I
Willis had met Miss Hollister but once, and that, for a certain purpose,
was sufficient. He was smitten. She represented in every way his ideal,
although until he had met her his ideal had been something radically
different. She was not at all Junoesque, and the maiden of his dreams had
been decidedly so. She had auburn hair, which hitherto Willis had
detested. Indeed, if the same hirsute wealth had adorned some other
woman's head, Willis would have called it red. This shows how completely
he was smitten. She changed his point of view entirely. She shattered his
old ideal and set herself up in its stead, and she did most of it with a
smile.
There was something, however, about Miss Hollister's eyes that contributed
to the smiting of Willis's heart. They were great round lustrous orbs, and
deep. So deep were they and so penetrating that Willis's affections were
away beyond their own depth the moment Miss Hollister's eyes looked into
his, and at the same time he had a dim and slightly uncomfortable notion
that she could read every thought his mind held within its folds--or
rather, that she could see how utterly devoid of thought that mind was
upon this ecstatic occasion, for Willis's brain was set all agog by the
sensations of the moment.
"By Jove!" he said to himself afterwards--for Willis, wise man that he
could be on occasions, was his own confidant, to the exclusion of all
others--"by Jove! I believe she can peer into my very soul; and if she
can, my hopes are blasted, for she must be able to see that a soul like
mine is no more worthy to become the affinity of one like hers than a
mountain rill can hope to rival the Amazon."
Nevertheless, Willis did hope.
"Something may turn up, and perhaps--perhaps I can devise some scheme by
means of which my imperfections can be hidden from her. Maybe I can put
stained glass over the windows of my soul, and keep her from looking
through them at my shortcomings. Smoked glasses, perhaps--and why not? If
smoked glasses can be used by mortals gazing at the sun, why may they not
be used by me when gazing into those scarcely less glorious orbs of hers?"
Alas for Willis! The fates were against him. A far-off tribe of fates were
in league to blast his chances of success forever, and this was how it
happened:
Willis had occasion one afternoon to come up town early. At the corner of
Broadway and Astor Place he entered a Madison Avenue car, paid his fare,
and sat down in one of the corner seats at the rear end of the car. His
mind was, as usual, intent upon the glorious Miss Hollister. Surely no one
who had once met her could do otherwise than think of her constantly, he
reflected; and the reflection made him a bit jealous. What business had
others to think of her? Impertinent, grovelling mortals! No man was good
enough to do that--no, not even himself. But he could change. He could at
least try to be worthy of thinking about her, and he knew of no other man
who could. He'd like to catch any one else doing so little as mentioning
her name!
"Impertinent, grovelling mortals!" he repeated.
And then the car stopped at Seventeenth Street, and who should step on
board but Miss Hollister herself!
"The idea!" thought Willis. "By Jove! there she is--on a horse-car, too!
How atrocious! One might as well expect to see Minerva driving in a
grocer's wagon as Miss Hollister in a horse-car. Miserable, untactful
world to compel Minerva to ride in a horse-cart, or rather Miss Hollister
to ride in a grocer's car! Absurdest of absurdities!"
Here he raised his hat, for Miss Hollister had bowed sweetly to him as she
passed on to the far end of the car, where she stood hanging on to a
strap.
"I wonder why she doesn't sit down?" thought Willis; for as he looked
about the car he observed that with the exception of the one he occupied
all the seats were vacant. In fact, the only persons on board were Miss
Hollister, the driver, the conductor, and himself.
"I think I'll go speak to her," he thought. And then he thought again:
"No, I'd better not. She saw me when she entered, and if she had wished to
speak to me she would have sat down here beside me, or opposite me
perhaps. I shall show myself worthy of her by not thrusting my presence
upon her. But I wonder why she stands? She looks tired enough."
Here Miss Hollister indulged in a very singular performance. She bowed her
head slightly at some one, apparently on the sidewalk, Willis thought,
murmured something, the purport of which Willis could not catch, and sat
down in the middle of the seat on the other side of the car, looking very
much annoyed--in fact, almost unamiable.
Willis was more mystified than ever; but his mystification was as nothing
compared to his anxiety when, on reaching Forty-second Street, Miss
Hollister rose, and sweeping by him without a sign of recognition, left
the car.
"Cut, by thunder!" ejaculated Willis, in consternation. "And why, I
wonder? Most incomprehensible affair. Can she be a woman of whims--with
eyes like those? Never. Impossible. And yet what else can be the matter?"
Try as he might, Willis could not solve the problem. It was utterly past
solution as far as he was concerned.
"I'll find out, and I'll find out like a brave man," he said, after
racking his brains for an hour or two in a vain endeavor to get at the
cause of Miss Hollister's cut. "I'll call upon her to-night and ask her."
He was true to his first purpose, but not to his second. He called, but he
did not ask her, for Miss Hollister did not give him the chance to do so.
Upon receiving his card she sent down word that she was out. Two days
later, meeting him face to face upon the street, she gazed coldly at him,
and cut him once more. Six months later her engagement to a Boston man was
announced, and in the autumn following Miss Hollister of New York became
Mrs. Barrows of Boston. There were cards, but Willis did not receive one
of them. The cut was indeed complete and final. But why? That had now
become one of the great problems of Willis's life. What had he done to be
so badly treated?