After supper that night Wade called on Doctor Crimmins. The Doctor
occupied a small house which had many years before been used as a
school. At one side the Doctor had built a little office, with an
entrance from a short brick walk leading to the street. The ground-glass
door held the inscription, "Josiah L. Crimmins, M.D. Office." Wade's
ring brought the Doctor's housekeeper, a bent, near-sighted, mumbling
old woman, who informed Wade that the Doctor was out on a call, but
would be back presently. She led the way into the study, turned up the
lamp and left him. The study was office and library and living-room in
one, a large, untidy room with books lining two sides of it, and a third
devoted to shelf on shelf of bottles and jars and boxes. Near the bottle
end of the apartment the Doctor had his desk and his few appliances. At
the other end was a big oak table covered with a debris of books,
magazines, newspapers, tobacco cans, pipes, and general litter. There
was a mingled odor, not unpleasant, of drugs and disinfectants, tobacco
and leather. Wade made himself comfortable in a big padded armchair, one
of those genuinely comfortable chairs which modern furnishers have
thrust into oblivion, picked up a magazine at random, slapped the dust
off it and filled his pipe. He was disturbed by the sound of brisk
footsteps on the bricks outside. Then a key was inserted in the lock and
the Doctor entered from the little lobby, bag in hand.
"Ha! Who have we here? Welcome, my dear Herrick, welcome! I hope you
come as a friend and not as a patient. Quite right, sir. Keep out of the
doctor's clutches as long as possible. Well, well, a warm night this."
The Doctor wiped his face with his handkerchief, wafting a strong odor
of ether about the room. Then he took off his black frock-coat, hung it
on a hook behind the door, and slipped into a rusty old brown velvet
house-coat. After that he filled his pipe, talking the while, and, when
it was lighted, said "Ha" again very loudly and contentedly, and took
down a half-gallon bottle from the medicine shelves. This he placed on
the table by the simple expedient of sweeping a pile of newspapers to
the floor.
"Now where are those glasses, I wonder?" He looked about the room
searchingly over the tops of his spectacles. "There we are." He
discovered one on his desk and another on the shelf over the little
sink. The latter held some liquid which he first smelled, then tasted
and finally threw away. "Wonder what that was," he muttered. "Well, a
little rinsing will fix it. Here we are now, Mr. Herrick. Pour your
drink, sir, and I'll put the water in. Don't be afraid of it. It's as
mild as milk."
"You're quite sure it isn't laudanum?" asked Wade, with a suspicious
look at the big bottle.
"Bless you, no." The Doctor lowered himself into a chair with a sigh of
relief and contentment. "Now tell me the news, Mr. Herrick. I haven't
seen our good friends at The Cedars since yesterday."
Wade sipped from his glass, set it down, hesitated.
"The only piece of news I have, Doctor," he said, finally, "is that I
asked Miss Walton to marry me this morning."
"Bless my soul!" The Doctor started to rise. "I do most heartily
congratulate you, Mr. Herrick!"
"Hold on, though," said Wade. "Don't jump to conclusions. She hasn't
accepted me, Doctor."
"What! But she's going to?"
"I wish I was certain," replied Wade, with a smile.
"But--why, I'd have said she was fond of you, Mr. Herrick. Miss Mullett
and I were talking it over just the other day. Old busy-bodies, I
suppose you'd call us. But what did she say--if that isn't an
impertinent question, sir."
"Well, it seems that there's some one else."
"Never!"
"Yes. I don't know why there shouldn't be."
"Miss Mullett told me that Miss Eve had never shown the slightest favor
to any one since she'd known her."
"Maybe this was before that. It isn't very clear just how the other chap
stands with her. But she asked time to think it over."
The Doctor chuckled. "Who hesitates is lost, Mr. Herrick. Take my word
for it,--she'll come around before long. I'm very glad. She's a fine
woman, a fine woman. I knew her mother."
"Well, I hope you're right, Doctor. Maybe you'd better not say anything
about it just yet."
"Not a word, sir. I presume, though, if you do marry her, you'll take
her out West with you."
"I don't dare make plans yet. I'm sure, though, we'd come to Eden
Village in the summer."
"I hope so. I wouldn't want to think I wasn't to see her again. I'm very
fond of her in an old man's way. How is the house getting along? Workmen
almost through, I guess."
"They've promised to get out to-morrow. And that reminds me, Doctor. I
want the ladies and you to take dinner with me Saturday night. It's to
be a sort of house-warming, you know. Mrs. Prout is coming over to cook
for me and Zephania is to serve. I may depend on you?"
"To be sure, sir. I'll just make a note of it. Saturday, you said? H'm,
yes, Saturday. About half-past six, I presume?" The Doctor pulled
himself from his chair and rummaged about his desk. "Well, I can't ...
seem to ... find my ... memorandum, but I'll remember without it.
You--ah--you might mention it to me again in a day or two. I hope by
that time we'll be able to drink a toast, sir, to you and Miss Eve."
"You don't hope so any more than I do," said Wade gravely. "I only
wish--" He stopped, frowned at his pipe and went on. "The devil of it
is, Doctor, I feel so confoundedly cheeky."
"Eh?"
"I mean about asking her to marry a fellow like me."
"What's the matter with you? You're of sound body and mind, aren't
you?"
"Yes, I reckon so. But I'm such a useless sort, in a way. I've never
done anything except make some money."
"Some women would think you'd done quite enough," replied the Doctor,
dryly.
"But she's not that sort. I don't believe she cares anything about
money. I've been trying to get her to let me do the square thing with
Ed's property, but she won't listen."
"Wanted to parcel some of it out to her, eh? Well, I guess Eve wouldn't
have it."
"No, she wouldn't. She ought to, too. It should have been hers, by
rights. If it wasn't for that silly quarrel between her father and
Ed's--"
"I know, I know. But she's right, according to her lights, Mr. Herrick.
Irv Walton wouldn't have touched any of that money with a pair of
pincers. Still, I don't see as you need to have such a poor opinion of
yourself. We can't all be great generals or statesmen or financiers.
Some of us have to wear the drab. And, after all, it doesn't matter
tuppence what you are, Mr. Herrick, if you've got the qualities that
appeal to Eve. Lord love us! Where would civilization be if it was only
the famous men who found wives? I don't think any the worse of myself,
Mr. Herrick, because I've never made the world sit up and take notice.
I've had my battles and victories, and I don't despise them because
there was no waving of flags or sounding of trumpets. I've lived
clean--as clean as human flesh may, I guess,--I've been true to my
friends and honest to my enemies, and here I am, as good as the next
man, to my own thinking."
"I dare say you're right," answered Wade, "but when you love a woman,
you sort of want to have a few trophies handy to throw down at her feet,
if you see what I mean. You'd like to say, 'Look, I've done this and
that! I've conquered here and there! I am Somebody!'"
"And if she didn't love you she'd turn up her nose at your trophies, and
like as not walk off with the village fool."
"Well, but it seems to me that a woman isn't likely to love a man
unless he has something to show besides a pocketbook."
"Mr. Herrick, there's just one reason why a woman loves a man, and
that's because she loves him. You can invent all the theories you want,
and you can write tons of poetry about it, and when you get through
you'll be just where you started. You can find a reason for pretty near
everything a woman does, though you may have to rack your brains like
the devil to do it, but you can't explain why she falls in love with
this man and not with that. Perhaps you recall Longfellows's lines: 'The
men that women marry, and why they marry them, will always be a marvel
and a mystery to the world.' Personally, I'm a bit of a fatalist
regarding love. I think hearts are mated when they're fashioned, and
when they get together you can no more keep them apart than you keep two
drops of quicksilver from running into each other when they touch. It's
as good a theory as any, for it can't be disproved."
"Then how account for unhappy marriages?" asked Wade.
"I said hearts were mated, not bodies and brains, nor livers, either.
Half the unhappy marriages are due, I dare say, to bad livers."
"Well," laughed Wade, rising and finding his hat, "your theory sounds
reasonable. As for me, I have no theory--nor data. So I'll go home and
go to sleep. Don't forget Saturday night, Doctor."
"Saturday night? Oh, to be sure, to be sure. I'll not forget, you may
depend. Good night, Mr. Herrick, and thank you for looking in on me.
And--ah--Mr. Herrick?"
"Yes?"
"Ah--I wouldn't be too meek, if I were you. Even Fate may relish a
little assistance. Good night. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a
thunder storm before morning."