Elliott paced back and forth with his hands in his pockets--a symptom
of nervousness which women mistake for deep thought; "Belle," he said
suddenly, "I have always liked you. You have so much more sense than
most girls. I am not going to flatter you, but you are the only woman
I ever saw who seemed to be a reasonable being. What I want to ask is,
will you try it with me?"
Miss Marshall opened her brown eyes in amazement. Since she left
boarding-school, the approach of the Elliott planet had materially
confused her orbit. She had often dreamed of the offer of Tom's heart
and hand, but for once, the consensus of masculine opinion to the
contrary, a woman was surprised by a proposal.
"What on earth do you mean?" she gasped.
"Just this. You and I are congenial, of an equal station in life, and
I believe we could be happy together--happier than the average married
couple. There's no foolish sentimentality about it; we know each other,
and that is enough."
There was a terrific thumping going on in the region where Miss
Marshall had mentally located her heart. She took refuge in that
platitude of her sex which goads an ordinary lover to desperation.
"This is so sudden, Mr. Elliott! I must take time to consider."
"Very well, take your own time. I'll be a good husband to you, Belle,
if you'll only give me the chance."
In the solitude of her "den" Belle Marshall gave the matter serious
consideration. Safely intrenched behind a formal proposal, she admitted
to herself that she loved him--a confession that no woman ever should
make until the Rubicon has been crossed. But even the most love-blinded
damsel could not transfigure Elliott's demeanour into that of a lover.
Within her reach, in a secret drawer, was a pile of impassioned letters
and a withered rose; on her desk a photograph of a handsome face,
which she had last seen white to the lips with pain. He had called her
cruel, and she had smiled faintly at the Harvard pin which she wore,
and bade him go.
Then there was another, of whom Belle did not like to think, though she
went to his grave sometimes with a remorseful desire to make some sort
of an atonement. He was only a boy--and some women know what it is to
be loved by a boy.
She compared the pleading of the others with Elliott's business-like
offer, and wondered at the severity of fate. Then she wrote a note:
"Miss Marshall accepts with pleasure, Mr. Elliott's kind invitation
to become his wife," and sent it by a messenger. Before burning her
relics, as an engaged girl should, she sat down to look them over once
more. With a Spartan-like resolve she at last put every letter and
keepsake into the sacrificial flames. When it was over she sighed, for
she had nothing left but memory and the business like promise of the
morning: "I'll be a good husband to you, Belle, if you'll only give me
a chance."
Her note would doubtless be answered in person, and she donned a
pretty white gown, that she might not keep him waiting. She vainly
tried to tone down her flushed cheeks with powder. "You are a nice sort
of girl," she said to herself, "for a reasonable marriage."
Just then the door-bell rang, and she flew to answer the summons.
There was no one else in the house, the coast was clear and she was an
engaged girl. She started in surprise, as Elliott walked solemnly on by
her, after she had closed the door.
"Nice afternoon," he said.
There was no doubt about it; Miss Marshall had expected to be kissed.
Still unable to speak, she followed him into the parlour. He turned
to offer her a chair and instantly read her thought. "You need fear
nothing of the kind from me," he said in a blundering way, which men
consider a high power of tact. "It's not hygienic, and is a known cause
of disease. Above all things, let us be sensible."
"You got my note?" she enquired faintly.
"Yes, and I came to thank you for the honour conferred upon me. I
assure you, I fully appreciate it--more, perhaps, than I can make you
understand."
Throughout his call he was dignified and friendly, but she was in a
state of nervous excitement which bordered on hysteria.
"You are nervous and overwrought," he said in a friendly way. "Perhaps
I would better go. I'll come again soon, and you shall name the day,
and we will make plans for our future."
He shook hands in parting, and Belle ran up-stairs as if her life
depended upon it. Once in her own room, she locked the door, then threw
herself down among her sofa pillows in a passion of tears.
"A--cause--of--_disease_--of--_disease_," she sobbed. "Oh, the--brute!"
She had kept her lips for her husband, and the wound went deep. When
she descended the stairs, calm and collected, her eyes were set and
resolute, and there was a look around her mouth that boded ill for Mr.
Thomas Elliott, of Harvard, '94.
The next day he asked her to drive.
"I don't want to hurry you in the least," he said, "and the time is
left to you. Only tell me a little time before, that is all. And Belle,
remember this: I am going to be perfectly and absolutely truthful with
you, and I expect you to be the same with me."
It was not long before she found out that he meant what he said.
"Do I look nice?" she asked him one evening, when they were starting
for the theatre.
"I am sorry to say that you do not," answered Elliott. "You've got too
much powder on your nose, and that hat is a perfect fright."
Her eyes flashed, but she said nothing. Offering him her handkerchief
she commanded him to "wipe off the powder," and Elliott did so,
wondering in a half-frightened way, what the mischief was the matter
with Belle.
They were early, and sauntered along the brilliantly lighted street,
with plenty of time to look into the shop windows. One firm had filled
its largest window with ties of a dashing red.
"I think I'll get one of those," Tom said. "They're stylish just now,
and I think it would be becoming, don't you?"
"No, I don't," she answered promptly. "Only a man with a good
complexion can wear one of those things!"
Tom had always thought his dark clear skin was one of his best points,
and that Belle should insinuate that it wasn't, hurt his pride. Neither
spoke until they entered the theatre; then man-like he said the worst
thing possible.
"That's a pretty girl over there," inclining his head toward a blond
beauty. "I always liked blonds, didn't you?"
Belle was equal to the occasion. "Yes, I always liked blond men; I
don't care so much for the girls."
Elliott's lower jaw dropped thoughtfully. He was as dark as Egypt,
himself.
Neither enjoyed the play.
"Seeing it a second time has spoiled it for me," Tom said. "I took Miss
Davis last week and we both enjoyed it very much."
Belle's stony silence at last penetrated Tom's understanding.
"There's no reason why I shouldn't take another girl to the theatre,"
he explained, "just because I happen to be engaged to you. It isn't
announced yet, and won't be until you are willing. And you know it
doesn't change my regard for you in the least to go with any one else.
You are welcome to the same freedom."
A great light broke in upon Belle. The next time he called she had
gone to play tennis with a Yale man. He saw them laughing and chatting
a little way down the street, and the owner of the blue sweater
was carrying her racket. Tom was angry, for the Yale man was an
insufferable cad, and she had no business to go with him. He would
speak to her about it.
On the way home, he wisely decided to say nothing about it. Perhaps
Belle wasn't as fully accustomed to being guided by reason as he was,
though she was an unusually sensible girl. He must be gentle with her
at first; she would grow by degrees.
Acting on this impulse, he took his cherished copy of Spencer's
_Ethics_ and presented it to her.
"You'll like this," he said, "after you have got into it, and it will
help you amazingly about reasoning."
A well-developed white arm threw the Spencer vigorously against the
side of the house. Elliott was surprised, for a woman like this was
utterly outside the pale of his experience. Perhaps she didn't feel
well. He put his arm around her.
"What is it, Belle?" he asked anxiously.
The singular phenomena increased in intensity, for Belle jerked away
from him, with her eyes blazing.
"How dare you touch me?" she said, and walked like an empress out of
the room.
Inside of ten minutes the idea came to Elliott that she did not intend
to return until he left the house. Her handkerchief lay on the table,
and he picked it up. He looked carefully into the hall, and saw no one.
Then the apostle of reason put the handkerchief into his pocket and
walked out of the room to the front door, then slowly down the street,
still in a brown study. "What could a young woman mean by such vigorous
hints of displeasure?" Four years at college had taught him nothing of
women and their peculiar ways, and he was evidently on the wrong track.
It wasn't reasonable to humour her in such tantrums, but he sent a box
of roses by way of a peace offering, and received in return a note
which emboldened him to call.
An old-time friendly chat put them on an equal footing again, and
Elliott grew confidential.
"Every thought of mine rightfully belongs to you, I suppose," he said
one day.
"Every thought of mine _is_ of you," she replied softly, and he watched
the colour in her cheeks with a sensation akin to pleasure.
He thought about it in the night afterward. It was nice for a fellow
to know that a girl like Belle thought of him often. If it had been a
proper thing to do, he wouldn't have minded kissing her when she said
it, for he had never seen her look so pretty.
The Yale man had gone back to college and Elliott settled down in
business with his father. He and Belle were the best of friends, and
he looked forward with increasing pleasure to the day which she had
not yet named. He planned a European tour which he was sure would both
surprise and please her. He did not intend to mention it until after
the ceremony.
Surely no lover ever had a more reasonable and attractive path to
travel. Belle was everything that could be desired. When his visits
were infrequent, she did not seem to miss him, and--rarest quality in
woman!--never asked him any questions as to the way in which he had
spent the time away from her.
Tom felt like a pioneer who had emancipated his sex by applying the
test of reason to every duty and pleasure in life.
The summer waned, and beside the open fire in the long cool evenings
she seemed doubly attractive. In a friendly way, he took her hand in
his, as they sat in front of the flaming brushwood, then started in
surprise.
"What is it?" she asked.
"The queerest thing," Tom answered. "When I touched your hand just now,
I felt a funny little quiver run up that arm to my elbow. Did you ever
feel a thing like that?"
Belle forsook the path of absolute truth.
"No, how queer!"
"Isn't it?" He took her hand again, but the touch brought no answering
thrill. "Must have been my imagination, or a chill," commented Tom.
Alone in her room, Miss Marshall laughed softly to herself.
"Imagination, or a chill! What a dear funny stupid thing a man is!"
Sunday evenings Tom invariably spent with Belle. When he called on the
first evening of the following week, he was astonished to find that she
had gone to church with the Yale man. Mrs. Marshall explained to him
that it was the young man's farewell visit; his mother had been ill and
he had been unexpectedly called home, thus giving him a few days with
old friends.
[Illustration: He saw them laughing and chatting a little way down the
street, and the owner of the blue sweater was carrying her racket.
_From the Drawing by Dalton Stevens._]
"Must be very ill," said Tom ironically, under his breath, as he went
back to his cheerless room.
There was a queer tightness somewhere in his chest which he had never
felt before and it seemed to be connected in some way with the Yale
man. He slept fitfully and dreamed of Belle in a little house, with an
open fire in the parlour, where he would be a welcome guest and the
alumni of the other colleges would be denied admittance. He was tempted
to remonstrate with her, but had no reasonable ground for doing so.
They would be married shortly and then the matter would end.
The next time he went to see her, the peculiar tightness appeared in
his chest again, and he could hardly answer her cheerful greetings. He
noted that she had acquired a Yale pin, which flaunted its ugly blue
upon her breast. He trembled violently as he sat down and drops of
perspiration stood out on his brow. She was alarmed and brought him a
glass of water. As she stood over him, the womanly concern in her face
touched him not a little, and he threw his arms around her and drew her
down to him.
"Kiss me once, Belle," he pleaded hoarsely.
With a violent effort she freed herself.
"It's not hygienic," she explained, "and frequently causes disease."
Tom stared at her in open-mouthed wonder, and soon after took his
departure.
Once inside his room, he sat down to close analysis of himself. He had
been working too hard, and was temporarily unbalanced. She was quite
right in saying that it caused disease; such a thing must not happen.
His reason had been impaired by long hours in the office; otherwise he
would never have thought of doing such a foolish, unreasonable thing.
In the morning he received a note from her. She had been summoned to
the bedside of a sick sister, and would be away from home as long as
she was needed.
The next month was a long one for Tom. He was surprised to find how
much of his life could be filled by a woman. After they were married
there would be no such separations. He wrote regularly and received
in return such brief notes as her duties permitted her to write. Then,
for a week, none came, and he went to her home to see what news had
been received there. The servant admitted him, half smiling, and in
white house gown, by the open fire he saw Belle. She had never seemed
so sweet and womanly, and with a cry he could not repress, he caught
her in his arms. She struggled, but in vain, and at last gave her lips
willingly to his. In that minute Tom learned more than all his college
course had taught him. Utterly unconscious of his own temerity, he
kissed her again and again. The little white figure was silent in his
arms, and bending low he whispered a word which no reasonable man would
ever be caught using.
Her face shining with tears, Belle looked up.
"Tom," she said, "do you love me?"
"Love you!" he said slowly. "Why--I guess--I must."
She laughed happily and he drew her closer.
"Dear little girl," he said tenderly, "do you love me?"