The Wit and Humor of America Volume X Part 9

Tell me the first syllable of your name. Then the rest will come with a rush."

"My name is Matilda Muggins."

"I've a great mind to punish your untruthfulness by pretending to believe you," said he. "Have you really got a husband?"

"Why do you doubt it?" said she.

"I don't doubt it. Have you?"

"I don't know what to answer."

"Don't you know whether you've got a husband?" he protested.

"I don't know what I'd better let you believe. Yes, on the whole, I think you may as well a.s.sume that I've got a husband," she concluded.

"And a lover, too?" he asked.

"Really! I like your impertinence!" she bridled.

"I only asked to show a polite interest. I knew the answer would be an indignant negative. You're an Englishwoman, and you're _nice_. Oh, one can see with half an eye that you're _nice_. But that a nice Englishwoman should have a lover is as inconceivable as that she should have side-whiskers. It's only the reg'lar bad-uns in England who have lovers. There's nothing between the family pew and the divorce court.

One nice Englishwoman is a match for the whole Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne."

"To hear you talk, one might fancy you were not English yourself. For a man of the name of Field, you're uncommonly foreign. You _look_ rather foreign, too, you know, by-the-bye. You haven't at all an English cast of countenance," she considered.

"I've enjoyed the advantages of a foreign education. I was brought up abroad," he explained.

"Where your features unconsciously a.s.similated themselves to a foreign type? Where you learned a hundred thousand strange little foreign things, no doubt? And imbibed a hundred thousand unprincipled little foreign notions? And all the ingenuous little foreign prejudices and misconceptions concerning England?" she questioned.

"Most of them," he a.s.sented.

"_Perfide Albion?_ English hypocrisy?" she pursued.

"Oh, yes, the English are consummate hypocrites. But there's only one objection to their hypocrisy--it so rarely covers any wickedness. It's such a disappointment to see a creature stalking toward you, laboriously draped in sheep's clothing, and then to discover that it's only a sheep.

You, for instance, as I took the liberty of intimating a moment ago, in spite of your perfectly respectable appearance, are a perfectly respectable woman. If you weren't, wouldn't I be making furious love to you, though!"

"As I am, I can see no reason why you shouldn't make furious love to me, if it would amuse you. There's no harm in firing your pistol at a person who's bullet-proof," she laughed.

"No; it's merely a wanton waste of powder and shot," said he. "However, I shouldn't stick at that. The deuce of it is--You permit the expression?"

"I'm devoted to the expression."

"The deuce of it is, you profess to be married."

"Do you mean to say that you, with your unprincipled foreign notions, would be restrained by any such consideration as that?" she wondered.

"I shouldn't be for an instant--if I weren't in love with you."

"_Comment donc? Deja?_" she cried with a laugh.

"Oh, _deja_! Why not? Consider the weather--consider the scene. Is the air soft, is it fragrant? Look at the sky--good heavens!--and the clouds, and the shadows on the gra.s.s, and the sunshine between the trees. The world is made of light to-day, of light and color, and perfume and music. _Tutt 'intorno canta amor, amor, amor!_ What would you have? One recognises one's affinity. One doesn't need a lifetime.

You began the business at the Wohenhoffens' ball. To-day you've merely put on the finishing touches."

"Oh, then I _am_ the woman you met at the masked ball?" she cried.

"Look me in the eye, and tell me you're not," he defied her.

"I haven't the faintest interest in telling you I'm not. On the contrary, it rather pleases me to let you imagine that I am."

"She owed me a grudge, you know. I hoodwinked her like everything," he confided.

"Oh, did you? Then, as a sister woman, I should be glad to serve as her instrument of vengeance. Do you happen to have such a thing as a watch about you?" she inquired.

"Yes," he said.

"Will you be good enough to tell me what o'clock it is?"

"What are your motives for asking?"

"I'm expected at home at five."

"Where do you live?"

"What are the motives for asking?"

"I want to call upon you."

"You might wait till you're invited."

"Well, invite me--quick!"

"Never."

"Never?"

"Never, never, never," she a.s.severated. "A man who's forgotten me as you have!"

"But if I've only met you once at a masked ball--"

"Can't you be brought to realise that every time you mistake me for that woman of the masked ball you turn the dagger in the wound?" she demanded.

"But if you won't invite me to call upon you, how and when am I to see you again?"

"I haven't an idea," she answered, cheerfully. "I must go now. Good-by."

She rose.

"One moment," he interposed. "Before you go will you allow me to look at the palm of your left hand?"

"What for?"