Vistas of New York Part 13

And if at first I don't succeed I must try, try again. If the one you pick out refuses me I'll have to get you to pick out another."

"So it's a mere marriage of convenience you are after?" the girl asked.

"That's all very well for you, no doubt; but how about the woman who marries you? I don't think it's a very nice lookout for her, do you?

That's just the way with you men always! You never think about the woman's feelings!"

"I'll do my duty to her," he answered.

"Your _duty_!" sniffed the girl, indignantly.

"I'll be so attentive to her that she will never guess my heart is given to another," he went on.

"Don't be too sure of that," she returned. "Women have very sharp eyes--sharper than you men think--especially about a thing like that!"

"I am not going to borrow trouble," the Doctor declared, suavely. "I shall always be as nice to her as I can, and if it is in my power to make her happy, then she will be happy. But we needn't antic.i.p.ate. What I want you to do now is to help me to find the right woman. It will be my business to take care of her afterward."

"Oh, very well," said the girl, rather sharply. "Have you anybody in particular in view?"

"I haven't really fixed on anybody yet," he explained. "I wanted your advice first, for I'm going to rely on that. I feel sure you won't let me make a mistake about a matter so important to me."

"Then don't let's waste any time!" she cried, peremptorily.

"Really," he declared, "it's astonishing how a little bit of a thing like you can be so bossy." She looked at him fiercely, so he made haste to add, "But I like it--I like it!"

The girl laughed, but with a certain constraint, so it seemed to him.

"Come, now," she said, "if I must help you, let me see your list of proposed victims!"

"Do you know Dr. Pennington, the rector of St. Boniface's, in Philadelphia?" he began. "Well, he has two daughters--nice girls, both of them--"

"Which one do you want?" asked the girl. "The tall one who squints, or the fat one with red hair?"

"Come, now," he returned, "she doesn't really squint, you know."

"Call it a cast in her eye if you like; I don't mind. It isn't anything to me," she a.s.serted. "Is it the tall one you want?"

"I don't care," he answered.

"You don't care?" she repeated.

"No," he returned; "that's why I've come to you. I don't care. Which one do you recommend?"

"I don't recommend either of them!" she responded, promptly. "I shouldn't be a true friend if I let you throw yourself away on one of those frights!"

"I'll give them up, if you say so," said he; "but I've always heard that they are good, quiet girls--domesticated, you know--and--"

"Who is next?" she pursued, with a return of her arbitrary manner.

"Well," he suggested, bashfully, "I haven't any reason to suppose she would look at me, and it sounds so conceited in me to suggest that such a handsome woman--and so rich, too--would listen to me, but--"

"Who is this paragon?" his companion demanded.

"Didn't I mention her name?" he responded. "I thought I had. We pa.s.sed her only a little while ago--Mrs. Poole."

"Mrs. Poole?" the girl replied. "That was the sick-looking creature in black lolling back in a victoria, wasn't it?"

"She isn't sick, really," he retorted; "but I don't think mourning is becoming to her. Of course, if we are married she will wear colors and--"

"I didn't know you were willing to take up with a widow!" she interrupted, with a slight touch of acerbity. "I thought it was a girl you were looking for!"

"It was a wife of some sort," he replied. "I don't know myself what would suit me best. That's why I am consulting you. I'm going to rely on your judgment--"

"But you mustn't do that!" she cried.

"It is just what I've got to do!" he insisted. "And if you think it would be a mistake for me to marry a widow, why--it's for you to say."

"I must say that I think it would be a great mistake for a doctor to marry a woman who looks as if she couldn't live through the week," she responded. "I should suppose it would ruin any physician's practice to have a wife as woebegone as that Mrs. Poole! Of course, I don't know her, and I've nothing to say against her, and she may be as beautiful and as charming as you say she is."

"I give her up at once," he declared, laughing. "She shall never even know how near she came to having a chance to reject me."

"Is that all?" the girl asked, a little spitefully. "Have you anybody else on your list?"

"I have only just one more," he replied.

"Who is she?" was the girl's quick question.

"I'm not sure that you have met her," he returned. "She's from the South somewhere, or the Southwest, I don't know--"

"What's her name?" was the impatient query.

"Chubb," he answered. "It's not a pretty name, is it? But that doesn't matter if I'm to persuade her to change it."

"Chubb?" the girl repeated, as though trying to recall the name. "Chubb?

Not Virgie Chubb?"

"Her name is Virginia," he admitted.

The girl by his side laughed a little shrilly. "Virgie Chubb?" she cried. "That scrawny thing?"

The Doctor confessed that Miss Chubb was not exactly plump.

"Not plump? I should think not, indeed," the girl declared. "Do you know what Miss Marlenspuyk said about her? She said that Virgie Chubb looked like a death's-head on a toothpick! That's what she said!"

They were approaching the Mall, and the Doctor knew that his time was now very brief. They had to slow up just then, as a policeman was conveying across the broad road three or four nurses with a baby-carriage or two, and then they had to steer clear of half a dozen working-men going home across the Park, with pipes in their mouths and dinner-pails swinging in their hands.

"So you don't think Miss Chubb would be a good wife for me?" he inquired.

"I have nothing to say at all! It isn't really any of my business!" she replied. "It is simply absurd of you to ask me!"

"But you must help me out," he urged. "So far you have only told me that I mustn't marry any of the girls I had on my list."