_She._ What particular thing had she been playing to rouse you to that point of enthusiasm?
_He._ If my memory serves me, it was the Chopin Nocturne in G minor. She did play extremely well, and as we happened to be in the conservatory afterward, I improved the opportunity to propose.
_She._ Oh, very naturally!
_He._ It is a form of words that comes very readily to my lips, as you know. Annie confessed to that very superfluous and old-fashioned sentiment called love, which wasn"t in good form, I"ll admit; but in consideration for the object of her attachment, and the fact that on that particular evening I was in love myself, I managed to overlook it.
_She._ Very good of you, I"m sure. I hope Annie appreciated your generosity.
_He._ Very likely she didn"t. Your s.e.x very seldom do appreciate masculine virtues; but Annie has a far more old-fashioned and worse vice than love. Why, the girl, in the midst of these enlightened nineteenth-century days, actually goes to the nonsensical bother of keeping a conscience! It must be more trouble to attend to, Agnes, than her aunt Wheeler"s seven pet poodles and three red-headed parrots.
_She._ I suppose you are right. You don"t speak from experience, though, do you?
_He._ Oh, no; I never had a conscience: as a boy, I preferred white mice; now I have my horses, you know.
_She._ And your innumerable loves.
_He._ If such trifles are to be taken into account.
_She._ Go on about Annie.
_He._ Well, on my confessing how far I had carried my flirtation with you-- I can"t, for the life of me, tell how I happened to speak of it; I am usually more discreet.
_She._ I should hope so.
_He._ Oh, I am, I a.s.sure you; but the loves are so numerous, while I am but one, that they sometimes get the better of my discretion. What is one among so many?
_She._ Oh, in this case, absolutely nothing.
_He._ Thank you again.
_She._ But to continue--
_He._ Well, to continue, Annie actually seemed to think that you had some sort of claim upon me. Fancy!
_She._ She needn"t have troubled.
_He._ Oh, of course not. Why, I have offered myself to dozens of girls, with no more idea of marrying them than I have of becoming a howling dervish; and more than that, I have habitually been accepted. That is one thing about you that attracted me, do you know? There is a beautiful novelty about being rejected.
_She._ So that is the secret of my amusing you, is it? You ought to have explained this to Annie.
_He._ Oh, she wouldn"t have understood. Like every other girl, "twas the personal application that she was touched by. You see she didn"t know the other girls, and she did know you; and she seems to think your no more binding than any other person"s yes. Perhaps she knows that a woman"s negative--
_She._ Really, Arthur, that"s so hackneyed that if you haven"t the gallantry not to say it you ought to be ashamed to repeat anything so stale.
_He._ Perhaps you are right; I have known you to be on very rare occasions. However, Annie insisted that I should come, and, as she said, "a.s.sure myself of your sentiments and of my own." Did you ever hear anything more absurd? As if I didn"t know, all the time, that you were dying for me; and as if I--despite my mad and overpowering pa.s.sion for your lovely self, Miss Peltonville--couldn"t tell as well in New York as in Cuba whether I wanted to marry her or not.
_She._ If you were no better informed of your own sentiments than of mine, I don"t wonder she doubted your conclusions.
_He._ Oh, she didn"t in the least.
_She._ At least, Annie may set her mind quite at rest, so far as I am concerned.
_He._ Thank you so much. It is such a relief to have things settled.
_She._ What would you have done if I had accepted you?
_He._ Oh, I was confident of my ability of putting the question so that you wouldn"t.
_She._ I have almost a mind to do it, even now.
_He._ Really?
_She._ Oh, don"t be alarmed. There is one insuperable obstacle.
_He._ What is that?
_She._ Yourself.
_He._ Then I am quite safe. That is a permanent one.
_She._ Well, I wish Annie joy of her bargain. She is worthy of a better fate; and since we are talking frankly, I must say that what she can see in you I can"t imagine.
_He._ These things are so strange; there is no accounting for them. Why, I have been perfectly puzzled--do you know?--ever since I came last night, to tell what I found in you last winter.
_She._ Since we seem to be striving to outdo each other in abuse, it is quite in keeping for me to add, that I have no occasion to bother my head on such a question, for I never pretended to have found anything in you.
_He._ But then, as I said, you amused me; and one may sometimes be so far amused that--
_She._ His amus.e.m.e.nt may even amount to astonishment, perhaps; and, by the way, that gentleman on the gray horse, just coming between the China laurels with papa, expects to marry me.
_He._ Fred Armstrong, by all that is unspeakable! Agnes Peltonville, I humble myself in the dust before you; and no humiliation could be greater than going down into Cuban dust. You are an angel; you have removed my last fear.
_She._ Yes; and how?
_He._ I was always jealous of Fred Armstrong; he was forever dangling about Annie. Do I understand that you are engaged?
_She._ Oh, I didn"t say that I expected to marry him; but since Annie confesses such a strong attachment to you--
_He._ Oh, I didn"t say I was the object of the attachment.
[_They sit confronting each other in silence a moment, until the riders, having dismounted, are seen approaching the piazza. Then Chester leans forward impulsively, and speaks with a new intensity._]
_He._ Agnes!
_She._ Arthur!
_He._ Quick! Before they come! You won"t send me away?