John Marvel, Assistant Part 54

It was a silly and inept ending, I knew as soon as I had finished--still, it conveyed my meaning.

She paused a moment and evidently started to look at me, but as evidently she thought better of it. She, however, murmured, "I thought we would quote verses, not make them."

I took this to be a confession that she was not able to make them, and I determined to show how much cleverer I was; so, without noticing the cut of the eye which told of her wavering, I launched out:

"There was a young lady of fashion, Who, finding she'd made quite a mash on A certain young swain, Who built castles in Spain, Fell straight in a terrible pa.s.sion."

To this she responded with a promptness which surprised me:

"A certain young lady of fashion, Had very good grounds for her pa.s.sion, It sprang from the pain Of a terrible strain On her friendship, and thus laid the lash on."

I felt that I must be equal to the situation, so I began rapidly:

"I'm sure the young man was as guiltless As infant unborn and would wilt less If thrown in the fire Than under her ire----"

"Than under her ire," I repeated to myself. "Than under the ire"--what the d.i.c.kens will rhyme with "wilt less"? We had reached the dining-room by this time and I could see that she was waiting with a provoking expression of satisfaction on her face over my having stalled in my attempt at a rhyme. I placed her in her chair and, as I took my own seat, a rhyme came to me--a poor one, but yet a rhyme:

"And since, Spanish castles he's built less,"

I said calmly as I seated myself, quite as if it had come easily.

"I was wondering how you'd get out of that," she said with a little smile which dimpled her cheek beguilingly. "You know you might have said,

"'And since, milk to weep o'er he's spilt less';

or even,

"'And since, striped mosquitoes he's kilt less.'

Either would have made quite as good a rhyme and sense, too."

I did not dare let her see how true I thought this. It would never do to let her make fun of me. So I kept my serious air.

I determined to try a new tack and surprise her. I had a few shreds of Italian left from a time when I had studied the poets as a refuge from the desert dulness of my college course, and now having, in a pause, recalled the lines, I dropped, as though quite naturally, Dante's immortal wail:

'Nessun maggior dolore Che recordarci del tempo felice Nella miseria.'

I felt sure that this would at least impress her with my culture, while if by any chance she knew the lines, which I did not apprehend, it would impress her all the more and might prove a step toward a reconciliation.

For a moment she said nothing, then she asked quietly, "How does the rest of it go?"

She had me there, for I did not know the rest of the quotation.

"'E ci sa il tuo dottore,'"

she said with a cut of her eye, and a liquid tone that satisfied me I had, as the saying runs, "stepped from the frying-pan into the fire."

She glanced at me with a smile in her eyes that reminded me, through I know not what subtle influence, of Spring, but as I was unresponsive she could not tell whether I was in earnest or was jesting.

I relapsed into silence and took my soup, feeling that I was getting decidedly the worst of it, when I heard her murmuring so softly as almost to appear speaking to herself:

"'The time has come,' the Walrus said, 'To talk of other things-- Of ships and shoes and sealing-wax, And cabbages and Kings.'"

I glanced at her to find her eyes downcast, but a beguiling little dimple was flickering near the corners of her mouth and her long lashes caught me all anew. My heart gave a leap. It happened that I knew my Alice much better than my Dante, so when she said, "You can talk, can't you?" I answered quietly, and quite as if it were natural to speak in verse:

"'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the Law, And argued each case with my wife, And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw Has lasted the rest of my life.'"

She gave a little subdued gurgle of laughter as she took up the next verse:

"'You are old,' said the youth. 'One would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever, Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose-- What made you so awfully clever?'"

I hoped that she was embarra.s.sed when I found that she had taken my napkin by mistake, and she was undoubtedly so when she discovered that she had it.

"I beg your pardon," she said as she handed me hers.

I bowed.

With that, seeing my chance, I turned and spoke to the lady on my other side, with whom I was soon in an animated discussion, but my attention was not so engrossed by her that I did not get secret enjoyment out of the fact when I discovered that the elderly man on the other side of Miss Leigh was as deaf as a post and that she had to repeat every word that she said to him.

The lady on the other side of me was rambling on about something, but just what, I had not the least idea (except that it related to the problem-novel, a form of literature that I detest), as I was soon quite engrossed in listening to the conversation between Eleanor Leigh and her deaf companion, in which my name, which appeared to have caught the gentleman's attention, was figuring to some extent.

"Any relation to my old friend, Henry Glave?" I heard him ask in what he doubtless imagined to be a whisper.

"Yes, I think so," said Miss Leigh.

"You say he is not?"

"No, I did not say so; I think he is."

"He is a fine lawyer," I heard him say, and I was just pluming myself on the rapid extension of my reputation, when he added, "He is an old friend of your father's, I know. I was glad to hear he had come up to represent your father in his case against those rascals.--A friend of yours, too," were the next words I heard, for decency required me to appear to be giving some attention to my other neighbor, whom I devoutly wished in Ballyhac, so I was trying resolutely, though with but indifferent success, to keep my attention on the story she was telling about some one whom, like Charles Lamb, I did not know, but was ready to d.a.m.n at a venture.

"He told me he came on your account, as much as on your father's," said the gentleman, rallyingly. "You had better look out. These old bachelors are very susceptible. No fool like an old fool, you know."

To this Miss Eleanor made some laughing reply, from which I gathered that her neighbor was a bachelor himself, for he answered in the high key which he mistook for a whisper:

"You had better not say that to me, for if you do, I'll ask you to marry me before the dessert."

I was recalled to myself by my other neighbor, who had been talking steadily, asking me suddenly, and in a tone which showed she demanded an answer:

"What do you think of that?"

"Why, I think it was quite natural," I said.

"You do?"

"Yes, I do," I declared firmly.

"You think it was natural for him to run off with his own daughter-in-law!" Her eyes were wide with astonishment.