"I don"t understand."
"Pah!" Mr. Marrapit exclaimed. "You said "I am." Were you not about to say "I am standing on the polished boards"?"
"No."
"I believed that was in your mind. Let it now enter your mind. You are on the polished boards. You have high heels. I quake in terror lest they have left scratch or blemish. Adjust your position."
Mary stepped to the carpet. She was dumb before this man.
Mr. Marrapit bent above the polished flooring where she had stood.
"There is no scratch," he announced, "neither is there any blemish."
He resumed his post against the fireplace and again regarded her: "You are young."
"I am older really."
"Elucidate that."
"I mean--I am not inexperienced."
"Why say one thing and mean another? Beware the habit. It is perilous."
"Indeed it is not my habit."
"It is your recreation, then. Do not indulge it. Continue."
"I am young, but I have had experience. I think if you were to engage me I would give you satisfaction."
"Adduce grounds."
"I would try in every way to do as you required. I understand I am to look after cats."
"Where?"
"Here."
"Abandon that impression. I have not said so."
"No, I mean if you engage me."
"Again you say one thing and mean another. I am suspicious. It is a habit."
"Oh, _indeed_ it is not."
"Then if a recreation, a recreation to which you are devoted. You romp in it. Twice within a minute you have gambolled."
My Mary blinked tears. Since rising that morning, her nerves had been upon the stretch against this interview. She had schooled herself against all possibilities so as to win into the house of her dear George, yet at every moment she seemed to fall further from success.
"You ca-catch me up so," she trembled.
Mr. Marrapit expanded upwards. "Catch you up! A horrible accusation.
The table is between us."
"You mis-misunderstand me." She silenced a little sniff with a dab of her handkerchief. She looked very pretty. Mr. Marrapit placed beside her the mental image of Mrs. Major; and at every point she had the prize. He liked the soft gold hair; he liked the forlorn little face it enframed; he liked the slim little form. His cats, he suspected, would appreciate those nice little hands; he judged her to have nice firm legs against which his cats could rub. Mrs. Major"s, he apprehended, would have been bony; not legs, but shanks.
Mary made another dab at her now red little nose. The silence increased her silly fright. "You mis-misunderstand me," she repeated.
With less asperity Mr. Marrapit told her: "I cannot accept the blame.
You wrap your meanings. I plunge and grope after them. Eluding me, I am compelled to believe them wilfully thrown. Strive to let your yea be yea and your nay nay. With circ.u.mspection proceed."
Mary gathered her emotion with a final little sniff. "I like ca-cats."
"I implore you not to accuse me of misunderstanding you. A question is essential. You do not always p.r.o.nounce "cats" in two syllables?"
"Oh, no."
"Satisfactory. You said "ca-cats." Doubtless under stress of emotion.
Proceed."
Mary sniffed; proceeded. "I like ca-cats--cats. If you were to engage me I am sure your cats would take to me."
"I admit the possibility. I like your appearance. I like your voice.
Had you knowledge of the acute supersensitiveness of my cats you would understand that they will appreciate those points. I do not require in you veterinary knowledge; I require sympathetic traits. I do not engage you to nurse my cats--though, should mischance befall, that would come within your duties,--but to be their companion, their friend. You are a lady; themselves ancestral they will appreciate that. I understand you are an orphan; there also a bond links you with them. All cats are orphans. It is the sole unfortunate trait of their characters that they are p.r.o.ne to forget their offspring. In so far as it is possible to correct this failing amongst my own cats, I have done my best. Amongst them the sanct.i.ty of the marriage tie is strictly observed. The word stud is peculiarly abhorrent to me.
Polygamy is odious. There is a final point. Pray seat yourself."
Mary took a chair. Mr. Marrapit, standing before her, gazed down upon her. From her left he gazed, then from her right. He returned to the fireplace.
"It is satisfactory," he said. "You have a nice lap. That is of first importance. The question of wages has been settled. Arrive to-morrow.
You are engaged."
BOOK V.
Of Mr. Marrapit upon the Rack: of George in Torment.
CHAPTER I.
Prosiness Upon Events: So Uneventful That It Should Be Skipped.
If we write that Mary"s first month at Herons" Holt was uneventful, we use the term as a figure of speech that must be taken in its accepted sense; not read literally. For it is impossible that life, in whatever conditions, can be eventless. The dullest life is often with events the most crowded. In dulness we are thrown back upon our inner selves, and that inner self is of a construction so sensitive that each lightest thought is an event that leaves an impression.
In action, in gaiety, in intercourse we put out an unnatural self to brunt the beat of events. We are upon our guard. There are eyes watching us, and from their gaze we by instinct fend our inner self just as by instinct we fend our nakedness.