O. K.
Leaving Clem, on their arrival at the hotel, to bear the burden of the
green stuff they had brought from the woods, Cyn, with a trace of
melancholy on her sunny face, followed Nattie to her room. For Cyn's
joyous picnic, with its gay beginning, had ended sadly enough for her.
"I want to ask you something," Cyn said, with frank directness, as she
carefully closed the door behind them. "And that is, are you, can you be
foolish enough to imagine, that Clem and I are in love with each other?"
The small basket Nattie held in her hand fell to the floor, at this
unexpected question. Had Cyn drawn forth a bowie-knife, and playfully
clipped off her nose, she could not have been more astounded.
"If you can possibly reduce your eyes to their ordinary size, and give
me a candid yes or no, I will be obliged," Cyn said, rather petulantly,
after waiting in vain for an answer. The events of the day had sorely
tried her usually even temper.
A little tremulously, while a burning flush covered her face, Nattie
answered her,
"I--I have heard it intimated!"
"You have heard it intimated! That means yes, to my question," said Cyn;
then sinking despairingly on the lounge, she added, "here is a crisis of
which I never dreamed!"
Not understanding very well, and moreover much agitated by the subject,
Nattie knew not what to say.
"This is awful!" went on Cyn, savagely beating the pillow with her fist;
"what contrary things love affairs are!"
Fearful of having in some way betrayed her secret--the only conclusion
she could draw from Cyn's extraordinary outburst--Nattie stood looking
guiltily at the floor a few moments, then recovering herself, she went
to Cyn, and said, in a voice full of emotion,
"I do not just comprehend your meaning, dear, but it may be you think I
might not quite like the idea, on account of that--that first affair on
the wire. If so, dismiss the thought. You and Clem are suited to each
other, and--" Nattie stopped, unable to continue.
Cyn, who had been beating the innocent pillow, as if it was the cause of
all this, while Nattie was speaking, now threw it across the room, as
she exclaimed.
"Oh! the perversity of human nature! Oh! you degenerate girl! As if I
cared for Clem in that way! Have I not from the first set my heart on
this real-life romance ending in the only way it could rightfully end?"
A sudden light came into Nattie's face, but it died away in a moment.
"Then you do not care for him? Poor Clem!" she said, in a low voice.
"Poor Clem, indeed!" cried Cyn, pacing the floor excitedly. "I
cannot--no, I cannot--believe it of him! He certainly has sagacity
enough not to run his head against a beam in broad daylight, even--"
"If Jo had not," she was about to add, but checked herself suddenly. Not
for the world would she betray Jo's confidence. What had passed between
them to-day should be a secret always, never again to be mentioned--but
never forgotten in the friendship and companionship of after years.
"You must be very difficult to suit, dear, if you do not like Clem!"
said Nattie, with unconscious significance, after waiting in vain for
Cyn to finish her sentence.
"It is not that," replied Cyn, somewhat sadly. "Do you not know I have
only one love,--music?"
"Poor Clem!" again said Nattie, from the depths of her tender heart.
"For I know he loves you, dear. He could not help it, who could?"
Such words would have been sweet to the vanity of an ordinary woman. But
on Cyn they had a very opposite effect.
"Things have come to a pretty pass if one can not laugh and joke, and
enjoy one's self with friends without being made love to!" she said,
annoyed. Then looking scrutinizingly at Nattie, she asked,
"And you--did you really wish Clem and I might love each other?"
Nattie played nervously with the fringe of her dress, hesitated, then
replied in a low tone,
"I fear I did not, Cyn!"
"Then it may come right yet!" exclaimed Cyn, hopefully.
Nattie shook her head.
"And he loving you? Oh, no!" she said. "I shall never be able to say
O.K. to what you term your romance of the dots and dashes, Cyn. In fact,
I have made up my mind that there are some people born to go through
life missing both its best and its worst, and that I am one!"
"Pray, do not say that!" urged Cyn, too disturbed to bring her easy
philosophy to bear on the situation. "Of all things, do not get morbid."
"But it is the truth!" persisted Nattie. "Even my name, for instance,
proves it! I was christened Nathalie, a very fine poetic name. But, in
all my life no one ever called me by it! I was always mediocre Nattie!"
"And _I_ have curtailed you down to Nat!" said Cyn, with whimsical
remorse. "But what a tangle we are in! First it was the man of musk and
bear's grease, who came between you! Then, when he was explained away,
came blundering I! Why did you not lock me out of sight somewhere? I
would have done it myself had I known--" ironically-- "what an
extremely fascinating and dangerous person I was!"
At this Nattie could not help smiling.
"Is was not your fault; it was Fate!" she said, her smile becoming a
sigh, that Cyn echoed, for she thought of Jo. But yet unconvinced, she
said,
"Fate! No; it cannot be! I think better of Clem than to believe he, too,
has made a mistake, like Quimby, and fallen in love with the wrong
woman!" then starting up, she exclaimed, tragically, "Who? ah! who
shall cut the Gordian knot and bring about a crisis that shall cause
this 'wired love' to terminate in 'O. K.'?"
As if invoked by Cyn's words, there came a sneeze from outside, and Miss
Kling pushed open the door unceremoniously.
"I wish to have some conversation with you, Miss Rogers," she said in a
tone of severity.
"Some other time, if you please," Nattie replied, impatiently, for her
talk with Cyn had unnerved her; "just now I am engaged."
Miss Kling drew herself up and said, with even more austerity,
"There is no time like the present, and since Miss Archer is here, it
may not be amiss for her to hear what I have to say."
Nattie frowned, but Cyn, not unwilling to be diverted even by Miss Kling
from the topic that was so annoying her, said,
"Very well. We are listening, Miss Kling."
"Miss Rogers," proceeded Miss Kling solemnly, after a preparatory
sneeze, "I know _all_."
The emphasis on the last word was truly tremendous, and Nattie started
astonished, while Cyn looked up with awakened curiosity.
"May I inquire what you mean by all?" inquired Nattie stiffly.
"Yes," repeated Miss Kling, without heeding the question. "I know ALL. I
have for some time suspected that something underhanded was going on.
Now I know what it is that has been so carefully concealed from me! I
have long objected to your associates, Miss Rogers, but--"
"Pardon me, but that certainly does not concern you!" interrupted Cyn
disdainfully.
Miss Kling looked at her and sneezed a sinister sneeze.
"It concerns me to know what kind of people I have in my house!" she
replied, "and since you force me to speak out, Miss Archer, I will say
that in my opinion no truly modest and proper girl would become intimate
with those who pad their legs and paint their faces, and show themselves
to the public"--this insinuation struck Cyn so comically that she could
hardly suppress a laugh. "My suspicions, to return to what I was about
to say, Miss Rogers, were first awakened by hearing that--that
instrument"--Cyn and Nattie exchanged looks of intelligence--"you have
here going, when I knew you were not in the room. And now, as I said, I
know _all_! I pass over the audacity of such proceedings on _my_ premises,
but their utter immorality is too much for me to bear! Yes! I found a
wire, and know where it leads! Into the room of two young men! That any
young woman should so immodest as to establish telegraphic communication
between her bed-room and the bed-room of two young men is beyond my
comprehension!"
Cyn felt a mischievous desire to inquire how it would have struck her,
had it been the bed-room of _one_ young man? Nattie, who had flushed
crimson at the first knowledge of Miss Kling's discovery, now drew
herself up and replied with dignity,
"Really, Miss Kling, I think this extravagance of language utterly
uncalled for! I admit it was not exactly correct for me to allow the
wire to be run without consulting you, but beyond that, there was
nothing reprehensible in my conduct."
Miss Kling held up her hands in horror.
"Nothing reprehensible in being connected by a telegraph wire with two
young men!" she exclaimed. "Nothing--"
"Excuse my intrusion; but, Cyn, will you please inform me if I am to
stand all night loaded with green stuff, like a farmer on a market day?"
at this point the merry voice of Clem interrupted, as he came hastily
in, still bearing the burden Cyn had piled upon him. Then becoming aware
of Miss Kling's presence, he added to her, "I beg pardon for my abrupt
entrance, but the outer door being open, I made bold to enter;" then
explanatory to Cyn, "Your door was locked, as also was mine, of which
Quimby has the key; and as Celeste has not yet been able to part with
him, there I have been standing in the hall, like patience with a load
of dandelions!"
"We were having such an interesting conversation," Cyn answered, with a
scornful glance in Miss Kling's direction, "that I quite forgot you and
the lapse of time."
Clem instantly became aware of something amiss in the atmosphere, and
glanced around inquiringly. Miss Kling immediately enlightened him.
"There are many things you make bold to do, young man!" she said.
"Putting telegraph apparatus in my house, for instance!"
"Ah!" exclaimed Clem, comprehensively.
"Yes;" went on the aggrieved Miss Kling, "you and that Quimby, I
suppose, did it. The idea originated with you, of course. _He_ hasn't
brains enough; if he had he would not marry Celeste!" and Miss Kling
sniffed in utter contempt of poor Quimby.
"Thanks for the compliment to _my_ intellectual abilities!" said Clem with
a mischievous look; then advancing towards her, he answered in his own
frank, manly way, "And so you have found us out? But I trust you will
not be offended with us? It is, after all, a trifle, and we said nothing
about it merely because we wished to have a little mystery of our own!
It was, as the newsboys would say, a lark of ours!"
"Lark!" repeated Miss Kling, drawing herself up stiffly; "young man, you
will oblige me by not using slang in my presence!"
"Pardon me," said Clem, good humoredly; "and in regard to the wire,
blame me, if you must blame any one. As you say, it was all my doing,
and I induced Miss Rogers to allow the wire to come into her room."
"And I, too," added Cyn, propitiatingly, for Nattie's sake, "I wished to
learn the business, you know!"
But Miss Kling would not propitiate.
"Miss Rogers, I have no doubt, was very ready to be induced!" she said,
with an effort at sarcasm. "I have heard of young females so much in
love that they would run after and pursue young men, but never before of
one so carried away and so lost to every sense of decorum, as to be
obliged to have a wire run from her room to his, in order to communicate
with him at improper times!"
This accusation, far-fetched and ridiculous as it was, yet being uttered
in the presence of Clem, overwhelmed poor Nattie, and she sank on the
lounge, burying her face in her hands, at which Clem made a hasty
motion, and then, as if aware any interference of his would only make
matters worse, checked himself. But Cyn came to the front with striking
effect.
"You ought, certainly, to be well informed on the subject of _old_
females who run after _old_ men!" she said, witheringly. "If one may
believe what the Tor--what Mr. Fishblate says!"
This shot told. Miss Kling turned livid with rage and mortification, and
burst into a terrific spasm of sneezing.
"Miss Rogers," she said, wrathfully, as soon as she recovered
sufficiently to speak, "your conduct and that of your associates is such,
that I can no longer allow you to remain on my premises.
"Miss Kling, this is--is very unjust," said the agitated Nattie.
"It is against the wishes of her friends that she has remained as long
as she has," cried Cyn, hotly.
"Miss Kling, your proceedings are infamous!" exclaimed Clem, not able to
contain himself longer.
Rather afraid to draw out Cyn any more, Miss Kling gladly seized this
opportunity to attack Clem.
"Young man, what right have you to interfere?" she inquired,
majestically.
Clem bit his lip. Sure enough, what right had he?
He glanced at Nattie where she sat, pale and disturbed, at the scene
that threatened to end seriously for her, and then, obeying a sudden
impulse, seized the key at his side, and called,
"N--N--N!"
Nattie looked up quickly, and while Miss Kling, who supposed he was
wantonly drumming on the obnoxious instrument to exasperate her, vented
her indignation, and also the outraged feelings caused by the
Torpedo-wound inflicted by Cyn, still rankling, in a wrathful homily to
which no one listened, for Cyn was watching Clem curiously, he wrote
rapidly, his eyes on the sounder,
"She says I have no right to interfere. If you had not so changed
towards me--if I could hope you loved me as I have ever loved you, I
would ask you to give me the right, and let me put this pernicious
discredit to her sex on the other side of that door!"
As these words in dots and dashes came to her ears, Nattie, forgetting
Miss Kling, forgetting everything, except that she loved Clem, and Clem
declared--could it be possible--that he loved her, arose hastily, with a
quick joy suffusing her face, and then their eyes met, and neither words
or dots and dashes were needed. Love, more potent than electricity,
required no interpreter, and that most powerful of all magnets drew them
together. Before the face and eyes of the amazed Miss Kling, who had
just delivered herself of a sentence intended to be crushing, and could
not conceive why her victim should suddenly look so happy over it, he
advanced to Nattie's side, clasped her hand eagerly and tenderly, then
turning to Miss Kling, said, while Cyn, surmising the truth of the
matter, embraced herself fervently,
"Miss Kling, any farther observations you may have to make, you will be
good enough to say to me, hereafter; and now, will you oblige me by
leaving the room?" and he politely held open the door.
"What?" gasped Miss Kling, hardly believing her own ears.
"I cannot allow you to annoy Miss Rogers, the lady who is to be my
wife!" Clem added; "and if she and I choose to have twelve telegraph
wires, we will. Let me bid you good-evening!" and he pointed
significantly at the open door.
"Your wife! Miss Rogers!" echoed the discomfited Miss Kling, and glanced
at the blushing Nattie, at Cyn, undisguisedly exultant, and at Clem,
determinedly waiting for her to go out. This was something she had not
expected, and it took her aback. So, with a sneeze, she drew herself up,
gave a spiteful parting shot,
"Well, she has worked hard enough to get you--had to bring the telegraph
to her assistance!" and then retreated, before Cyn could retaliate with
the Torpedo. Retreated to her own room, to nurse her wrath and envy, and
to dream hopelessly, forever more, of that other self, never to come
nearer than now!
The discreet Cyn, comprehending that Miss Kling had brought about that,
"crisis," and that something had been said on the wire to the right
purpose, followed her out, and left them alone. It is hardly necessary
to mention, that as soon as the door closed behind Cyn, Clem took Nattie
in his arms and kissed her. It was an inevitable consequence.
"And now explain why you have treated me so, you contrary little girl?"
he queried, tenderly.
"I thought," Nattie replied, raising her gray eyes, from which the
shadows were all gone now, to his, "that you loved Cyn."
"You did!" he said, surprised and reproachful; "and that is why you have
been so cold and distant! How could you?"
"But Cyn is so handsome, and--I do not see how you could help it!"
pleaded Nattie in self-extenuation.
"Of course she is handsome, talented, brilliant, fascinating, everything
that is nice," Clem answered, "but," in a low voice, "Cyn was not my
little girl at B m!"
Of course, after this there was another inevitable consequence, and then
Clem asked,
"And did you care because you imagined--you naughty, jealous girl--that
I loved Cyn?"
"Yes," Nattie answered, blushing, but honestly, "I was very unhappy,
indeed I was, Clem! I think I loved you from the first--when you were
invisible, you know!"
"And I," said Clem, "should have given myself up a victim to despair,
like Quimby, if it had not been for one thing. Jo made me a duplicate of
that picture you destroyed, and the fact that you never even mentioned
the Cupid overhead gave me hope!" and his own roguish look was in his
eyes as he saw Nattie's confusion, and laughing his merry laugh, he
clasped her in his arms.
"I beg pardon," said Cyn tapping, and entering after a cautious
interval, "But I come to inquire if Nat--I mean Nathalie--still thinks,
as she did an hour ago, that Clem and I are just suited to each other?"
Nattie laughed and blushed.
"You see I set my heart on this from the beginning," said Cyn to Clem,
not thinking it necessary to define to what "this" referred. "It was
such a perfect romance, you know! and she has been frightening me by
declaring that you were in love with me, and was so positive that she
almost made me believe it, notwithstanding my natural sagacity!"
"As I certainly should have been," replied Clem gallantly, "only for a
prior attachment. You see, I loved Nattie before ever I saw you! Why, I
used to pass the most of my time when at X n in wondering what she was
like, and wishing--I was as near her as I am now, for instance. And how
miserable I was, when she dropped me so suddenly! and how happy I was
when I came upon her at that blessed feast, and the red hair was all
explained away. And then came another cross on the circuit of my true
love."
"And had it not been for that _dear_ Betsey Kling with her invectives we
should have been mixed, and not had a cue now!" exclaimed Cyn. "I
declare, I could hug her!"
But Betsey Kling not being available just then, she substituted Nattie,
and gave her a most emphatic squeeze.
"It was your shot about the Torpedo that finished her, Cyn," laughed
Clem.
"It _was_ effective, I flatter myself," Cyn confessed. "And that reminds
me, you must not stay here now, Nat, you know; so I have seen Mrs.
Simonson, and you are going to live with me--for the present"--glancing
archly at her, "until that book is written, for instance."
"And it _will_ be written, now, I know!" said Nattie, earnestly, her eyes
shining. "You remember what you once said, Cyn? I see now you were
right."
"Yes;" said Cyn, seriously, "and thank Heaven that it was love, and not
disappointment, that came!"
"Love shall not come in vain!" Nattie said, as seriously. "I will be
worthy of it!"
The after years only could prove her words. But in Clem's face the
belief in them was written as plainly as if those future possibilities
were acknowledged results.
"We must have another feast to celebrate events!" Cyn said then, gayly.
"You are happy; my romance is O. K.; Celeste is ecstatic; Quimby as
joyful as circumstances permit the victim of mistake to be; Jo and I are
hopeful of future fame--and we certainly must have a feast!"
"With plenty of dishes this time," laughed Clem, "and there shall be no
more crosses on the wire!"
"But bless my heart!" ejaculated Cyn, "here you two are making love
like ordinary mortals"--at this Nattie hastily withdrew the hand Clem
had taken-- "Quimby and Celeste, for instance! This will never do! We
must end this romance of dots and dashes as it commenced, to make it
truly 'Wired Love!'"
"True enough! so we must!" answered Clem merrily, and rising, he went to
the "key," with his eyes looking straight into Nattie's, and wrote
something that made her blush and seize his hand in shy and unnecessary
alarm, saying,
"Suppose Jo should be over in your room! He might be able to read it!"
"Very well," replied Clem, as he laughed and kissed her, regardless of
the spectator. "I am quite content to make love like common mortals,
Cyn, and I hope, my darling Nattie, that we are done now with all
'breaks' and 'crosses,' as we are with Wired Love. Henceforth ours shall
be the pure, unalloyed article, genuine love!"
And Nattie, half-laughing, half-serious, but wholly glad, took the key
and wrote, "O. K."
If any one is anxious to know what Clem wrote when Nattie stopped him,
here it is.
MY LITTLE
DARLING
MY WIFE
[Transcriber's Note. The concluding three lines were printed in the
American Railroad dialect of Morse. It cannot easily be represented
in ASCII as it requires dashes of different lengths]
THE END