CLARENCE SPEAKS.
Had Clarence Toxteth presented himself and his claims at the moment
when the lady of his choice, panting and angry, had just escaped from
the presence of her mother, his suit would have been disposed of in
the most summary manner. It has been somewhere remarked, however,
that women are creatures of changeable minds. By the time afternoon
and the Toxteth equipage had arrived, the maiden's heart had so far
relented, that she greeted her suitor as kindly as ever. As she rolled
along in the luxurious carriage, her nimble fancy busied itself in
picturing the future as it might be, if she chose to accept the man by
her side. The very keenness of the senses, the fineness of perception
which she possessed, made ready avenues by which temptations might
enter. With tastes which demanded luxury, with at once the love and
the knowledge of beauty, it was hard to deny herself the wealth which
would put these things within her reach. To one who had been long the
acknowledged leader among her associates, there was, too, a peculiar
temptation to accept the hand of the wealthiest man in the village,
making a brilliant match, and securing her position for the future.
The weakness of Patty's nature that afternoon asserted itself; and
all the way to Samoset she was rather silent, following in her mind a
brilliant will-o'-the-wisp, which shone and glistened indeed, but led
over dangerous morasses.
In the errand in relation to the costumes, the young people found
themselves unexpectedly delayed; so that the short October twilight was
already falling when they drove out of Samoset. By the time Wilk's Run
was reached, it was so dark, that, in the shadow of the carriage-top,
their faces were not visible to each other. As the gloom deepened, the
courage of the young man increased; and when at length he could not
see the eyes of his companion, he was able to speak the words which
had all the afternoon been jostling each other in eagerness to obtain
utterance. Unabashed with all others, Clarence found in Patty's clear
glances a penetration against the embarrassment of which he strove in
vain; but, that removed, he spoke.
"It may seem strange for me to say it," he began; "but I've quite made
up my mind that we should get along nicely together."
"Have you?" she returned, laughing, but secretly uneasy. "We have never
quarrelled, that I remember."
"Oh, no!" he answered, "of course not. I hope you don't think so meanly
of me as to believe I'd quarrel with you."
"No," she said, smiling to herself; "but I might have quarrelled with
you."
"I didn't mean that," said he. "But we get on so nicely together, that,
I say, why shouldn't we be always together, you know?"
He could hardly have chosen a more unfortunate phrase in which to
couch his proposal. There came over his companion a sickening sense of
what it would be to live always with the man at her side. He attempted
to embrace her with the arm not occupied with the reins; but she
shrank back into the farthest corner of the carriage, filled with the
bitterest self-contempt because she listened to him. This self-reproach
was his salvation. The sense of her own weakness in letting him
declare his passion, and of her dishonesty in keeping a silence which
he might interpret favorably, so overwhelmed her with detestation for
herself, that by contrast she for the moment almost regarded Clarence
as an injured angel of honesty and devotion. From this odd mingling
of feelings arose a sort of pity for her suitor; and, although she
answered nothing, she suffered him to say on.
"I love you," he continued, "and I should be a fool if I didn't know
that I have something to offer the girl who marries me."
"If I ever married," Patty answered in a constrained voice, "I
shouldn't marry for what a man could give me."
"If that is true," she added to herself, "why am I listening to him at
all? Oh, what a hypocrite I am!"
"Of course not," Toxteth said, answering the remark he heard. "But a
man is no worse for having a few dollars, is he?"
"I suppose not."
"Then, why do you not say that you will marry me?" he demanded almost
petulantly.
"I was not aware that you had asked me."
"I have, then. Will you?"
"I cannot tell," she said. "I cannot tell. Don't ask me to say more
now."
"I must say," he retorted, rather offended, "that I can't be very much
flattered by the way you talk."
"But you know how dreadfully sudden"--
The lie stuck in her throat, and refused to be uttered.
"Is it? How blind you must have been! Couldn't you see all summer that
I was smashed?"
Patty was conscious of a wild desire to strangle her lover, and then
fling herself under the wheels of the carriage. She longed to get
possession of the whip, and lash the gray span into a gallop.
"I am fearfully cold and hungry," she said, feigning a shiver. "Do
drive faster."
Clarence was ill pleased with the result of his wooing; yet the fact
that he had not been absolutely refused made it needful for him to
restrain his impatience. He whipped up his horses, and the carriage
bowled along the road in a way that at another time would have filled
Patty with delight. As it was, she was conscious of a passing thought
that it lay in her power to become the mistress of this dashing
equipage, and with the thought came fresh self-condemnation. At her
gate she was only coldly civil to Clarence, who drove away, and
relieved his feelings by swearing at his horses.
Patty ran up the path to the cottage like a hunted deer. She wanted to
get away from Toxteth, to escape as far as possible from the sound of
his voice, from the touch of his hand. On the piazza she encountered
Tom Putnam, who had been calling at the house.
"How late you are!" he said, taking both her hands in his. "How you
tremble! Do you think it prudent to ride in so thin wraps? We have all
been worrying about you."
"Let me go!" she exclaimed, snatching her hands from his grasp, and
half beside herself with shame and self-loathing. "Let me go! I hate
you!"
And she darted into the house.