"GOOD-BY."
It was a very long face that Nattie carried to the Hotel Norman that
night; so long that Miss Kling at once saw that something was amiss, and
while curiously wondering as to the cause, took a grim satisfaction in
the fact. For Miss Kling liked not to see cheerful faces; why should
others be happy when she had not found her other self?
Nattie's first act on gaining her own room was to drag forth that
carefully-preserved pen and ink sketch, and tear it to atoms,
annihilating the chubby Cupid with especial care.
"And now," she thought to herself savagely, as she burned up the pieces,
"I never will be interested in people again, unless I know all about
them. Imagination is too dangerous a guide for me!"
Having thus exterminated the illustrated edition of her romance, Nattie
felt the necessity of unburdening her mind, her sorrow not being too
deep for words, and with that object sought Cyn; a proceeding much
disapproved of by Miss Kling, who, knowing well that weakness of human
nature that seeks a friendly bosom wherein to repose its sorrows,
rightly surmised her lodger's destination and design, and decidedly
objected to any one knowing more than she herself did.
Nattie found her friend at home, but to her vexation, not alone. With
her was Quimby, who had called in the untold hope of gleaning tidings of
the young lady who had--as he said to himself--floored him. His
confusion at the sight of her, remembering as he did the somewhat
unusual circumstances of their last meeting, was indescribable; indeed,
his knees actually knocked together. Nattie, however, whose latest
experience had effaced the effect, and almost the remembrance of that
former one, bade him good-evening, without the least trace of
consciousness or embarrassment, a composure of manner that astounded but
at the same time filled him with admiration.
As he did not take his departure, being, in fact, unable to tear himself
away, Nattie, in her anxiety to tell Cyn all that was in her mind, and
reflecting that he really was of no consequence--an argument not
flattering to its object, but one that he probably would have been first
to indorse had he known it--and, moreover, that he already knew the
prologue, disregarded his presence and said,
"The most incomprehensible thing has happened, Cyn! I cannot realize it
even now!"
Quimby quaked in his boots, and grew hot all over with the fear that she
was going to relate their last evening's adventure. Could it be
possible?
"I knew that something was the matter the moment you entered the room,"
said Cyn. "I cannot imagine, why you should look as if you were going
into the grave-digging business!"
"Ah, Cyn!" exclaimed Nattie, as if the words hurt her, "He--'C', called
on me to-day!"
Quimby gave a bounce, and then grew limp in all his joints.
"Is it possible? Personally?" questioned Cyn, with great interest and
animation; then glancing at Nattie's face, her tone changed as she
added, "He was not what you thought! I understand, poor Nat!"
Quimby straightened himself up. He fancied he saw a gleam of hope ahead.
"Far enough from what I thought!" replied Nattie, with a mixture of
pathos and disgust. "Why did he not remain invisible?" then, in a burst
of disappointment-- "Cyn, he is simply awful! All red hair and grease,
musk, cheap jewelry, and insolent assurance!"
Quimby glanced in the opposite glass, and his face brightened all over.
He felt like a new man!
"Oh, dear! Is it as bad as that?" said Cyn, looking dismayed. "He was so
entertaining on the wire, I can hardly believe it. Are you quite sure it
was 'C'?"
"I could not realize it myself, but it is a fact nevertheless," Nattie
answered sorrowfully, and then related what she termed the "disgusting
details." Cyn listened, vexed and sorry, for she too had become
interested in the invisible "C," but Quimby found it impossible to
restrain his joy at this complete overthrow of one whom he had ever
considered a formidable rival.
"It is no use to talk about romance in real life!" said the annoyed Cyn,
yielding to the conviction that the obnoxious visitor really was "C," as
Nattie concluded. "It is nice to read about and to enact on the stage,
but it's altogether too unreliable for our solid, every-day world. Well,
dear!" consolingly, "it's better to know the truth than to have gone on
blindly talking to so undesirable an acquaintance!"
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," quoted Nattie, with a
shrug of her shoulders. "But--yes--I suppose I--ought to be glad I know
the worst."
"I--I beg pardon, but I--I think I hinted it might be as it has proved,
you know!" said Quimby, trying not to look triumphant, and failing
signally.
Not particularly pleased at having his superior discernment thus pointed
out, Nattie replied rather shortly,
"It was luck and chance anyway, and it was my luck to stumble on the
most disagreeable specimen in the business. That is all."
"Do you suppose he is aware of the impression he produced on you?" asked
Cyn.
"No, indeed!" Nattie replied scornfully. "Is there anything so blind as
vulgar, ignorant, self-conceit? I have no doubt he thinks I was
charmed!"
"Then how will you manage when he wants to talk on the wire again?"
asked Cyn.
"I shall have to make excuses until he takes the hint. Oh, dear!" said
Nattie with a sigh, "I believe it is impossible to get any comfort out
of this world!"
"Oh, no, it isn't!" said Cyn in her bright cheery manner. "The way to do
is not to allow ourselves to fret over what we cannot help. I am almost
as disappointed as you, dear, over this total collapse of what opened so
interestingly; but the curtain has fallen on the ignominious last act of
our little drama, so farewell--a long farewell to our wired romance!"
As Cyn spoke, the somewhat unmusical voice of Jo Norton was heard in the
hall, singing an air from a popular burlesque, followed by the
appearance among them of Jo himself. Of course the whole story had to be
related for his benefit, and very little sympathy did Nattie receive
from him.
"Let this teach you a lesson, young lady!" he said, with mock solemnity,
"namely, Attend to your business and let romance alone!"
"As you do!" said Cyn.
"As I do," he echoed, "and consequently be happy as I am! I tell you,
romance and sentiment and love, and all that bosh, are at the bottom of
two-thirds of all the misery in the world!"
Notwithstanding which sage remark, and the fact of the curtain having
fallen on the end, as Cyn said, for a moment yesterday was as if it had
never been, when Nattie entered her office the next morning and was
greeted with the familiar,
"B m--B m--B m--where is my little girl at B m, to say good-morning to
me?" and she made an involuntary movement towards the key to respond in
the usual way.
The remembrance of the actual state of things checked her just in time,
and then, with a rather uncertain and tremulous touch of the key she
answered,
"Good morning! wait--am busy!"
"One untruth!" she thought to herself, as "C" became mute, "not the only
one I shall have to tell, I fear, before I succeed in conveying my exact
meaning to the understanding of--the person. I will pick a quarrel, if
possible, and he persists in talking! Oh, dear! I could have endured the
red hair, even those dreadful teeth, had it not been for the
bear's-grease and general vulgarity of the creature. Well, it's all over
now!" and she sighed, from which it may be inferred that Jo's
admonitions had not been of much consolation to her.
We do not take the lessons our experience teaches us, to heart
immediately; first, their bitterness must be overcome.
To Nattie's great relief, the wire happened to be very busy that
morning, but whenever it was possible "C" called her, and called in
vain.
Immediately after her return from dinner, however, having just received
and signed for a message, "C," the moment she closed her key, said,
"Where have you been to-day? are you not glad to have me back again? it
cannot be I am so soon forgotten?"
Unable to avoid answering, Nattie responded on the wrong side of truth
again. "Have been busy; wait, please, a customer here."
"I cannot help saying, confound the luck!" "C" responded, savagely. To
which anathema Nattie turned up her nose scornfully, and made no reply.
The nervous dread of his "calling," that was upon her all day, caused
her to make more blunders than she had ever done in all her telegraphic
career. She gave wrong change continually, numbered her messages
incorrectly, and "broke" so much that the operator who sent to her had a
headache with ill-humor. Usually very quick at deciphering the illegible
scrawls often handed her for transmission, she to-day was frowned at for
her stupidity in making them out; and one lady to whom a message was
sent through poor Nattie's office, was much exercised on receiving it,
to learn over an unknown gentleman's signature, that he would be with
her at midnight. He really was her husband, but Nattie had transmitted
the name the writing looked most like, which was one very remote from
the real one.
All these mistakes she laid at "C's" door, and grew more disgusted with
him, accordingly, especially when she counted her cash, and found
herself a dollar short. She managed, however, by frequent excuses, to
get along without holding any conversation with him until the latter
part of the afternoon, when, the wire not being in use, and business
slacking up, he called persistently, savagely, and entreatingly--all of
which phases can be expressed in dots and dashes--interspersing the call
with such expressions as,
"Please answer, N! Where are you, N? Why will you treat thus a poor
fellow who thinks so much of you?"
"I should think he might take a hint! Must I tell him in plain words
that a personal inspection leads me to decline the honor of farther
acquaintance? when, too, he particularly requested me not to mention his
visit, over the wire?" thought Nattie; and then, as he continued to
call, she arose impatiently, and answered shortly,
"B m!"
"You naughty little girl!" immediately responded "C," "where have you
been all day? Is it thus you treat me on my return, when I expected you
would be glad to see me again?"
"I have been busy," Nattie replied briefly, with a repetition of her
platitude, and cringing at the same time over the first of his remark,
as she recalled his _tout ensemble_.
"So you have said every time I have called," "C" answered, apparently
entirely unconscious of the possible reason. "What is the cause? You
never used to be busy _always_, you know!"
"How different he is on the wire from what he is in reality!" thought
Nattie, with a return of her first disappointment, "and how hard it is
to merge the two in one!" But she answered,
"There is a first time for everything; besides, I have not felt like
talking to-day."
"Not with me?" queried "C."
"No!" replied Nattie briefly, and to the point.
"C" held his key open a moment.
"I do not understand it," he said at last. "It isn't possible that I
have done anything to offend you?"
"Only offended me with the sight of you!" thought Nattie; but unwilling
to be really impolite, replied, "Certainly not!"
"You are not angry about yesterday, are you?" pursued "C."
"Certainly not," repeated Nattie, adding to herself, "A faint idea that
I did not exactly fall in love with you is creeping into your red head,
is it?"
"If I have done anything, I beg you to tell me what, for I am ignorant
of it, and I assure you I am penitent, and that I forgive you!"
continued "C," "only please don't be cross to me!"
Nattie saw her opportunity for picking a quarrel, and seized it.
"I do not know what you mean by my being cross!" she said. "I am sure I
was not aware that I was obliged to talk to any one unless I felt like
it. I am not in the mood to-day, and I will not be forced. You have no
right to call me cross, and when I am in the humor to talk with you
again I will let you know!"
"Very well!" "C" replied promptly, undoubtedly angry himself now; "I
will wait your pleasure!" and then was mute.
"It has not been quite so gradual as I intended, but I think I have
effectually settled the matter, and my mind is relieved," thought
Nattie; yet she sighed, and her satisfaction was followed by depression,
for with "C" departed the pleasantest part of her office life, a fact
she could not disguise. In the week that followed, when "C," true to his
word, waited, saying nothing, she missed continually the sympathy, the gay
talk, the companionship that had made the constantly-occurring
annoyances endurable, and the days that dragged so now seem short. The
office business did not fill half her time, and the constant confinement
began to be irksome to her, whose nature demanded activity; in
consequence, she often grew impatient and answered unnecessary questions
of customers with a shortness that gave considerable offence; and had it
not been for Cyn, who brought her sunny presence quite often into the
office, heedless of the "no admittance" on the door, the monotony that
had now displaced the romantic side of telegraphy would have plunged
Nattie among the shadows almost constantly.
Of course the sudden cessation of the intimacy between "C" and "N" was a
theme of much surprise and bantering comments along the line, especially
from "Em." But these facetious remarks gradually became fewer as the
wonder subsided. One day, nearly two weeks after the "collapse," Nattie
was surprised to hear the old familiar "B m--B m--B m--X n." Wondering if
he had grown tired of waiting and was about to attempt a renewal of
their former friendship, Nattie rather impatiently answered. But it
proved he had a message, an occurrence quite infrequent with him. This
he sent without unnecessary words. But after she had given "O. K." and
closed her key, he opened his to say,
"Please, don't you want to make up, N?"
"I have nothing to make up!" Nattie replied.
"O. K." was "C's" response as he again subsided.
"He snubs easily!" thought Nattie, much relieved.
The following Saturday night, however, as she was taking in from the
shelf outside the blanks, ink, and bad pens that excited the ire of
irascible customers, preparatory to closing, "C" once more called. With
a devout hope that he was not going to be annoying, Nattie answered.
"Notwithstanding the late coolness between us, which was not my fault,
and for which I cannot account" he began, and then some one with a rush
message broke in.
"What is he coming at now I wonder--he commenced with a great display of
words," thought Nattie curiously; and then with a little curl of her
lip, "a sentence out of some book, I suppose."
But as soon as the wire was quiet she said,
"To 'C' Please g a--account"
"I could not leave, as I am about to do to-night, without saying
good-by, in remembrance of our former pleasant intercourse," concluded
"C."
"You mean you are leaving permanently?" queried Nattie, surprised.
"Yes, this is my last day here. Monday I leave town; and so, with much
regret that anything unpleasant should have interrupted our
acquaintance--although what it was I assure you I do not know, since you
deign me no explanation--I will say, not as I would once, _au revoir_, but
good-by."
"Good-by," answered Nattie, forgetting for the moment everything but
"C," the old "C," the "C" who had enlivened so many hours, and about
whom had dwelt that romantic mystery. "Good-by. Believe me, I shall
always remember the many social talks we have enjoyed."
"Possibly we might enjoy them again, if you desired," "C" said then, as
if he gave her a chance for explanation or to express such a wish.
But Nattie, recalling now the bears-grease, the musk, the cheap jewelry
and their obnoxious possessor, answered only, "Good-by."