by A. A. Milne
* * *
It must not be supposed that he was such a conceited prig as to imagine that such a fortuitous proceeding, or his best efforts afterward, could settle the question as it related to the girls. It would only decide his own procedure. He was like an old marauding baron, in honest doubt from which town he can carry off the richest booty--that is, in case he can capture any one of them. His overtures for capitulation might be met with the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and he be sent limping off the field. Nevertheless, no man regrets that he must take the initiative, and he would be less than a man who would fear to do so. When it came to this point in the affair, Marstern shrugged his shoulders and thought, "I must take my chances like the rest." But he wished to be sure that he had attained this point, and not lay siege to one girl only to wish afterward it had been the other.
* * *
His course that evening proved that he not only had a legal cast of mind but also a judicial one. He invited both Miss Mitchell and Miss Waldo to take a sleigh-ride with him the following evening, fancying that when sandwiched between them in the cutter he could impartially note his impressions. His unsuspecting clients laughingly accepted, utterly unaware of the momentous character of the trial scene before them.
* * *
As Marstern smoked a cigar before retiring that night, he admitted to himself that it was rather a remarkable court that was about to be held. He was the only advocate for the claims of each, and finally he proposed to take a seat on the bench and judge between them. Indeed, before he slept he decided to take that august position at once, and maintain a judicial impartiality while noting his impressions.
* * *
Christmas Eve happened to be a cold, clear, star-lit night; and when Marstern drove to Miss Waldo's door, he asked himself, "Could a fellow ask for anything daintier and finer" than the red-lipped, dark-eyed girl revealed by the hall-lamp as she tripped lightly out, her anxious mamma following her with words of unheeded caution about not taking cold, and coming home early. He had not traversed the mile which intervened between the residences of the two girls before he almost wished he could continue the drive under the present auspices, and that, as in the old times, he could take toll at every bridge, and encircle his companion with his arm as they bounced over the "thank-'ee mams." The frosty air appeared to give keenness and piquancy to Miss Lottie's wit, and the chime of the bells was not merrier or more musical than her voice. But when a little later he saw blue-eyed Carrie Mitchell in her furs and hood silhouetted in the window, his old dilemma became as perplexing as ever. Nevertheless, it was the most delightful uncertainty that he had ever experienced; and he had a presentiment that he had better make the most of it, since it could not last much longer. Meanwhile, he was hedged about with blessings clearly not in disguise, and he gave utterance to this truth as they drove away.
* * *
"Surely there never was so lucky a fellow. Here I am kept warm and happy by the two finest girls in town."
* * *
"Yes," said Lottie; "and it's a shame you can't sit on both sides of us."
* * *
"I assure you I wish it were possible. It would double my pleasure."
* * *
"I'm very well content," remarked Carrie, quietly, "as long as I can keep on the right side of people--"
* * *
"Well, you are not on the right side to-night," interrupted Lottie.
* * *
"Good gracious!" thought Marstern, "she's next to my heart. I wonder if that will give her unfair advantage;" but Carrie explained:
* * *
"Of course I was speaking metaphorically."
* * *
"In that aspect of the case it would be a shame to me if any side I have is not right toward those who have so honored me," he hastened to say.
* * *
"Oh, Carrie has all the advantage--she is next to your heart."
* * *
"Would you like to exchange places?" was the query flashed back by Carrie.
* * *
"Oh, no, I'm quite as content as you are."
* * *
"Why, then, since I am more than content--exultant, indeed--it appears that we all start from excellent premises to reach a happy conclusion of our Christmas Eve," cried Marstern.
* * *
"Now you are talking shop, Mr. Lawyer--Premises and Conclusions, indeed!" said Lottie; "since you are such a happy sandwich, you must be a tongue sandwich, and be very entertaining."
* * *
He did his best, the two girls seconding his efforts so genially that he found himself, after driving five miles, psychologically just where he was physically--between them, as near to one in his thoughts and preferences as to the other.
* * *
"Let us take the river road home," suggested Lottie.
* * *
"As long as you agree," he answered, "you both are sovereign potentates. If you should express conflicting wishes, I should have to stop here in the road till one abdicated in favor of the other, or we all froze."
* * *
"But you, sitting so snugly between us, would not freeze," said Lottie. "If we were obstinate we should have to assume our pleasantest expressions, and then you could eventually take us home as bits of sculpture. In fact, I'm getting cold already."
* * *
"Are you also, Miss Carrie?"
* * *
"Oh, I'll thaw out before summer. Don't mind me."
* * *
"Well, then, mind me," resumed Lottie. "See how white and smooth the river looks. Why can't we drive home on the ice? It will save miles--I mean it looks so inviting."
* * *
"Oh, dear!" cried Carrie, "I feel like protesting now. The longest way round may be both the shortest and safest way home."
* * *
"You ladies shall decide. This morning I drove over the route we would take to-night, and I should not fear to take a ton of coal over it."
* * *
"A comparison suggesting warmth and a grate-fire. I vote for the river," said Lottie, promptly.
* * *
"Oh, well, Mr. Marstern, if you've been over the ice so recently-- I only wish to feel reasonably safe."
* * *
"I declare!" thought Marstern, "Lottie is the braver and more brilliant girl; and the fact that she is not inclined to forego the comfort of the home-fire for the pleasure of my company, reveals the difficulty of, and therefore incentive to, the suit I may decide to enter upon before New Year's."
* * *
Meanwhile, his heart on Carrie's side began to grow warm and alert, as if recognizing an affinity to some object not far off. Granting that she had not been so brilliant as Lottie, she had been eminently companionable in a more quiet way. If there had not been such bursts of enthusiasm at the beginning of the drive, her enjoyment appeared to have more staying powers. He liked her none the less that her eyes were often turned toward the stars or the dark silhouettes of the leafless trees against the snow. She did not keep saying, "Ah, how lovely! What a fine bit that is!" but he had only to follow her eyes to see something worth looking at.
* * *
"A proof that Miss Carrie also is not so preoccupied with the pleasure of my company that she has no thoughts for other things," cogitated Marstern. "It's rather in her favor that she prefers Nature to a grate fire. They're about even yet."
* * *
Meanwhile the horse was speeding along on the white, hard expanse of the river, skirting the west shore. They now had only about a mile to drive before striking land again; and the scene was so beautiful with the great dim outlines of the mountains before them that both the girls suggested that they should go leisurely for a time.
* * *
"We shouldn't hastily and carelessly pass such a picture as that, any more than one would if a fine copy of it were hung in a gallery," said Carrie. "The stars are so brilliant along the brow of that highland yonder that they form a dia--oh,
oh! what is the matter?" and she clung to Marstern's arm.
* * *
The horse was breaking through the ice.
* * *
"Whoa!" said Marstern, firmly. Even as he spoke, Lottie was out of the sleigh and running back on the ice, crying and wringing her hands.
* * *
"We shall be drowned," she almost screamed hysterically.
* * *
"Mr. Marstern, what shall we do? Can't we turn around and go back the way we came?"
* * *
"Miss Carrie, will you do what I ask? Will you believe me when I say that I do not think you are in any danger?"
* * *
"Yes, I'll do my best," she replied, catching her breath. She grew calm rapidly as he tried to reassure Lottie, telling her that water from the rising of the tide had overflowed the main ice and that thin ice had formed over it, also that the river at the most was only two or three feet deep at that point. But all was of no avail; Lottie stood out upon the ice in a panic, declaring that he never should have brought them into such danger, and that he must turn around at once and go back as they came.
* * *
"But, Miss Waldo, the tide is rising, and we may find wet places returning. Besides, it would bring us home very late. Now, Miss Carrie and I will drive slowly across this place and then return for you. After we have been across it twice you surely won't fear."
* * *
"I won't be left alone; suppose you two should break through and disappear, what would become of me?"
* * *
"You would be better off than we," he replied, laughing.
* * *
"I think it's horrid of you to laugh. Oh, I'm so cold and frightened! I feel as if the ice were giving way under my feet."
* * *
"Why, Miss Lottie, we just drove over that spot where you stand. Here, Miss Carrie shall stay with you while I drive back and forth alone."
* * *
"Then if you were drowned we'd both be left alone to freeze to death."
* * *
"I pledge you my word you shall be by that grate-fire within less than an hour if you will trust me five minutes."
* * *
"Oh, well, if you will risk your life and ours too; but Carrie must stay with me."
* * *
"Will you trust me, Miss Carrie, and help me out of this scrape?"
* * *
Carrie was recovering from her panic, and replied, "I have given you my promise."
* * *
He was out of the sleigh instantly, and the thin ice broke with him also. "I must carry you a short distance," he said. "I cannot allow you to get your feet wet. Put one arm around my neck, so; now please obey as you promised."
* * *
She did so without a word, and he bore her beyond the water, inwardly exulting and blessing that thin ice. His decision was coming with the passing seconds; indeed, it had come. Returning to the sleigh he drove slowly forward, his horse making a terrible crunching and splashing, Lottie meanwhile keeping up a staccato accompaniment of little shrieks.
* * *
"Ah, my charming creature," he thought, "with you it was only, 'What will become of me?' I might not have found out until it was too late the relative importance of 'me' in the universe had we not struck this bad crossing; and one comes to plenty of bad places to cross in a lifetime."
* * *
The area of thin ice was not very narrow, and he was becoming but a dim and shadowy outline to the girls. Lottie was now screaming for his return. Having crossed the overflowed space and absolutely assured himself that there was no danger, he returned more rapidly and found Carrie trying to calm her companion.
* * *
"Oh," sobbed Lottie, "my feet are wet and almost frozen. The ice underneath may have borne you, but it won't bear all three of us. Oh, dear, I wish I hadn't--I wish I was home; and I feel as if I'd never get there."
* * *
"Miss Lottie, I assure you that the ice will hold a ton, but I'll tell you what I'll do. I shall put you in the sleigh, and Miss Carrie will drive you over. You two together do not weigh much more than I do. I'll walk just behind you with my hands on the back of the sleigh, and if I see the slightest danger I'll lift you out of the sleigh first and carry you to safety."
* * *
This proposition promised so well that she hesitated, and he lifted her in instantly before she could change her mind, then helped Carrie in with a quiet pressure of the hand, as much as to say, "I shall depend on you."
* * *
"But, Mr. Marstern, you'll get your feet wet," protested Carrie.
* * *
"That doesn't matter," he replied good-naturedly. "I shall be no worse off than Miss Lottie, and I'm determined to convince her of safety. Now go straight ahead as I direct."
* * *
Once the horse stumbled, and Lottie thought he was going down head first. "Oh, lift me out, quick, quick!" she cried.
* * *
"Yes, indeed I will, Miss Lottie, as soon as we are opposite that grate fire of yours."
* * *
They were soon safely over, and within a half-hour reached Lottie's home. It was evident she was a little ashamed of her behavior, and she made some effort to retrieve herself. Bat she was cold and miserable, vexed with herself and still more vexed with Marstern. That a latent sense of justice forbade the latter feeling only irritated her the more. Individuals as well as communities must have scapegoats; and it is not an unusual impulse on the part of some to blame and dislike those before whom they have humiliated themselves.
* * *
She gave her companions a rather formal invitation to come in and get warm before proceeding further; but Marstern said very politely that he thought it was too late, unless Miss Carrie was cold. Carrie protested that she was not so cold but that she could easily wait till she reached her own fireside.
* * *
"Well, good-night, then," and the door was shut a trifle emphatically.
* * *
"Mr. Marstern," said Carrie, sympathetically, "your feet must be very cold and wet after splashing through all that ice-water."
* * *
"They are," he replied; "but I don't mind it. Well, if I had tried for years I could not have found such a test of character as we had to-night."
* * *
"What do you mean?"
* * *
"Oh, well, you two girls did not behave exactly alike. I liked the way you behaved. You helped me out of a confounded scrape."
* * *
"Would you have tried for years to find a test?" she asked, concealing the keenness of her query under a laugh.
* * *
"I should have been well rewarded if I had, by such a fine contrast," he replied.
* * *
Carrie's faculties had not so congealed but that his words set her thinking. She had entertained at times the impression that she and Lottie were his favorites. Had he taken them out that night together in the hope of contrasts, of finding tests that would help his halting decision? He had ventured where the intuitions of a girl like Carrie Mitchell were almost equal to second-sight; and she was alert for what would come next.
* * *
He accepted her invitation to come in and warm his feet at the glowing fire in the grate, which Carrie's father had made before retiring. Mrs. Mitchell, feeling that her daughter was with an old friend and playmate, did not think the presence of a chaperon essential, and left the young people alone. Carrie bustled about, brought cake, and made hot lemonade, while Marstern stretched his feet to the grate with a luxurious sense of comfort and complacency, thinking how homelike it all was and how paradisiacal life would become if such a charming little Hebe presided over his home. His lemonade became nectar offered by such hands.
* * *
She saw the different expression in his eyes. It was now homage, decided preference for one and not mere gallantry to two. Outwardly she was demurely oblivious and ma
intained simply her wonted friendliness. Marstern, however, was thawing in more senses than one, and he was possessed by a strong impulse to begin an open siege at once.
