ONLY AN INCIDENT.
The morning sun was streaming brilliantly in through the richly curtained
windows of a handsome New York dwelling. Mr. and Mrs. De Forest were
about sitting down to breakfast, which waited for them ready served, and
which indeed had been so waiting for some minutes. The butler coughed
behind his hand as a discreet reminder of his presence, and so indirectly
of the cooling dishes. The gentleman looked up from his easy-chair by the
fire and yawned.
"My dear, I've been up so long I think it's getting bedtime again."
"Just one moment, Ogden," answered the lady, from her desk. "I must send
off this note by the first mail."
"Any thing important?"
"Yes. I will not be put on that new committee. They _must_ find some one
else. My time is too full."
De Forest rose and stood with his back to the fire, looking complacently
at his wife. "What an odd sensation it must be--having one's time too
full! It's an experience I'm willing always to delegate to some one else.
Doesn't it feel rather like too tight shoes?"
Gerald laughed as she passed her husband to her seat at the table, and he
stood still watching her as she began pouring coffee. It was always a
pleasure to watch her. The butler drew out the gentleman's chair firmly.
It was time his master took his seat with his lady. There was too much of
this dilly-dallying. De Forest came lazily forward and seated himself.
"Any news?" asked Gerald.
"None whatever. It's a swindle to pay three cents for the _Herald_ in
such monotonous times. I was reduced to searching in your church paper to
see if by any chance something new had gotten lost in there."
"I hope you found it."
"I didn't. Not so much even as the death of someone I knew to cheer me.
There would have been variety at least in that. By the way, though, I
did see a familiar name among the personals,--just a notice that the Rev.
Denham Halloway had accepted a call to some church or other in some place
or other. He was quite a friend of yours, wasn't he, that summer before
we were married, when we were all in that odious little Joppa together?
How bored I was there!"
"Denham Halloway," repeated Gerald, musingly. "Denham Halloway. Why, I
don't believe I have thought of him since. But he was never any especial
friend of mine, you know."
"Ah, there was somebody else who managed to engross a great deal of your
time and most of your thoughts that summer, was there not, my dear, while
nobody but myself was bold enough to suppose that any impression had been
made on that frigid heart of yours? Well, I was perfectly fair. I left
your friend, Phebe, for Halloway."
"Poor little Phebe!" said Gerald, with softened eyes. "How long ago it
all seems. Poor dear little Phebe! I have never wanted to hear of Joppa
since her death. I feel as if she had given her life for it. Yes; I
don't suppose I have thought twice of Denham Halloway since."
Ah, so it was! That brief summer meeting, which had had so potent an
influence on the lives of those other two, had in her life been only
an incident.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Only an Incident, by Grace Denio Litchfield