Part 16 (2/2)
You laughed merrily as you said, ”Oh, I'm so glad you spoke of that. I have often wondered if you recognized the attempted portrait,--which now I know is not a bit of a likeness,--and have longed to ask you. I never should have dared to sketch it, but I thought my pen name would conceal my criminality; and then what a fatality for you to read it! I never suspected you were the publisher's reader. What have you thought of me?”
”That you drew a very pleasant picture of my supposed mental and moral attainments, at the expense of my ambition and will. My true sympathy, however, went out to the girl whom you offered up as a heart-restorer for my earlier attachment.”
”I'm thankful we are in the shadow,” you laughed, ”so that my red cheeks don't show. You are taking a most thoroughgoing revenge.”
”That was the last thought in my mind.”
”Then, my woman's curiosity having been appeased, be doubly generous and spare my absurd blushes. I don't know when I have been made to feel so young and foolish.”
”Clearly you are no hardened criminal, Miss Walton. Usually matchmakers glory in their shame.”
”Perhaps I should if I had not been detected, or if I had succeeded better.”
”You took, I fear, a difficult subject for what may truly be called your maiden experiment.”
”Did I not? And yet--You see I recognized potentialities for loving in you. You can--Ah, you have suggested to me a revenge for your jokes. Did you--were you the man who coined the phrase that my eyes were too dressy for the daytime?”
”Yes,” I confessed guiltily, ”but”--
”No, don't dare to try to explain it away,” you ordered. ”How could you say it? We can never be friends, after all.”
Though you spoke in evident gayety, I answered gravely: ”You will forgive me when I tell you that it was to parry a thrust of Mrs.
Polhemus's at you, and I made a joke of it only because I did not choose to treat her gibe seriously. I hoped it would not come back to you.”
”Every friend I have has quoted it, not once, but a dozen times, in my presence. If you knew how I have been persecuted and teased with that remark! You are twice the criminal that I have been, for at least my libel was never published. Yet you are unblus.h.i.+ng.”
We both sat silent for a little while, and then you began: ”You interrupted a question of mine just now. Was it a chance or a purposed diversion? You see,” you added hastily, ”I am presuming that henceforth we are to be candid.”
”I confess to an intention in the dodging, not because I feared the question, for a simple negative was all it needed, but I was afraid of what might follow.”
”I hoped, after the trust of the other day--You do not want to tell me your story?”
”Are there not some things that cannot be put into words, Miss Walton?
Could you tell me your story?”
”But mine is no mystery,” you replied. ”It has been the world's property for years. Why, your very help to-night proves that it is known to you,--that you know, indeed, facts that were unknown to me.”
”Facts, yes; feelings, no.”
”Do you appreciate the subtilty of the compliment? You really care for such valueless and indefinable things as feelings?”
”Yes.”
”A bargain, then, while you are in this mood of giving something for nothing. Question for question, if you choose.”
”You can tell your secrets?”
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