A Woman Named Smith Part 25

"One army blanket, except in extremely cold weather," said the doctor. "Do you like a pipe?"

"It always makes me sick. I peculiarly and particularly loathe and detest a pipe."

"A pipe, my dear, deluded woman, is a comfort, a stay, a prop to a man's soul, an aid to meditation and repose. I insist upon a pipe--within moderation, of course. Do you like parrots? Sophy, are you capable of supporting a parrot? I have already perceived your reprehensible fondness for cats." He looked at his scratched hand.

"I have always wanted a parrot. I think they're the most--"

"d.a.m.nable brutes!" finished the doctor. "Gad, I'd as lief live in the house with Sophronisba One! It is not moral to like a parrot.

What do you think of stewed rhubarb?"

I made a wry face. I abhor stewed rhubarb. Somehow, it always makes me think of orphans in long-waisted gingham dresses with white china b.u.t.tons down the back. One way of punishing children for losing their parents is to make them wear dark gingham dresses with china b.u.t.tons down the back and to eat stewed rhubarb for dessert.

"Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are," p.r.o.nounced the doctor. "It's a sign of moral rect.i.tude to eat stewed rhubarb.

Now, as to science: what is your att.i.tude toward evolution?"

"Well, I think plenty of men turn themselves into monkeys, but I refuse to believe that G.o.d ever turned a monkey into a man."

"Ha!" mused the doctor, pulling his nose; "I see! Do you insist upon a sacrosanct meal hour? Are your meal hours fixed, even as the laws of the Medes and the Persians?"

"How else, pray, shall one run one's house with any degree of system?" I wanted to know.

"Bunk!" snorted the doctor. "_I_ eat when I'm hungry! Now, lastly, sister, tell me truthfully: are you a Democrat or a Republican?"

"I don't see much difference: they're both of them nothing but _men_."

"I knew it!" The doctor shook his head with sad triumph. "She'd scratch Brown, because she didn't like the expression of his ears, and vote for Jones, because he had such beautiful whiskers! My dear, dear woman, can't you see that it's almost a law of nature for you and me, who don't agree about anything, to marry each other?"

"I don't even agree with you as to that!" said I, and fell into helpless laughter.

"It rather looks like flying in the face of Providence not to," he warned me. "In the meantime--"

"In the meantime, let us be grateful Alicia didn't put the notion into your head to ask somebody who might have taken you seriously."

"That means you don't, and won't." He drew a long breath. "But we're good friends; aren't we, Sophy?"

"If a man never does anything worse than ask a woman to marry him, he will probably retain her friendship until she dies," I replied.

"Provided she refuses him," the doctor said, gratefully. And bending down, he kissed me brotherly on the cheek, an honest and resounding smack; at which opportune moment Alicia walked in.

Wholly unabashed, the doctor spoke pleasantly to Alicia, shook hands with me effusively, and went off whistling. All was right with the world. I'd refused him, you understand! Instead of being enraged and offended, I found myself giggling.

That night, as Alicia didn't come in my room, I went into hers.

"I know what you've come to tell me, Sophy dear," she said, directly. "I've seen it for some time. And I'm glad as glad--glad with all my heart, Sophy." Her voice was tenderness itself, her eyes melted. But the hand on my hand was cold. "I love you a great deal, Sophy," she whispered. "More than anybody else in the world, I think."

"And was it because you loved me, dear girl, that you put the absurd notion of asking me to marry him into Doctor Geddes's head?"

"Absurd notion?" repeated Alicia. "Absurd notion? But he asked you!

Didn't he ask you?"

"As to that, he told me I could marry him if I wanted to," I admitted. "Oh, Leetchy, it was funny, though! If you could have seen the poor dear, trying to martyr himself, just to oblige you--"

"You _refused_ him?" breathlessly.

"Of course. There wasn't anything to say but 'No.'"

"But--I saw--"

"You saw him kiss me on the cheek? Honey, that wasn't love: that was grat.i.tude!"

"I don't understand!" stammered Alicia, twisting her hands. "Why, you cared for him--I thought you cared."

"Of course I care for him! But not like that! Good heavens, Alicia, however did you get such a notion? My dear, if I loved you less, or him more, I should never, never be able to forgive either of you. As it is, we'll forget it."

At that Alicia began to cry.

"Oh, what have I done?" she whimpered. "Sophy, you don't know--what I've done!"

"You haven't done anything that can't be undone," said I, comfortably. "You and I, my dear, fell into a Hynds House maze. Now we're out of it!" And thinking she would be better by herself, I kissed her good night.

Out of Hynds House maze, indeed! I had only to step back into my own room to have it again enmesh me. For on the prie-dieu that had once held Freeman Hynds's Bible and now held mine, was the lost diary.

CHAPTER XIII

FIRES OF YESTERDAY

I wasn't frightened, of course. There isn't anything terrifying in finding a little old leather-covered book on a prie-dieu by one's bedside. But it was some minutes before I could induce myself to take up that yellowed old diary and examine it.

It begins the year of Freeman's return from college, "a Finish'd Young Gentleman." He has refused to go abroad, considering that "our Young Gentlemen have enough Fripperies & Fopperies at Home without bringing worse Ones from Abroad." Brother Richard has been abroad more than once, and Freeman does not "find him Improv'd save in Outer Elegancies."

The only person that "much Travelling hath not Spoil'd," he finds, is Mistress Emily Hope of Hope Plantation. "Shee was a Sweet Child,"

he remembers; and now that the dew of their youth is upon them both, he finds her "of a Graceful and Delicate Shape, with the Most Beautiful Countenance in the World, a Sweet & Modest Demeanour, a Sprightly Wit, an Accomplish'd Mind, & a Heart Fix'd upon Virtue."

The estates are near each other, the families intimate friends.

Emily seems to like the boy. At any rate, she doesn't repel him. And then returns Richard--the gay, the handsome, the irresistible Richard--who adds to the stalwart comeliness of a colonial gentleman the style, the grace, the cultivated manners of the Old World.

Almost fiercely Freeman notes the effect he produces, and how "Women do catch an Admiration for him as't were a Pox."

Then he begins to set down, grimly, "The Sums my Father hath paid for My Brother's Debts." A little later, he adds: "You Might Pour the Atlantic Ocean full of Gold through his Pocketts & Overnight would He empty Them." Richard, also, "Makes Choice of rake-h.e.l.l Companions," to his father's growing unease and indignation, his mother's distress. But "Good G.o.d! how is all Forgiven the Beautiful, the Gift'd!"

"Jezebel herself, that carries her Head so High, wears her Heart upon her Sleeve, een like a simple Milkmaid! 'Tis a Rare Spectacle.

Sure there's a Fatality about this Man!"