Let me see. Ah, yes ? the last one before this did something I couldn't approve of, so I stopped loving her.'

'But you can stop loving people because they do things you don't approve of?'

'Yes, I can.'

'What a lucky talent,' I said, 'I'm sure I couldn't.'