Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Miss Galbraith, absently: “At Schenectady?” After a pause, “Yes.”

  Porter: “Well, that’s de next station, and den de cahs don’t stop ag’in till dey git to Albany. Anything else I can do for you now, miss?”

  Miss Galbraith: “No, no, thank you, nothing.” The Porter hesitates, takes off his cap, and scratches his head with a murmur of embarrassment. Miss Galbraith looks up at him inquiringly and then suddenly takes out her porte-monnaie, and fees him.

  Porter: “Thank you, miss, thank you. If you want anything at all, miss, I’m right dere at de end of de cah.” He goes out by the narrow passage-way beside the smaller enclosed parlor. Miss Galbraith looks askance at the sleeping gentleman, and then, rising, goes to the large mirror, to pin her veil, which has become loosened from her hat. She gives a little start at sight of the gentleman in the mirror, but arranges her head-gear, and returning to her place looks out of the window again. After a little while she moves about uneasily in her chair, then leans forward, and tries to raise her window; she lifts it partly up, when the catch slips from her fingers, and the window falls shut again with a crash.

  Miss Galbraith: “Oh, dear, how provoking! I suppose I must call the porter.” She rises from her seat, but on attempting to move away she finds that the skirt of her polonaise has been caught in the falling window. She pulls at it, and then tries to lift the window again, but the cloth has wedged it in, and she cannot stir it. “Well, I certainly think this is beyond endurance! Porter! Ah, — Porter! Oh, he’ll never hear me in the racket that these wheels are making! I wish they’d stop, — I” — The gentleman stirs in his chair, lifts his head, listens, takes his feet down from the other seat, rises abruptly, and comes to Miss Galbraith’s side.

  Mr. Allen Richards: “Will you allow me to open the window for you?” Starting back, “Miss Galbraith!”

  Miss Galbraith: “Al — Mr. Richards!” There is a silence for some moments, in which they remain looking at each other; then, —

  Mr. Richards: “Lucy” —

  Miss Galbraith: “I forbid you to address me in that way, Mr. Richards.”

  Mr. Richards: “Why, you were just going to call me Allen!”

  Miss Galbraith: “That was an accident, you know very well, — an impulse” —

  Mr. Richards: “Well, so is this.”

  Miss Galbraith: “Of which you ought to be ashamed to take advantage. I wonder at your presumption in speaking to me at all. It’s quite idle, I can assure you. Everything is at an end between us. It seems that I bore with you too long; but I’m thankful that I had the spirit to not at last, and to act in time. And now that chance has thrown us together, I trust that you will not force your conversation upon me. No gentleman would, and I have always given you credit for thinking yourself a gentleman. I request that you will not speak to me.”

  Mr. Richards: “You’ve spoken ten words to me for every one of mine to you. But I won’t annoy you. I can’t believe it, Lucy; I can not believe it. It seems like some rascally dream, and if I had had any sleep since it happened, I should think I—”

  Miss Galbraith: “Oh! You were sleeping soundly enough when I got into the car!”

  Mr. Richards: “I own it; I was perfectly used up, and I had dropped off.”

  Miss Galbraith, scornfully: “Then perhaps you have dreamed it.”

  Mr. Richards: “I’ll think so till you tell me again that our engagement is broken; that the faithful love of years is to go for nothing; that you dismiss me with cruel insult, without one word of explanation, without a word of intelligible accusation, even. It’s too much! I’ve been thinking it all over and over, and I can’t make head or tail of it. I meant to see you again as soon as we got to town, and implore you to hear me. Come, it’s a mighty serious matter, Lucy. I’m not a man to put on heroics and that; but I believe it’ll play the very deuce with me, Lucy, — that is to say, Miss Galbraith, — I do indeed. It’ll give me a low opinion of woman.”

  Miss Galbraith, averting her face: “Oh, a very high opinion of woman you have had!”

  Mr. Richards, with sentiment: “Well, there was one woman whom I thought a perfect angel.”

  Miss Galbraith: “Indeed! May I ask her name?”

  Mr. Richards, with a forlorn smile. “I shall be obliged to describe her somewhat formally as — Miss Galbraith.”

  Miss Galbraith: “Mr. Richards!”

  Mr. Richards: “Why, you’ve just forbidden me to say Lucy! You must tell me, dearest, what I have done to offend you. The worst criminals are not condemned unheard, and I’ve always thought you were merciful if not just. And now I only ask you to be just.”

  Miss Galbraith, looking out of the window: “You know very well what you’ve done. You can’t expect me to humiliate myself by putting your offence into words.”

  Mr. Richards: “Upon my soul, I don’t know what you mean! I don’t know what I’ve done. When you came at me, last night, with my ring and presents and other little traps, you might have knocked me down with the lightest of the lot. I was perfectly dazed; I couldn’t say anything before you were off, and all I could do was to hope that you’d be more like yourself in the morning. And in the morning, when I came round to Mrs. Philips’s, I found you were gone, and I came after you by the next train.”

  Miss Galbraith: “Mr. Richards, your personal history for the last twenty-four hours is a matter of perfect indifference to me, as it shall be for the next twenty-four hundred years. I see that you are resolved to annoy me, and since you will not leave the car, I must do so.” She rises haughtily from her seat, but the imprisoned skirt of her polonaise twitches her abruptly back into her chair. She bursts into tears. “Oh, what shall I do?”

  Mr. Richards, dryly: “You shall do whatever you like, Miss Galbraith, when I’ve set you free; for I see your dress is caught in the window. When it’s once out, I’ll shut the window, and you can call the porter to raise it.” He leans forward over her chair, and while she shrinks back the length of her tether, he tugs at the window-fastening. “I can’t get at it. Would you be so good as to stand up, — all you can?” Miss Galbraith stands up, droopingly, and Mr. Richards makes a movement towards her, and then falls back. “No, that won’t do. Please sit down again.” He goes round her chair and tries to get at the window from that side. “I can’t get any purchase on it. Why don’t you cut out that piece?” Miss Galbraith stares at him in dumb amazement. “Well, I don’t see what we’re to do: I’ll go and get the porter.” He goes to the end of the car, and returns. “I can’t find the porter, — he must be in one of the other cars. But” — brightening with the fortunate conception— “I’ve just thought of something. Will it unbutton?”

  Miss Galbraith: “Unbutton?”

  Mr. Richards: “Yes; this garment of yours.”

  Miss Galbraith: “My polonaise?” Inquiringly, “Yes.”

  Mr. Richards: “Well, then, it’s a very simple matter. If you will just take it off I can easily” —

  Miss Galbraith, faintly: “I can’t. A polonaise isn’t like an overcoat” —

  Mr. Richards, with dismay: “Oh! Well, then” — He remains thinking a moment in hopeless perplexity.

  Miss Galbraith, with polite ceremony: “The porter will be back soon. Don’t trouble yourself any further about it, please. I shall do very well.”

  Mr. Richards, without heeding her: “If you could kneel on that foot-cushion, and face the window” —

  Miss Galbraith, kneeling promptly: “So?”

  Mr. Richards: “Yes, and now” — kneeling beside her— “if you’ll allow me to — to get at the window-catch,” — he stretches both arms forward; she shrinks from his right into his left, and then back again,— “and pull while I raise the window” —

  Miss Galbraith: “Yes, yes; but do hurry, please. If any one saw us, I don’t know what they would think. It’s perfectly ridiculous!” — pulling. “It’s caught in the corner of the window, between the frame and the sash, and it won’t come! Is my hair troubl
ing you? Is it in your eyes?”

  Mr. Richards: “It’s in my eyes, but it isn’t troubling me. Am I inconveniencing you?”

  Miss Galbraith: “Oh, not at all.”

  Mr. Richards: “Well, now then, pull hard!” He lifts the window with a great effort; the polonaise comes free with a start, and she strikes violently against him. In supporting the shock he cannot forbear catching her for an instant to his heart. She frees herself, and starts indignantly to her feet.

  Miss Galbraith: “Oh, what a cowardly — subterfuge!”

  Mr. Richards: “Cowardly? You’ve no idea how much courage it took.” Miss Galbraith puts her handkerchief to her face, and sobs. “Oh, don’t cry! Bless my heart, — I’m sorry I did it! But you know how dearly I love you, Lucy, though I do think you’ve been cruelly unjust. I told you I never should love any one else, and I never shall. I couldn’t help it; upon my soul, I couldn’t. Nobody could. Don’t let it vex you, my” — He approaches her.

  Miss Galbraith: “Please not touch me, sir! You have no longer any right whatever to do so.”

  Mr. Richards: “You misinterpret a very inoffensive gesture. I have no idea of touching you, but I hope I may be allowed, as a special favor, to — pick up my hat, which you are in the act of stepping on.” Miss Galbraith hastily turns, and strikes the hat with her whirling skirts; it rolls to the other side of the parlor, and Mr. Richards, who goes after it, utters an ironical “Thanks!” He brushes it, and puts it on, looking at her where she has again seated herself at the window with her back to him, and continues, “As for any further molestation from me” —

  Miss Galbraith: “If you will talk to me” —

  Mr. Richards: “Excuse me, I am not talking to you.”

  Miss Galbraith: “What were you doing?”

  Mr. Richards: “I was beginning to think aloud. I — I was soliloquizing. I suppose I may be allowed to soliloquize?”

  Miss Galbraith, very coldly: “You can do what you like.”

  Mr. Richards: “Unfortunately that’s just what I can’t do. If I could do as I liked, I should ask you a single question.”

  Miss Galbraith, after a moment: “Well, sir, you may ask your question.” She remains as before, with her chin in her hand, looking tearfully out of the window; her face is turned from Mr. Richards, who hesitates a moment before he speaks.

  Mr. Richards: “I wish to ask you just this, Miss Galbraith: if you couldn’t ride backwards in the other car, why do you ride backwards in this?”

  Miss Galbraith, burying her face in her handkerchief, and sobbing: “Oh, oh, oh! This is too bad!”

  Mr. Richards: “Oh, come now, Lucy. It breaks my heart to hear you going on so, and all for nothing. Be a little merciful to both of us, and listen to me. I’ve no doubt I can explain everything if I once understand it, but it’s pretty hard explaining a thing if you don’t understand it yourself. Do turn round. I know it makes you sick to ride in that way, and if you don’t want to face me — there!” — wheeling in his chair so as to turn his back upon her— “you needn’t. Though it’s rather trying to a fellow’s politeness, not to mention his other feelings. Now, what in the name” —

  Porter, who at this moment enters with his step-ladder, and begins to light the lamps: “Going pretty slow ag’in, sah.”

  Mr. Richards: “Yes; what’s the trouble?”

  Porter: “Well, I don’t know exactly, sah. Something de matter with de locomotive. We sha’n’t be into Albany much ‘fore eight o’clock.”

  Mr. Richards: “What’s the next station?”

  Porter: “Schenectady.”

  Mr. Richards: “Is the whole train as empty as this car?”

  Porter, laughing: “Well, no, sah. Fact is, dis cah don’t belong on dis train. It’s a Pullman that we hitched on when you got in, and we’s taking it along for one of de Eastern roads. We let you in ‘cause de Drawing-rooms was all full. Same with de lady,” — looking sympathetically at her, as he takes his steps to go out. “Can I do anything for you now, miss?”

  Miss Galbraith, plaintively: “No, thank you; nothing whatever.” She has turned while Mr. Richards and The Porter have been speaking, and now faces the back of the former, but her veil is drawn closely. The Porter goes out.

  Mr. Richards, wheeling round so as to confront her: “I wish you would speak to me half as kindly as you do to that darky, Lucy.”

  Miss Galbraith: “He is a gentleman!”

  Mr. Richards: “He is an urbane and well-informed nobleman. At any rate, he’s a man and a brother. But so am I.” Miss Galbraith does not reply, and after a pause Mr. Richards resumes. “Talking of gentlemen, I recollect, once, coming up on the day-boat to Poughkeepsie, there was a poor devil of a tipsy man kept following a young fellow about, and annoying him to death — trying to fight him, as a tipsy man will, and insisting that the young fellow had insulted him. By and by he lost his balance and went overboard, and the other jumped after him and fished him out.” Sensation on the part of Miss Galbraith, who stirs uneasily in her chair, looks out of the window, then looks at Mr. Richards, and drops her head. “There was a young lady on board, who had seen the whole thing — a very charming young lady indeed, with pale blond hair growing very thick over her forehead, and dark eyelashes to the sweetest blue eyes in the world. Well, this young lady’s papa was amongst those who came up to say civil things to the young fellow when he got aboard again, and to ask the honor — he said the honor — of his acquaintance. And when he came out of his stateroom in dry clothes, this infatuated old gentleman was waiting for him, and took him and introduced him to his wife and daughter; and the daughter said, with tears in her eyes, and a perfectly intoxicating impulsiveness, that it was the grandest and the most heroic and the noblest thing that she had ever seen, and she should always be a better girl for having seen it. Excuse me, Miss Galbraith, for troubling you with these facts of a personal history, which, as you say, is a matter of perfect indifference to you. The young fellow didn’t think at the time he had done anything extraordinary; but I don’t suppose he did expect to live to have the same girl tell him he was no gentleman.”

  Miss Galbraith, wildly: “O Allen, Allen! You know I think you are a gentleman, and I always did!”

  Mr. Richards, languidly: “Oh, I merely had your word for it, just now, that you didn’t.” Tenderly, “Will you hear me, Lucy?”

  Miss Galbraith, faintly: “Yes.”

  Mr. Richards: “Well, what is it I’ve done? Will you tell me if I guess right?”

  Miss Galbraith, with dignity: “I am in no humor for jesting, Allen. And I can assure you that though I consent to hear what you have to say, or ask, nothing will change my determination. All is over between us.”

  Mr. Richards: “Yes, I understand that, perfectly. I am now asking merely for general information. I do not expect you to relent, and, in fact, I should consider it rather frivolous if you did. No. What I have always admired in your character, Lucy, is a firm, logical consistency; a clearness of mental vision that leaves no side of a subject unsearched; and an unwavering constancy of purpose. You may say that these traits are characteristic of all women; but they are pre-eminently characteristic of you, Lucy.” Miss Galbraith looks askance at him, to make out whether he is in earnest or not; he continues, with a perfectly serious air. “And I know now that if you’re offended with me, it’s for no trivial cause.” She stirs uncomfortably in her chair. “What I have done I can’t imagine, but it must be something monstrous, since it has made life with me appear so impossible that you are ready to fling away your own happiness — for I know you did love me, Lucy — and destroy mine. I will begin with the worst thing I can think of. Was it because I danced so much with Fanny Watervliet?”

  Miss Galbraith, indignantly: “How can you insult me by supposing that I could be jealous of such a perfect little goose as that? No, Allen! Whatever I think of you, I still respect you too much for that.”

  Mr. Richards: “I’m glad to hear that there are yet depths to which y
ou think me incapable of descending, and that Miss Watervliet is one of them. I will now take a little higher ground. Perhaps you think I flirted with Mrs. Dawes. I thought, myself, that the thing might begin to have that appearance, but I give you my word of honor that as soon as the idea occurred to me, I dropped her — rather rudely, too. The trouble was, don’t you know, that I felt so perfectly safe with a married friend of yours. I couldn’t be hanging about you all the time, and I was afraid I might vex you if I went with the other girls; and I didn’t know what to do.”

  Miss Galbraith: “I think you behaved rather silly, giggling so much with her. But” —

  Mr. Richards: “I own it, I know it was silly. But” —

  Miss Galbraith: “It wasn’t that; it wasn’t that!”

  Mr. Richards: “Was it my forgetting to bring you those things from your mother?”

  Miss Galbraith: “No!”

  Mr. Richards: “Was it because I hadn’t given up smoking yet?”

  Miss Galbraith: “You know I never asked you to give up smoking. It was entirely your own proposition.”

  Mr. Richards: “That’s true. That’s what made me so easy about it. I knew I could leave it off any time. Well, I will not disturb you any longer, Miss Galbraith.” He throws his overcoat across his arm, and takes up his travelling-bag. “I have failed to guess your fatal — conundrum; and I have no longer any excuse for remaining. I am going into the smoking-car. Shall I send the porter to you for anything?”

  Miss Galbraith: “No, thanks.” She puts up her handkerchief to her face.

  Mr. Richards: “Lucy, do you send me away?”

  Miss Galbraith, behind her handkerchief: “You were going, yourself.”