A Woman Named Smith Page 13

  CHAPTER XII

  MAN PROPOSES

  The Author closed the door and leaned against it. His piercingglance jumped from Nicholas Jelnik's face to mine, with a prolongedand savage scrutiny. No detail of my appearance escaped him--myreddened eyelids, my pallor, my nervousness, my dishevelment. Hiseyes narrowed, his jaw hardened.

  "What are you doing here?" he demanded, roughly. "Come! At least onemay hope for the truth from _you_!"

  Mr. Jelnik gave him a level look. There was that in it which broughtan angry red to The Author's thin face.

  "Let me answer for her: just at present Miss Smith is getting readyto go home."

  The Author struggled to keep his rising temper in hand.

  "I asked you a plain question, Miss Smith!" His peremptory tonejangled my strained nerves.

  "Mr. Jelnik has answered you: I am getting ready to go home."

  The Author stamped.

  "Don't talk nonsense! Again I ask you, what are you doing here? Haveyou lost your senses? Why have you been weeping? It is plain thatyou have been weeping. Miss Smith, why do I find you here--alone?"

  "I do not like your manner of questioning me," I said, indignantly.

  "My dear fellow," protested Mr. Jelnik, "you _are_ behavingunmannerly, you know. The simple truth is, I was so fortunateas to be of assistance to Miss Smith. She had an unpleasantexperience--fell and gave her head such a nasty bump, that it madeher faint. I'm afraid I splashed her a bit when I was trying torevive her. I thought best to bring her here and give her astimulant. She didn't want to stagger home and alarm the wholehousehold unnecessarily."

  "Is this true?" The Author asked me, rudely.

  "You heard what Mr. Jelnik said!" I flamed.

  "One allows somewhat more license to genius than might be accordedordinary mortals; but really, you know, there are limits," Mr.Jelnik reminded him. "You're beginning to be rather a nuisance. It'sunfortunate to have to remind a man, in one's own house, that he's anuisance."

  "I think you are, too!" I told The Author--"bursting into people'shouses like an East-Side policeman, asking outrageous questions inan outrageous manner, and then questioning the answers one ispatient enough to give you! What right have you got to ask _any_questions?"

  "I'd rather like to know that, myself," put in Mr. Jelnik.

  The Author straightened his shoulders, drew himself up to his fullheight, and folded his arms. He is an impressively tall man.

  "Should you?" said he, quietly. "Well, I'll tell you--the right ofan honest man to protect the woman he happens to want to marry."

  I sat down, suddenly. I'm afraid my eyes popped, and I know my mouthfell open. I had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing Mr. NicholasJelnik's eyes and mouth open, too. After an astounded moment:

  "Isn't this rather sudden?" wondered Mr. Jelnik. "Who'd suspect thisfellow of volcanic possibilities?"

  "I do Miss Smith no dishonor when I ask her to be my wife," said TheAuthor, haughtily. "_I_ am no adventurer. She can never suspect _me_of ulterior motives!"

  "Heavens, no! Like Caesar's wife, you are above suspicion; which, ofcourse, gives you the right to suspect everybody else! But you wereabout to propose to Miss Smith in due form, were you not? MissSmith, you will permit me to withdraw? I have never before been athird party to a proposal of marriage, and I confess I do notexactly understand what is expected of me," said Mr. Jelnik,delicately.

  The Author smiled wryly.

  "You succeed in making me appear a fool," he admitted. "That is nomean achievement, young man! I merely wished to set myself straightwith Miss Smith, to leave her no room for doubt as to my absolutehonesty of purpose toward her; and you," said The Author, gulping,"you have made me _bray_! I wish you'd clear out. You _are_ in theway, if you want the truth. And," he added, clenching his hands,"you can think yourself lucky that you're getting out with a wholeskin, da--confound you!"

  Mr. Jelnik smiled so sweetly that I was terrified.

  "Oh, a whole skin!" he repeated, thoughtfully. "My good sir, I wasborn with a whole skin, and I rather expect to die with one." Helooked at The Author reflectively: "Of course, I don't know whatMiss Smith's feelings may be in regard to you, _but_ if I thoughtyou were seriously annoying her, I give you my word I should pitchyou out of the window without further ado. Miss Smith," he turned tome, his eyes gentling with compassion, "I am more sorry than I cansay that you should be called upon to endure this further strain.You will, I trust, forgive my unwilling share in it. Now, shall Ileave you?"

  "No, stay," said I, flatly.

  Mr. Jelnik sat down, and with unruffled composure, waited for TheAuthor to unbosom himself further.

  "Miss Smith," The Author spoke after a pause,--and oh, I give himcredit for his courage at that trying moment!--"Miss Smith, I haveplaced myself, and you also, in what appears to be rather an absurdposition. I am sorry. But I meant exactly what I said. I base myright to question you upon the fact that I intended asking you tomarry me. You need a protector, if ever woman did. I offer you theprotection of my name."

  I sat on the divan and stared at him owlishly. He went striding upand down the room, pausing every now and then to look down at me.

  "When I came to Hyndsville," he went on, "nothing was farther frommy thoughts than the desire to marry _anybody_. I have neverconsidered myself a marrying man. But I find myself liking you, MissSmith, better than I have ever liked any other woman, and for betterreasons. You would make me an excellent wife, the only sort of wifea man like me could endure. And I think I should make you a goodhusband. I am not really so great a bear," he added, hastily, "asat times I appear to be. I should really try to make you happy. Nowthen, what have you to say?"

  What could any woman say in such circuit stances? _I_ said nothing,but slid down on Nicholas Jelnik's divan and howled.

  "Didn't I tell you she'd had a bad time and wasn't herself? Now Ihope you're satisfied!" raged Mr. Jelnik.

  "It's as much your fault as mine!" snarled The Author. "Miss Smith,for heaven's sake don't cry like that! My dear girl, stop it. Yourun me distracted, Miss Smith!--Give her some vinegar or something,Jelnik! Confound you, Jelnik!--why don't you do something? Burn afeather under her nose! Make her stop it, Jelnik! She'll killherself, if she keeps on crying like that! Here!" cried The Author,desperately; and tried to push back my hair and all but scalped me.

  "Get away!" said Mr. Jelnik. "I'll try to quiet her. Miss Smith, ifyou don't stop crying, I shall slap you! Do you understand me, MissSmith? Stop it this minute, or I shall slap you!" He thrust an armaround my shoulders and pulled me erect, none too gently.

  "I--I--I ca-ca-ca--n't!"

  "You can!" he snapped. "Stop it! Sophy, _shut up!_"

  I was so astonished that in the middle of a howl I blinked, andgasped, and gulped, and stopped!

  "Ring the bell, by the door," Mr. Jelnik told The Author, curtly.And when Daoud appeared, he ordered: "Cordial--top shelf; and someice-water."

  Five minutes later a forlorn and red-eyed wreck was sitting uplooking at two wretched, embarrassed men. Thank Heaven, they lookedjust as miserable as they should have felt! Daoud brought me scentedwater, and I bathed my face. Then I patted into shape the hair thatThe Author had pulled awry, and said in the cold, accusing,I-die-a-martyr-to-your-stupidity voice that women punish men with:

  "I think I shall go home."

  With a chastened, hang-dog air The Author rose to accompany me,casting a withering look upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, who despised TheAuthor for a bungling and intrusive idiot, and let his glance conveythe fact. He was sorry for me, with a compassionate understanding ofwhat I had been through. But I wanted neither his sorrow nor hiscompassion. He had punished The Author, but he hadn't saved _me_from a ridiculous and painful situation. I gave him a limp hand, andhad the satisfaction of leaving him thoroughly uncomfortable.

  When we reached our gate The Author, who had trudged beside me ingloomy silence, laid his hand upon my arm.

  "I shall not ask you to answer me at once. But I do ask you to
consider carefully what I have said, and to realize that I meanevery word of it. And--and--I'm sorry it came about in this wise,Sophy," he finished, with a touch of compunction.

  "So am I." And then I went up-stairs, and crept into bed. My headached frightfully, my heart throbbed and fluttered. I was sounnerved that it seemed a burden to be alive. And then, mercifully,I fell asleep, and didn't wake until Alicia brought me abreakfast-tray the next morning.

  "My goodness, Sophy, you must have had a terrific headache!" sheexclaimed. "Why, your lips are bloodless, and you've black circlesunder your eyes!"

  "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, guesswho was here last evening." Her eyes began to shine. "Mrs. CheshireScarboro; no less!" And she paused, to let that highly importantstatement sink in.

  Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was the Leader of the Opposition. She'd hada lifelong feud with old Sophronisba, who said that when the Lordwanted to try himself out in the way of a fool, He made CissyScarboro. They hated each other as only relations can hate.Naturally, Mrs. Scarboro resented our presence in Hynds House. Shesaid 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 ruledthe older and more conservative portion of it, and although theyounger set at times rebelled and went its own way, her power wasvery 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 thefirst time she had ever been inside Hynds House. Think of that,Sophy! There were some girls here, and a few boys, naturally, JimmyScarboro among them. Should you think that accounted for his mama'spresence, Sophy? And we sat around like adoring mice, listening toThe Author's sky-rockets going off. Doctor Geddes wouldn't let ussing, wouldn't even let us have music, because you mustn't bedisturbed. He thinks a whole lot of you, Sophy."

  "I think a whole lot of him. I never thought I could like that manas 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 aboutThe Author.

  The thought of The Author confused me. I wasn't so much flattered asastounded. He was not offering me a light honor: The Author's namemeant a great deal. Who, then, was I, a woman named Smith, to saynay to this miraculous possibility? Was it not rather for me toaccept, meekly, the high gift that the gods in a sportive momentchose to toss to me? Yea, verily. And yet-- My hand stole to the halfof a thin old foreign coin hidden in my breast.

  The Author behaved with exemplary patience and dignity. He wentabout his own work and left me to mine, and though I knew I wasunder his hawklike watchfulness, his matter-of-fact manner set me atmy ease. You can't dread to meet a man, of a morning, who pays moreattention to his batter-cakes than to you.

  I was just beginning to breathe freely, when Doctor Richard Geddescame over one afternoon, and, finding me in our living-room withonly the Black family to keep me company, flung himself into anarm-chair, seized Sir Thomas More Black by the scruff, and pulledhis whiskers and rubbed his fur the wrong way until Sir Thomas Morescratched him with thoroughness.

  "Get out, then, you black hellion!" growled the doctor. Sir ThomasMore 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 mestrangely. Then:

  "Sophronisba Two, you consider me a reasonably decent sort, don'tyou?"

  "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 makeany man more than a reasonably good wife. Should you like to bemine, Sophronisba Two?"

  The jump I gave threw Potty Black off my knees.

  "You're ill, wandering in your wits, you poor man!" I was genuinelyalarmed. "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 andadmire 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 somethingmore 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 Italked together. When did it seize you?" I demanded, suspiciously.

  "I began to think about it seriously--er--ah--some days ago," hesaid, reddening.

  "What day, to be exact?"

  "Well," said he, resentfully, "it occurred to me last Wednesday, ifyou want to be so all-fired sure!"

  "What happened last Wednesday to make you think of asking me tomarry you?"

  The doctor looked at me very much as a little boy looks at agrown-up who is holding a soapy wash-cloth in one hand and an ear inthe other.

  "What do you want to know for?"

  "Because. I just want to know because. Well?" He squirmed, and wassilent. "Was it because you have ceased to care for Alicia,already?" His glare answered that question. "No? Why, then, didn'tyou ask Alicia, instead of coming to me for second choice? Lookhere, Doctor Richard Geddes: if I was not firmly and truly yourfriend, 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 muchbetter--and--and I'd be happier with you, for I'd have the mostunselfish angel--" he stopped miserably.

  "Well?"

  "Well, I kept turning it over in my mind; and the more I thought ofit, the clearer I perceived that with a wife like you I'd be abetter 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--betterfriends 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 friendswith 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 wouldseem inevitable we should marry each other. Why, Sophy, we've gotenough to quarrel happily about for the rest of our lives. Forinstance, 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," saidthe doctor, firmly. "Do you use pillows?"

  "Two."

  "None at all. Sleep with your head flat. How many blankets?"

  "Two, and a comfort."

  "One army blanket, except in extremely cold weather," said thedoctor. "Do you like a pipe?"

  "It always makes me sick. I peculiarly and particularly loathe anddetest a pipe."

  "A pipe, my dear, deluded woman, is a comfort, a stay, a prop to aman's soul, an aid to meditation and repose. I insist upon apipe--within moderation, of course. Do you like parrots? Sophy, areyou capable of supporting a parrot? I have already perceived yourreprehensible fondness for cats." He looked at his scratched hand.

  "I have always wanted a parrot. I think they're the most--"r />
  "Damnable brutes!" finished the doctor. "Gad, I'd as lief live inthe house with Sophronisba One! It is not moral to like a parrot.What do you think of stewed rhubarb?"

  I made a wry face. I abhor stewed rhubarb. Somehow, it always makesme think of orphans in long-waisted gingham dresses with white chinabuttons down the back. One way of punishing children for losingtheir parents is to make them wear dark gingham dresses with chinabuttons down the back and to eat stewed rhubarb for dessert.

  "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are," pronouncedthe doctor. "It's a sign of moral rectitude to eat stewed rhubarb.Now, as to science: what is your attitude toward evolution?"

  "Well, I think plenty of men turn themselves into monkeys, but Irefuse to believe that God ever turned a monkey into a man."

  "Ha!" mused the doctor, pulling his nose; "I see! Do you insistupon a sacrosanct meal hour? Are your meal hours fixed, even as thelaws of the Medes and the Persians?"

  "How else, pray, shall one run one's house with any degree ofsystem?" I wanted to know.

  "Bunk!" snorted the doctor. "_I_ eat when I'm hungry! Now, lastly,sister, tell me truthfully: are you a Democrat or a Republican?"

  "I don't see much difference: they're both of them nothing but_men_."

  "I knew it!" The doctor shook his head with sad triumph. "She'dscratch Brown, because she didn't like the expression of his ears,and vote for Jones, because he had such beautiful whiskers! My dear,dear woman, can't you see that it's almost a law of nature for youand me, who don't agree about anything, to marry each other?"

  "I don't even agree with you as to that!" said I, and fell intohelpless laughter.

  "It rather looks like flying in the face of Providence not to," hewarned me. "In the meantime--"

  "In the meantime, let us be grateful Alicia didn't put the notioninto your head to ask somebody who might have taken you seriously."

  "That means you don't, and won't." He drew a long breath. "Butwe're good friends; aren't we, Sophy?"

  "If a man never does anything worse than ask a woman to marry him,he will probably retain her friendship until she dies," I replied.

  "Provided she refuses him," the doctor said, gratefully. And bendingdown, he kissed me brotherly on the cheek, an honest and resoundingsmack; at which opportune moment Alicia walked in.

  Wholly unabashed, the doctor spoke pleasantly to Alicia, shook handswith me effusively, and went off whistling. All was right with theworld. I'd refused him, you understand! Instead of being enraged andoffended, I found myself giggling.

  That night, as Alicia didn't come in my room, I went into hers.

  "I know what you've come to tell me, Sophy dear," she said,directly. "I've seen it for some time. And I'm glad as glad--gladwith all my heart, Sophy." Her voice was tenderness itself, her eyesmelted. But the hand on my hand was cold. "I love you a great deal,Sophy," she whispered. "More than anybody else in the world, Ithink."

  "And was it because you loved me, dear girl, that you put the absurdnotion of asking me to marry him into Doctor Geddes's head?"

  "Absurd notion?" repeated Alicia. "Absurd notion? But he asked you!Didn't he ask you?"

  "As to that, he told me I could marry him if I wanted to," Iadmitted. "Oh, Leetchy, it was funny, though! If you could have seenthe poor dear, trying to martyr himself, just to oblige you--"

  "You _refused_ him?" breathlessly.

  "Of course. There wasn't anything to say but 'No.'"

  "But--I saw--"

  "You saw him kiss me on the cheek? Honey, that wasn't love: that wasgratitude!"

  "I don't understand!" stammered Alicia, twisting her hands. "Why,you cared for him--I thought you cared."

  "Of course I care for him! But not like that! Good heavens, Alicia,however did you get such a notion? My dear, if I loved you less, orhim more, I should never, never be able to forgive either of you. Asit is, we'll forget it."

  At that Alicia began to cry.

  "Oh, what have I done?" she whimpered. "Sophy, you don't know--whatI've done!"

  "You haven't done anything that can't be undone," said I,comfortably. "You and I, my dear, fell into a Hynds House maze. Nowwe're out of it!" And thinking she would be better by herself, Ikissed her good night.

  Out of Hynds House maze, indeed! I had only to step back into my ownroom to have it again enmesh me. For on the prie-dieu that had onceheld Freeman Hynds's Bible and now held mine, was the lost diary.