forty years of age, who was toiling along on a bicycle, dressed in a
white skirt, a pink shirt-waist, and a straw sailor-hat. The Doctor
turned and bowed to this strange apparition, but the plump lady was too
fully occupied in her arduous task to be able to do more than gasp out:
"Good--after--noon--Doctor."
When they had gone one hundred yards ahead the Doctor's companion
expressed her surprise. "You do know the funniest people!" she cried.
"Who on earth was that?"
"That?" he echoed. "Oh, that's a patient of Dr. Cheever's. He advised
her to get a bicycle if she wanted to be thinner--"
"And he told me to get one if I wanted to be a little fatter!" the girl
interrupted. "Isn't that inconsistent?"
"I don't think so," the young man answered, glad that the conversation
had taken this impersonal turn, and yet wondering how he could twist it
to the point where he wanted it. "Outdoor exercise helps people to
health, you see, and if they are unhealthily fat it tends to thin them
down, and if they are very thin it helps them to put on flesh."
"I'd bike fourteen hours a day if I was a porpoise like that," said the
girl, glancing back at the plump struggler behind them.
Just then a horn tooted and a coach came around the next turn. There
were on it three or four girls in gay spring costumes, and two of them
bowed to Dr. Demarest.
Behind the four-in-hand followed a stylish victoria, in which sat a
handsome young woman alone. She was in black. Her somber face lighted
with a smile as she acknowledged the young doctor's bow.
"I've seen her somewhere," said the girl by his side. "Who is she?"
"That's Mrs. Cyrus Poole," he answered; "the widow of the Wall Street
operator who died two years ago."
"What lots of people you know," she commented.
"How is a young doctor to get on unless he knows lots of people?" was
his answer.
She said nothing for a minute or two, as they threaded their way through
a tangle of vehicles stretching along the northernmost drive of the
Park.
Then she asked: "Why is it that most of the women we have passed this
afternoon sitting back in their carriages look bored to death?"
"I suppose it's because they've got all they want," the Doctor
responded. "They have nothing left to live for; they have had
everything. That's what makes them so useful to our profession. They
send for us because they are bored, and they want sympathy. I suppose
everybody likes to talk about himself, especially when he's out of
sorts; now, you see, the family doctor can always be sent for, and it's
his business to listen to your account of your symptoms. That's what
he's paid for."
"I don't think that's a nice way of earning a living, do you?" returned
the girl.
"Oh, I don't know," he answered. "Why not? It's our duty to relieve
suffering, and these women are just suffering for a chance to describe
all their imaginary ailments."
"Women?" she cried, indignantly. "Are all these old fools women?"
"There must be men sometimes, I suppose," he replied; "but most of a
family physician's work is with the women, of course."
Then it seemed to him that he saw before him the opportunity he had been
awaiting. They were now climbing the hill at the northwestern corner of
the Park. He slowed up so that she should not be tempted to overexert
herself. He even went so far as to lag a little behind. When they began
to go down again gently, he came alongside.
"By the way," he began, "speaking of what a family physician has to do
reminds me that I want to ask your advice."
"My advice?" she echoed, with the light little laugh that thrilled
through him always. "Why, I don't know anything about medicine."
"It isn't a professional consultation I want," he answered, laughing
himself, "it's friendly counsel. Don't you remember that when you told
me you couldn't love me you went on to say you hoped we should always be
good friends?"
"Yes," she responded, calmly, "I remember that. And I hope that if I can
really show any friendliness in any way, you will let me."
"That's what I am coming to," he returned. "You know, I've been helping
Dr. Cheever as a sort of third man while Dr. Aspinwall has been ill?
Well, Dr. Aspinwall isn't getting any better, and he's got to quit for a
year, anyhow. So Dr. Cheever is going to take me with him--"
"Oh, I'm so glad!" she broke in, heartily. "That's splendid for you,
isn't it?"
"It will be splendid for me if I can keep the place and do the work to
his satisfaction," he answered.
"Oh, I guess Dr. Cheever knows what he is about," retorted the girl,
gaily. "He knows how clever you are."
"Thank you," the young man returned. "I felt sure you would be pleased,
because you have always been so kind to me."
He hesitated for a moment, and then continued: "I feel as if I owe you
an apology--"
"What for?" she asked, in surprise.
"For the way I behaved last time we--we had a talk," he answered.
"Oh, _then_," she commented; and it seemed to him that she had almost
made an effort to retain the non-committal expression she was affecting.
"You may remember," he went on, "that I asked you to marry me, and that
you refused, and that you told me you didn't love me at all, but you did
like me--"
"What's the use of going over all that again?" she asked.
"I must make myself right with you, Miss Minnie," he urged. "You said we
could be friends, and I was all broke up then, and I didn't know just
what I was saying, and I told you friendship wasn't any good to me, and
if I couldn't have you there wasn't anything else I wanted. I must have
been rude, indeed, and it has worried me ever since."
"I'll forgive you, if that's what you mean," she responded. "I hadn't
really thought about it twice. It isn't of any consequence."
"It is to me," he returned. "Now I've changed my mind, and if you will
offer the friendship again I'll accept it gladly."
"Why, Dr. Demarest!" she said, smiling, but with a flash in her gray
eyes, "of course we can be good friends, just as we have always been.
And now you needn't talk any more about this foolish misunderstanding."
So saying she started ahead. They had been climbing a hill, and now they
had on their left a broad meadow, gay with groups of tennis-players. At
an opening on the right a mounted policeman sat his horse as immovable
as an equestrian statue. Just before them were two gentlemen with
impatient trotters trying to get a clear space; and there was also a
double file of young men and girls from some riding-school, under the
charge of a robust German riding-master.
It was not for two or three minutes that Dr. Demarest was able to resume
his position by the side of Miss Contoit.
"I had to set myself right," he began, abruptly, "because if we really
are friends I want you to help me."
"I shall be very glad, I'm sure," she replied. "I've told you so
already."
"But what I want is something very serious," he continued.
"What is it?" she asked, drawing away from him a little.
"It's advice," he explained.
She gave a light laugh of relief. "Oh, _advice_," she repeated; "anybody
can give advice."
"Not the advice I want," he responded, gravely. "It's a very solemn
thing for me, I can assure you."
"And what is this very solemn thing?" she inquired, airily.
"It's marriage," he answered. "I've got to get married, and--and--"
"Don't let's go back to that again," she said, with frank impatience. "I
thought we had settled that once for all."
"Oh, I didn't mean you," he returned, apologetically.
"You didn't mean me?" she repeated, in amazement. "Why, I thought--well,
it's no matter what I thought, of course."
"I'm afraid I'm getting things all mixed up," he said, calmly. "Of
course, you are the only woman I love, and the only woman I ever shall
love. I told you that the last time we met, and you told me that you
didn't love me--so that settled it."
"Well?" she interrogated.
"Well, if I can't have what I want," he explained, "I'd better get what
I need."
"I confess I do not know what you are talking about," she declared.
"It's simple enough," he returned. "I'm a doctor, and I'm young--I'm
only thirty--and I haven't a bald spot yet, so people think I'm even
younger than I am, and they haven't confidence in it. So I've got to get
married."
The girl laughed out merrily. "Can't you get a bald spot any other way?"
she asked.
"If I have a wife I don't need a bald spot," he responded. "A wife is a
warrant of respectability. Every doctor will tell you that's the way
patients feel. I'm tired of going to see some old woman for Dr. Cheever,
and sending up my card and overhearing her say: 'I won't see him! I
don't want Dr. Demarest! I sent for Dr. Cheever, and it's Dr. Cheever I
want to see!' That has happened to me, and not only once or twice,
either."
"How could any woman be so unlady-like?" the girl asked, indignantly.
"She must have been a vulgar old thing!"
"There's more than one of her in New York," the young doctor asserted,
"and that's one reason why I've got to get married. And between you and
me, I think my chance of staying with Dr. Cheever would be better if I
had a wife. Of course, he doesn't say so, but I can't help knowing what
he thinks."
The girl made no comment on this, and they rode along side by side. They
were now on the crest of a hill, and they overlooked the broad expanse
of the reservoir. The almost level rays of the sinking sun thrust
themselves through the leafy branches and made a rosy halo about her
fair head.
"So that's why I've come to you for advice," he began again.
"But I don't see what good my advice will be to you," she returned. "You
don't expect me to pick out a wife for you, do you?"
"Well, that's about it!" he admitted.
"The idea!" she retorted. "Why, it's perfectly absurd!"
"So long as I cannot get the girl I love, marriage ceases to be a matter
of sentiment with me," he went on, stolidly. "I come to you as a friend
who knows girls--knows them in a way no man can ever know them. I want
your help in selecting a woman who will make a good wife for a doctor."
"How do you know she will have you?" she thrust at him.
"Of course, I don't know," he admitted. "I can't know till I try, can I?
And if at first I don't succeed I must try, try again. If the one you
pick out refuses me I'll have to get you to pick out another."
"So it's a mere marriage of convenience you are after?" the girl asked.
"That's all very well for you, no doubt; but how about the woman who
marries you? I don't think it's a very nice lookout for her, do you?
That's just the way with you men always! You never think about the
woman's feelings!"
"I'll do my duty to her," he answered.
"Your _duty_!" sniffed the girl, indignantly.
"I'll be so attentive to her that she will never guess my heart is given
to another," he went on.
"Don't be too sure of that," she returned. "Women have very sharp
eyes--sharper than you men think--especially about a thing like that!"
"I am not going to borrow trouble," the Doctor declared, suavely. "I
shall always be as nice to her as I can, and if it is in my power to
make her happy, then she will be happy. But we needn't anticipate. What
I want you to do now is to help me to find the right woman. It will be
my business to take care of her afterward."
"Oh, very well," said the girl, rather sharply. "Have you anybody in
particular in view?"
"I haven't really fixed on anybody yet," he explained. "I wanted your
advice first, for I'm going to rely on that. I feel sure you won't let
me make a mistake about a matter so important to me."
"Then don't let's waste any time!" she cried, peremptorily.
"Really," he declared, "it's astonishing how a little bit of a thing
like you can be so bossy." She looked at him fiercely, so he made haste
to add, "But I like it--I like it!"
The girl laughed, but with a certain constraint, so it seemed to him.
"Come, now," she said, "if I must help you, let me see your list of
proposed victims!"
"Do you know Dr. Pennington, the rector of St. Boniface's, in
Philadelphia?" he began. "Well, he has two daughters--nice girls, both
of them--"
"Which one do you want?" asked the girl. "The tall one who squints, or
the fat one with red hair?"
"Come, now," he returned, "she doesn't really squint, you know."
"Call it a cast in her eye if you like; I don't mind. It isn't anything
to me," she asserted. "Is it the tall one you want?"
"I don't care," he answered.
"You don't care?" she repeated.
"No," he returned; "that's why I've come to you. I don't care. Which one
do you recommend?"
"I don't recommend either of them!" she responded, promptly. "I
shouldn't be a true friend if I let you throw yourself away on one of
those frights!"
"I'll give them up, if you say so," said he; "but I've always heard that
they are good, quiet girls--domesticated, you know--and--"
"Who is next?" she pursued, with a return of her arbitrary manner.
"Well," he suggested, bashfully, "I haven't any reason to suppose she
would look at me, and it sounds so conceited in me to suggest that such
a handsome woman--and so rich, too--would listen to me, but--"
"Who is this paragon?" his companion demanded.
"Didn't I mention her name?" he responded. "I thought I had. We passed
her only a little while ago--Mrs. Poole."
"Mrs. Poole?" the girl replied. "That was the sick-looking creature in
black lolling back in a victoria, wasn't it?"
"She isn't sick, really," he retorted; "but I don't think mourning is
becoming to her. Of course, if we are married she will wear colors
and--"
"I didn't know you were willing to take up with a widow!" she
interrupted, with a slight touch of acerbity. "I thought it was a girl
you were looking for!"
"It was a wife of some sort," he replied. "I don't know myself what
would suit me best. That's why I am consulting you. I'm going to rely on
your judgment--"
"But you mustn't do that!" she cried.
"It is just what I've got to do!" he insisted. "And if you think it
would be a mistake for me to marry a widow, why--it's for you to say."
"I must say that I think it would be a great mistake for a doctor to
marry a woman who looks as if she couldn't live through the week," she
responded. "I should suppose it would ruin any physician's practice to
have a wife as woebegone as that Mrs. Poole! Of course, I don't know
her, and I've nothing to say against her, and she may be as beautiful
and as charming as you say she is."
"I give her up at once," he declared, laughing. "She shall never even
know how near she came to having a chance to reject me."
"Is that all?" the girl asked, a little spitefully. "Have you anybody
else on your list?"
"I have only just one more," he replied.
"Who is she?" was the girl's quick question.
"I'm not sure that you have met her," he returned. "She's from the South
somewhere, or the Southwest, I don't know--"
"What's her name?" was the impatient query.
"Chubb," he answered. "It's not a pretty name, is it? But that doesn't
matter if I'm to persuade her to change it."
"Chubb?" the girl repeated, as though trying to recall the name. "Chubb?
Not Virgie Chubb?"
"Her name is Virginia," he admitted.
The girl by his side laughed a little shrilly. "Virgie Chubb?" she
cried. "That scrawny thing?"
The Doctor confessed that Miss Chubb was not exactly plump.
"Not plump? I should think not, indeed," the girl declared. "Do you know
what Miss Marlenspuyk said about her? She said that Virgie Chubb looked
like a death's-head on a toothpick! That's what she said!"
They were approaching the Mall, and the Doctor knew that his time was
now very brief. They had to slow up just then, as a policeman was
conveying across the broad road three or four nurses with a
baby-carriage or two, and then they had to steer clear of half a dozen
working-men going home across the Park, with pipes in their mouths and
dinner-pails swinging in their hands.
"So you don't think Miss Chubb would be a good wife for me?" he
inquired.
"I have nothing to say at all! It isn't really any of my business!" she
replied. "It is simply absurd of you to ask me!"
"But you must help me out," he urged. "So far you have only told me that
I mustn't marry any of the girls I had on my list."
"I don't want to see you throw yourself away," she returned. "A pretty
kind of a friend I should be if I encouraged you to marry your Virgie
Chubb and your Widow Poole!"
"That's it, precisely," he asserted; "that's why I've come to you. Of
course, I don't want to throw myself away. Your advice has been
invaluable to me--simply invaluable. But so far you have only shown me
how it is that none of these girls will suit. That brings me no nearer
my object. I've simply got to have a wife."
"I don't see why you need be in such a hurry," she replied.
"I must, I must!" he retorted. "And there's one more girl I haven't
mentioned so far--"
"You've kept her to the last!" she snapped.
"Yes, I've kept her to the last, because I haven't any right even to
hope that she would have me. She is not a widow, and she hasn't a cast
in her eye, and she is neither fat nor scrawny; she is just a lovely
young girl--"
"You speak of her with more enthusiasm than you did of any of the
others," she broke in. "Do I know her?"
"You ought to know her," he answered; "but I doubt if you think as well
of her as I do."
"Who is she?" was her swift question.
"You won't be offended?" he asked.
"Of course not! How absurd! Why should I be offended?" she responded.
"Who is she? Who is she?"
The Doctor answered seriously, and with a quaver of emotion in his
voice, "She is the girl I have loved for a long time, and her name is
Minnie Contoit!"
The girl did not say anything. Her face was as pale as ever, but there
was a light in the depths of her cool gray eyes.
"Listen to me once more, Minnie!" implored the young fellow by her side.
"You say that none of these other girls will suit me, and I knew that
before you said it. I knew that you are the only girl I ever wanted. You
promised me your friendship the last time we talked this over, and now
I've had a chance to tell you how much I need a wife I have hoped you
would look at the matter in a clearer light."
She said nothing. He gave a hasty glance backward and he saw that her
father and her grandfather were only a hundred yards or so behind them.
The reddening sunset on their right cast lengthening shadows across the
road. The spring day was drawing to an end, and the hour had come when
he was to learn his fate forever.
"Minnie," he urged once more, "don't you think it is your duty--as a
friend, you know--to give me the wife I ought to have?"
She looked at him, and laughed nervously, and then dropped her eyes.
"Oh, _well_," she said at last, "if I must!"
(1900)
[Illustration: In a Hansom]
There were two men in the cab as it turned into Fifth Avenue and began
to skirt the Park on its way down-town. One of them was perhaps fifty;
he had grizzled hair, cold, gray eyes, and a square jaw. The other
appeared to be scant thirty; he had soft brown eyes, and a soft brown
mustache drooped over his rather irresolute mouth. The younger man was
the better-looking of the two, and the better dressed; and he seemed
also to be more at home in New York, while the elder was probably a
stranger in the city--very likely a Westerner, if the black slouch hat
was a true witness.
They sat side by side in silence, having nothing to say, the one to the
other. The shadows that were slowly stretching themselves across the
broad walk on the Park side of the Avenue shivered as the spring breeze
played with the tender foliage of the trees that spread their ample
branches almost over the wall. The languid scent of blossoming bushes
was borne fitfully beyond the border of the Park. To the eyes of the
younger of the two men in the hansom the quivering play of light and
shade brought no pleasure; and he had no delight in the fragrance of the
springtime--although in former years he had been wont to thrill with
unspoken joy at the promise of summer.
The elder of the two took no thought of such things; it was as though he
had no time to waste. Of course, he was aware that winter followed the
fall, and that summer had come in its turn; but this was all in the
day's work. He had the reputation of being a good man in his business;
and although the spring had brought no smile to his firm lips, he was
satisfied with his success in the latest task intrusted to him. He had
in his pocket a folded paper, signed by the Governor of a State in the
Mississippi Valley, and sealed with the seal of that commonwealth; and
in the little bag on his knees he carried a pair of handcuffs.
As the hansom approached the Plaza at the entrance to the Park, the
gray-eyed Westerner caught sight of the thickening crowd, and of the
apparent confusion in which men and women and children were mixed,
bicycles and electric cabs, carriages and cross-town cars, all weltering
together; and he wondered for a moment whether he had done wisely in
allowing so much apparent freedom to his prisoner. He looked right and
left swiftly, as though sizing up the chances of escape, and then he
glanced down at the bag on his knees.
"You needn't be afraid of my trying to run," said the younger man. "What
good would it do me? You've caught me once, and I don't doubt you could
do it again."
"That's so," returned the other, with just a tinge of self-satisfaction
in his chilly smile. "I shouldn't wonder if I could."
"Besides, I don't want to get away now," insisted the first speaker.
"I've got to face the music sooner or later, and I don't care how quick
the brass band strikes up. I want to take my punishment and have it
over. That's what I want. I'm going to plead guilty and save the State
the trouble of trying me, and the expense, too. That ought to count in
cutting down the sentence, oughtn't it? And then I shall study the rules
of--of that place, and I mean to learn them by heart. There won't be
anybody there in a greater hurry to get out than I, and so I'm going to
be a model of good conduct."
"It ain't every fellow that talks like that who's able to keep it up,"
commented the officer of the law.
"I guess I can, anyhow," replied his prisoner. "I've made up my mind to
get this thing over as soon as possible, and to have a little life left
for me when I'm let out."
The elder man made no answer. He thought that his companion was sincere
and that there would be no attempt to escape, whatever the opportunity.
But his experience trained him to take no chances, and he did not relax
his vigilance.
A horn sounded behind him; and a minute later a four-in-hand passed with
tinkling chains and rumbling wheels. The top of the coach was filled
with elaborately attired men and with girls in all the gayety of their
spring gowns; and they seemed to be having a good time. They did not
mean to hurt the younger of the two men in the hansom; they did not
know, of course; but just then their mirth smote him to the heart.
Fifth Avenue is an alluring spectacle late in the afternoon of the first
Saturday in June; and when the hansom-cab topped the crest of a hill,
the two men could see far down the vista of the broad street. The
roadway was a solid mass of vehicles in ceaseless motion; and the
sidewalks were filled with humanity. To the man who was being taken to
his trial the bright color and the brisk joyousness of the scene were
actually painful. Of the countless men and women scattered up and down
the Avenue in the glaring sunshine, how many knew him to call him by
name and to take him by the hand? More than a hundred, no doubt, for he
had been popular. And how many of them would give him a second thought
after they had read of his arrest and of his trial and his sentence?
How many of them would miss him?--would be conscious even of his
absence? And he recalled the disgust of a friend who had gone around the
world, and had come back after a year or more with picturesque stories
of his wanderings in far countries, only to have the first man he met in
his club ask him casually where he'd been "for the last week or so."
[Illustration: THIS YEAR THE GIRLS WERE PRETTIER THAN USUAL]
And now he, too, was going to a strange land; and he foresaw that when
he returned--if he ever got back alive!--he would not know what to
answer if any one should inquire where he had been for the last week or
so. The world was a bitterly selfish place where men had no time to
think except of themselves. If a fellow could not keep up with the
procession, he had to drop out of the ranks and be glad if the rest of
them did not tramp over him. He knew how hard he had tried not to be
left behind, and how little the effort had profited him.