Two weeks later the colonel brought his wife to call upon me. She was a
showy, loud-voiced blonde, resplendently over-dressed. At the first
opportunity her husband motioned me aside.
"Isn't she about the gayest piece of calico you ever saw?" he asked,
with proud confidence. "Doesn't she lay over anything around here by a
large majority?"
"She is certainly a very striking woman," I said gravely, "and one who
does you great credit. But I am a little surprised, Colonel. No doubt it
was a mistake, but I got the impression in some way that the lady was a
brunette."
The colonel's countenance fell. "Now, look here," he said, after a
little reflection; "I don't mind telling you, because you're up to the
city ways and you'll understand. The fact is, this _isn't the one_. You
see, I went on to 'Frisco as you advised, and planked down a check for
five hundred dollars the minute I got there. 'Now,' said I, 'Bob Jarvis
don't do things by halves; just you take that money, my girl, and get
yourself a ring that's equal to the occasion. I don't care if it's a
cluster of solitary diamonds as big as a section of well-pipe.' Now, I
call that square, don't you? Well, God bless your soul, madam, if she
didn't take that money and skip out with another fellow! Some
white-livered city sneak--beggin' your husband's pardon--who'd been
hangin' around for a year or more. Of course I was stuck when I heard of
it. It was this one told me. She's her sister. I could see that she felt
bad about it. 'It was a nasty, dirty trick,' she said; and I'll
be--demoralized if I don't think so myself, and said so at the time.
But, after all, it turned out a lucky thing for me. Now look at that,
will you?"
I followed his gaze of admiring fondness to where Mrs. Jarvis was,
bridling and simpering under Esculapius's compliments.
"Isn't she a nosegay? But don't you be jealous, madam; she's just
wrapped up in me, and constant," he added, shaking his head
reflectively; "why, bless your soul, she's as constant as sin."
When I told Esculapius of this he sighed deeply.
"What is the matter?" I asked, with some anxiety.
He threw back his head and sent a little dreamy cloud of smoke up
through the acacias.
"I was thinking," he said, pensively, "what a 'wild, strange act of
vengeance' it was!"
I looked him sternly in the eye. "My dear," I said, "I don't think you
ought to distress yourself about that. I never should have reminded you
of it. You were dreaming, you know, and you are not responsible for what
you dream. Besides, dreams are like human nature, they always go by
contraries."