Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “No, I wasn’t thinking of that. But I saw a chair in there. And we can make a pretense of wanting some soda. It is the proper thing to treat young ladies to soda when one brings them in from the country.”

  “It does have that appearance,” she assented, with a smile. She kept him waiting with what would have looked like coquettish hesitation in another, while she glanced at the windows overhead, pierced by a skein of converging wires. “Suppose I go up with you?”

  “I should like that better,” he said; and she followed him lightly up the stairs that led to the telegraph office. A young man stood at the machine with a cigar in his mouth, and his eyes intent upon the ribbon of paper unreeling itself before him.

  “Just hold on,” he said to Libby, without turning his head. “I’ve got something here for you.” He read: “Despatch received yesterday. Coming right through. George Maynard.”

  “Good!” cried Libby.

  “Dated Council Bluffs. Want it written out?”

  “No. What ‘s to pay?”

  “Paid,” said the operator.

  The laconically transacted business ended with this, the wire began to cluck again like the anxious hen whose manner the most awful and mysterious of the elements assumes in becoming articulate, and nothing remained for them but to come away.

  “That was what I was afraid of,” said Libby. “Maynard was at his ranch, and it must have been a good way out. They’re fifty or sixty miles out, sometimes. That would account for the delay. Well, Mrs. Maynard doesn’t know how long it takes to come from Cheyenne, and we can tell her he’s on the way, and has telegraphed.” They were walking rapidly down the street to the wharf where his boat lay. “Oh!” he exclaimed, halting abruptly. “I promised to send you back by land, if you preferred.”

  “Has the wind fallen?”

  “Oh, no. We shall have a good breeze:”

  “I won’t put you to the trouble of getting a horse. I can go back perfectly well in the boat.”

  “Well, that’s what I think,” he said cheerily.

  She did not respond, and he could not be aware that any change had come over her mood. But when they were once more seated in the boat, and the sail was pulling in the fresh breeze, she turned to him with a scarcely concealed indignation. “Have you a fancy for experimenting upon people, Mr. Libby?”

  “Experimenting? I? I don’t know in the least what you mean!”

  “Why did you tell me that the operator was a woman?”

  “Because the other operator is,” he answered.

  “Oh!” she said, and fell blankly silent.

  “There is a good deal of business there. They have to have two operators,” he explained, after a pause.

  “Why, of course,” she murmured in deep humiliation. If he had suffered her to be silent as long as she would, she might have offered him some reparation; but he spoke.

  “Why did you think I had been experimenting on you?” he asked.

  “Why?” she repeated. The sense of having put herself in the wrong exasperated her with him. “Oh, I dare say you were curious. Don’t you suppose I have noticed that men are puzzled at me? What did you mean by saying that you thought I would be equal to anything?”

  “I meant — I thought you would like to be treated frankly.”

  “And you would n’t treat everybody so?”

  “I wouldn’t treat Mrs. Maynard so.”

  “Oh!” she said. “You treat me upon a theory.”

  “Don’t you like that? We treat everybody upon a theory” —

  “Yes, I know”

  “And I should tell you the worst of anything at once, because I think you are one of the kind that don’t like to have their conclusions made for them.”

  “And you would really let women make their own conclusions,” she said. “You are very peculiar!” She waited a while, and then she asked, “And what is your theory of me?”

  “That you are very peculiar.”

  “How?”

  “You are proud.”

  “And is pride so very peculiar?”

  “Yes; in women.”

  “Indeed! You set up for a connoisseur of female character. That’s very common, nowadays. Why don’t you tell me something more about Yourself? We’re always talking about me.”

  He might well have been doubtful of her humor. He seemed to decide that she was jesting, for he answered lightly, “Why, you began it.”

  “I know I did, this time. But now I wish to stop it, too.”

  He looked down at the tiller in his hands. “Well,” he said, “I should like to tell you about myself. I should like to know what you think of the kind of man I am. Will you be honest if I will?”

  “That’s a very strange condition,” she answered, meeting and then avoiding the gaze he lifted to her face.

  “What? Being honest?”

  “Well, no — Or, yes!”

  “It is n’t for you.”

  “Thank you. But I’m not under discussion now.”

  “Well, in the first place,” he began, “I was afraid of you when we met.”

  “Afraid of me?”

  “That is n’t the word, perhaps. We’ll say ashamed of myself. Mrs. Maynard told me about you, and I thought you would despise me for not doing or being anything in particular. I thought you must.”

  “Indeed!”

  He hesitated, as if still uncertain of her mood from this intonation, and then he went on: “But I had some little hope you would tolerate me, after all. You looked like a friend I used to have. — Do you mind my telling you?”

  “Oh, no. Though I can’t say that it’s ever very comfortable to be told that you look like some one else.”

  “I don’t suppose any one else would have been struck by the resemblance,” said Libby, with a laugh of reminiscence. “He was huge. But he had eyes like a girl, — I beg your pardon, — like yours.”

  “You mean that I have eyes like a man.”

  He laughed, and said, “No,” and then turned grave. “As long as he lived” —

  “Oh, is he dead?” she asked more gently than she had yet spoken.

  “Yes, he died just before I went abroad. I went out on business for my father, — he’s an importer and jobber, — and bought goods for him. Do you despise business?”

  “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “I did it to please my father, and he said I was a very good buyer. He thinks there’s nothing like buying — except selling. He used to sell things himself, over the counter, and not so long ago, either.

  “I fancied it made a difference for me when I was in college, and that the yardstick came between me and society. I was an ass for thinking anything about it. Though I did n’t really care, much. I never liked society, and I did like boats and horses. I thought of a profession, once. But it would n’t work. I’ve been round the world twice, and I’ve done nothing but enjoy myself since I left college, — or try to. When I first saw you I was hesitating about letting my father make me of use. He wants me to become one of the most respectable members of society, he wants me to be a cotton-spinner. You know there ‘s nothing so irreproachable as cotton, for a business?”

  “No. I don’t know about those things.”

  “Well, there is n’t. When I was abroad, buying and selling, I made a little discovery: I found that there were goods we could make and sell in the European market cheaper than the English, and that gave my father the notion of buying a mill to make them. I’m boring you!”

  “No.”

  “Well, he bought it; and he wants me to take charge of it.”

  “And shall you?”

  “Do you think I’m fit for it?”

  “I? How should I know?”

  “You don’t know cotton; but you know me a little. Do I strike you as fit for anything?” She made no reply to this, and he laughed. “I assure you I felt small enough when I heard what you had done, and thought — what I had done. It gave me a start; and I wrote my father that night that I
would go in for it.”

  “I once thought of going to a factory town,” she answered, without wilful evasion, “to begin my practice there among the operatives’ children. I should have done it if it had not been for coming here with Mrs. Maynard. It would have been better.”

  “Come to my factory town, Miss Breen! There ought to be fevers there in the autumn, with all the low lands that I’m allowed to flood Mrs. Maynard told me about your plan.”

  “Pray, what else did Mrs. Maynard tell you about me?”

  “About your taking up a profession, in the way you did, when you needn’t, and when you did n’t particularly like it.”

  “Oh!” she said. Then she added, “And because I was n’t obliged to it, and did n’t like it, you tolerated me?”

  “Tolerated?” he echoed.

  This vexed her. “Yes, tolerate! Everybody, interested or not, has to make up his mind whether to tolerate me as soon as he hears what I am. What excuse did you make for me?”

  “I did n’t make any,” said Libby.

  “But you had your misgiving, your surprise.”

  “I thought if you could stand it, other people might. I thought it was your affair.”

  “Just as if I had been a young man?”

  “No! That wasn’t possible.”

  She was silent. Then, “The conversation has got back into the old quarter,” she said. “You are talking about me again. Have you heard from your friends since they went away?”

  “What friends?”

  “Those you were camping with.”

  “No.”

  “What did they say when they heard that you had found a young doctress at Jocelyn’s? How did you break the fact to them? What jokes did they make? You need n’t be afraid to tell me!” she cried. “Give me Mr. Johnson’s comments.”

  He looked at her in surprise that incensed her still more, and rendered her incapable of regarding the pain with which he answered her. “I ‘m afraid,” he said, “that I have done something to offend you.”

  “Oh no! What could you have done?”

  “Then you really mean to ask me whether I would let any one make a joke of you in my presence?”

  “Yes; why not?”

  “Because it was impossible,” he answered.

  “Why was it impossible?” she pursued.

  “Because — I love you.”

  She had been looking him defiantly in the eyes, and she could not withdraw her gaze. For the endless moment that ensued, her breath was taken away. Then she asked in a low, steady voice, “Did you mean to say that?”

  “No.”

  “I believe you, and I forgive you. No, no!” she cried, at a demonstration of protest from him, “don’t speak again!”

  He obeyed, instantly, implicitly. With the tiller in his hand he looked past her and guided the boat’s course. It became intolerable.

  “Have I ever done anything that gave you the right to — to — say that?” she asked, without the self-command which she might have wished to show.

  “No,” he said, “you were only the most beautiful” —

  “I am not beautiful! And if I were” —

  “It wasn’t to be helped! I saw from the first how good and noble you were, and” —

  “This is absurd!” she exclaimed. “I am neither good nor noble; and if I were” —

  “It wouldn’t make any difference. Whatever you are, you are the one woman in the world to me; and you always will be.”

  “Mr. Libby!”

  “Oh, I must speak now! You were always thinking, because you had studied a man’s profession, that no one would think of you as a woman, as if that could make any difference to a man that had the soul of a man in him!”

  “No, no!” she protested. “I did n’t think that. I always expected to be considered as a woman.”

  “But not as a woman to fall in love with. I understood. And that somehow made you all the dearer to me. If you had been a girl like other girls, I should n’t have cared for you.”

  “Oh!”

  “I did n’t mean to speak to you to-day. But sometime I did mean to speak; because, whatever I was, I loved you; and I thought you did n’t dislike me.”

  “I did like you,” she murmured, “very much. And I respected you. But you can’t say that I ever gave you any hope in this — this — way.” She almost asked him if she had.

  “No, — not purposely. And if you did, it ‘s over now. You have rejected me. I understand that. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t. And I can hold my tongue.” He did not turn, but looked steadily past her at the boat’s head.

  An emotion stirred in her breast which took the form of a reproach. “Was it fair, then, to say this when neither of us could escape afterwards?”

  “I did n’t mean to speak,” he said, without looking up, “and I never meant to place you where you could n’t escape.”

  It was true that she had proposed to go with him in the boat, and that she had chosen to come back with him, when he had offered to have her driven home from Leyden. “No, you are not to blame,” she said, at last. “I asked to some with you. Shall I tell you why?” Her voice began to break. In her pity for him and her shame for herself the tears started to her eyes. She did not press her question, but, “Thank you for reminding me that I invited myself to go with you,” she said, with feeble bitterness.

  He looked up at her in silent wonder, and she broke into a sob. He said gently, “I don’t suppose you expect me to deny that. You don’t think me such a poor dog as that.”

  “Why, of course not,” she answered, with quivering lips, while she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.

  “I was only too glad to have you come. I always meant to tell you — what I have told; but not when I should seem to trap you into listening.”

  “No,” she murmured, “I can believe that of you. I do believe it. I take back what I said. Don’t let us speak of it any more now,” she continued, struggling for her lost composure, with what success appeared in the fresh outburst with which she recognized his forbearance to hint at any painfulness to himself in the situation.

  “I don’t mind it so much on my account, but oh! how could you for your own sake? Do let us get home as fast as we can!”

  “I am doing everything I can to release you,” he said. “If you will sit here,” he added, indicating the place beside him in the stern, “you won’t have to change so much when I want to tack.”

  She took the other seat, and for the first time she noticed that the wind had grown very light. She watched him with a piteous impatience while he shifted the sail from side to side, keeping the sheet in his hand for convenience in the frequent changes. He scanned the sky, and turned every current of the ebbing tide to account. It was useless; the boat crept, and presently it scarcely moved.

  “The wind is down,” he said, making the sheet fast, and relaxing his hold on the tiller.

  “And — And the tide is going out!” she exclaimed.

  “The tide is going out,” he admitted.

  “If we should get caught on these flats,” she began, with rising indignation.

  “We should have to stay till the tide turned.”

  She looked wildly about for aid. If there were a row-boat anywhere within hail, she could be taken to Jocelyn’s in that. But they were quite alone on those lifeless waters.

  Libby got out a pair of heavy oars from the bottom of the boat, and, setting the rowlocks on either side, tugged silently at them.

  The futile effort suggested an idea to her which doubtless she would not have expressed if she had not been lacking, as she once said, in a sense of humor.

  “Why don’t you whistle for a wind?”

  He stared at her in sad astonishment to make sure that she was in earnest, and then, “Whistle!” he echoed forlornly, and broke into a joyless laugh.

  “You knew the chances of delay that I took in asking to come with you,” she cried, “and you should have warned me. It was ungenerous — it w
as ungentlemanly!”

  “It was whatever you like. I must be to blame. I suppose I was too glad to have you come. If I thought anything, I thought you must have some particular errand at Leyden. You seemed anxious to go, even if it stormed.”

  “If it had stormed,” she retorted, “I should not have cared! I hoped it would storm. Then at least I should have run the same danger, — I hoped it would be dangerous.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.

  “I forced that wretched creature to go with you that day when you said it was going to be rough; and I shall have her blood upon my hands if she dies.”

  “Is it possible,” cried Libby, pulling in his useless oars, and leaning forward upon them, “that she has gone on letting you think I believed there was going to be a storm? She knew perfectly well that I didn’t mind what Adams said; he was always croaking.” She sat looking at him in a daze, but she could not speak, and he continued. “I see: it happened by one chance in a million to turn out as he said; and she has been making you pay for it. Why, I suppose,” he added, with a melancholy smile of intelligence, “she’s had so much satisfaction in holding you responsible for what’s happened, that she’s almost glad of it!”

  “She has tortured me!” cried the girl. “But you — you, when you saw that I did n’t believe there was going to be any storm, why did you — why didn’t — you” —

  “I did n’t believe it either! It was Mrs. Maynard that proposed the sail, but when I saw that you did n’t like it I was glad of any excuse for putting it off. I could n’t help wanting to please you, and I couldn’t see why you urged us afterwards; but I supposed you had some reason.”

  She passed her hand over her forehead, as if to clear away the confusion in which all this involved her. “But why — why did you let me go on thinking myself to blame” —

  “How could I know what you were thinking? Heaven knows I didn’t dream of such a thing! Though I remember, now, your saying” —

  “Oh, I see!” she cried. “You are a man! But I can’t forgive it, — no, I can’t forgive it! You wished to deceive her if you did n’t wish to deceive me. How can you excuse yourself for repeating what you did n’t believe?”

  “I was willing she should think Adams was right.”