"I"m all right this morning," I said, hastily. "But you look pale, yourself. Aren"t you rather overdoing things, Leetchy?"
"No: I"m as sound as a trivet!" said she. And then: "Sophy, guess who was here last evening." Her eyes began to shine. "Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro; no less!" And she paused, to let that highly important statement sink in.
Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was the Leader of the Opposition. She"d had a lifelong feud with old Sophronisba, who said that when the Lord wanted to try himself out in the way of a fool, He made Cissy Scarboro. They hated each other as only relations can hate.
Naturally, Mrs. Scarboro resented our presence in Hynds House. She said Hyndsville ought to show us what it thought of the outrage.
Under her leadership, Hyndsville showed us.
Mrs. Scarboro was a very important person in Hyndsville. She ruled the older and more conservative portion of it, and although the younger set at times rebelled and went its own way, her power was very real. That she had changed her mind, or at least her tactics, in regard to us was important news.
"She came with Mr. and Mrs. Haile," Alicia continued. "It was the first time she had ever been inside Hynds House. Think of that, Sophy! There were some girls here, and a few boys, naturally, Jimmy Scarboro among them. Should you think that accounted for his mama"s presence, Sophy? And we sat around like adoring mice, listening to The Author"s sky-rockets going off. Doctor Geddes wouldn"t let us sing, wouldn"t even let us have music, because you mustn"t be disturbed. He thinks a whole lot of you, Sophy."
"I think a whole lot of him. I never thought I could like that man as much as I do."
I was determined to show Miss Alicia Gaines that no matter how much, or for whatever reasons she had changed for the worse toward him, I, at least, had changed for the better. But she listened listlessly.
For which cause, being resentful, I said not one word to her about The Author.
The thought of The Author confused me. I wasn"t so much flattered as astounded. He was not offering me a light honor: The Author"s name meant a great deal. Who, then, was I, a woman named Smith, to say nay to this miraculous possibility? Was it not rather for me to accept, meekly, the high gift that the G.o.ds in a sportive moment chose to toss to me? Yea, verily. And yet-- My hand stole to the half of a thin old foreign coin hidden in my breast.
The Author behaved with exemplary patience and dignity. He went about his own work and left me to mine, and though I knew I was under his hawklike watchfulness, his matter-of-fact manner set me at my ease. You can"t dread to meet a man, of a morning, who pays more attention to his batter-cakes than to you.
I was just beginning to breathe freely, when Doctor Richard Geddes came over one afternoon, and, finding me in our living-room with only the Black family to keep me company, flung himself into an arm-chair, seized Sir Thomas More Black by the scruff, and pulled his whiskers and rubbed his fur the wrong way until Sir Thomas More scratched him with thoroughness.
"Get out, then, you black h.e.l.lion!" growled the doctor. Sir Thomas More got out. He hadn"t wanted to stay in the first place.
"Shall I bind your hand for you?" I asked. But the doctor refused.
He tapped his foot on the floor, and hemmed, and looked at me strangely. Then:
"Sophronisba Two, you consider me a reasonably decent sort, don"t you?"
"That goes without saying."
"Think I"d make a woman a reasonably good husband?"
"I do," said I, truthfully. Whatever ailed the man?
"Good! And I," the doctor said, deliberately, "know that you"d make any man more than a reasonably good wife. Should you like to be mine, Sophronisba Two?"
The jump I gave threw Potty Black off my knees.
"You"re ill, wandering in your wits, you poor man!" I was genuinely alarmed. "Isn"t there something I can do for you, doctor?"
"There is: you can marry me, if you want to," replied the doctor, soberly. "Honestly, my dear girl, I"d be kind to you. I like and admire and respect you more than I can tell you, Sophy."
"My dear friend," I said, when I caught my breath, "I like, admire, and respect you, too. But people who marry each other need something more than that. They--well, they need--love."
His shoulders twitched.
"This business of love is the devil"s own invention!" he cried.
"It"s safer and saner to like and respect people than to love them, and lots harder. Now, what do you say to marrying me?"
"I say you had no such notion in your head the last time you and I talked together. When did it seize you?" I demanded, suspiciously.
"I began to think about it seriously--er--ah--some days ago," he said, reddening.
"What day, to be exact?"
"Well," said he, resentfully, "it occurred to me last Wednesday, if you want to be so all-fired sure!"
"What happened last Wednesday to make you think of asking me to marry you?"
The doctor looked at me very much as a little boy looks at a grown-up who is holding a soapy wash-cloth in one hand and an ear in the other.
"What do you want to know for?"
"Because. I just want to know because. Well?" He squirmed, and was silent. "Was it because you have ceased to care for Alicia, already?" His glare answered that question. "No? Why, then, didn"t you ask Alicia, instead of coming to me for second choice? Look here, Doctor Richard Geddes: if I was not firmly and truly your friend, I should be furious, do you understand? Or," I added, darkly, "I might even revenge myself by taking you at your word!"
"Sophronisba Two!" The doctor looked at, me piteously.
"Why didn"t you ask Alicia?" I persisted, inexorably.
"I did!" gulped the doctor. "But she said she couldn"t. She said, why didn"t I care for you instead of her? You were so much better--and--and I"d be happier with you, for I"d have the most unselfish angel--" he stopped miserably.
"Well?"
"Well, I kept turning it over in my mind; and the more I thought of it, the clearer I perceived that with a wife like you I"d be a better and a more worth-while man. I--I think so much of you, Sophy, that I"m telling you the whole truth," he finished.
"That"s why I"m going to keep on being friends with you--better friends than ever," I told him.
"You"re going to marry me, then, Sophy?"
"Didn"t you just hear me tell you I meant to keep on being friends with you?"
"You won"t, then?"
"I won"t, then."
"Yet there are good reasons why you might reconsider your decision,"
he said, after a pause. "We are so diametrically opposed it would seem inevitable we should marry each other. Why, Sophy, we"ve got enough to quarrel happily about for the rest of our lives. For instance, do you sleep with all your windows open?"
"I close two, and leave two open."
"Every window open, day and night, hot or cold, rain or shine," said the doctor, firmly. "Do you use pillows?"
"Two."
"None at all. Sleep with your head flat. How many blankets?"
"Two, and a comfort."