Part 12 (2/2)
”But you would be sure to know. Even if I had not telegraphed I never could have kept it a secret from you.”
”Not easily. I should have been, as you observe, sure to know. Do you remember how I always refused to believe you? It was not until you were in that horrid j.a.pan, where all the women are supposed to be beautiful--”
”Yes,” Jimmie acquiesced. ”It was when I was in j.a.pan.”
”It was then that it began to seem possible that you would be married when you came home. It was then that I began to realize that I didn't deserve to be told of your plans. For I had been a fool, Jimmie. You had been a fool, too, but not in the way you think. And so, if you will sit where I sat that horrid day, we will begin that conversation all over again and end it differently. The first speech was yours. Do you remember it?”
”But I'm going to be married,” said Jimmie.
”Good boy. He knows his lesson. And now I say, 'To the most beautiful woman in the world?'”
”To the most beautiful woman G.o.d ever made. The dearest, the most clever, the most simple.”
”Simple,” repeated Miss Knowles with some natural surprise. ”Did you say simple?”
”Simple and jolly and unaffected. As true and as bright as the stars.
And I'm going to marry her--”
”Now this,” Miss Knowles interjected, ”is where the difference comes.
You are to sit quite still and listen to me because a thing like this--however long and carefully one had thought it out--is difficult in the saying. So, I stand here before you where I can look at you; for four months are long; and where you may, when I have quite finished, kiss my hand again; for again four months are long. And I begin thus: Jimmie, you are going to be married--”
”I told you first,” cried Jimmie.
”But I knew it first,” she countered, ”to a woman who has learned to love you during the past three months, but who could not do it more utterly, more perfectly, if she had practiced through all the years that you and I have been friends.”
”So she says,” Jimmie interrupted with sudden heat. ”So she says. G.o.d bless her!”
”And, ah, _how_ she is fond of you. 'Fond' is a darling of a word. It keeps just enough of its old 'foolish' meaning to be human. Proud of you, glad of you, fond of you--I think that this is, perhaps, the time for you to kiss my hand.”
”You're a darling,” he said as he obeyed. ”But what I can't understand--”
”It's not your turn. You may talk after I finish if I leave anything for you to say. See, I go on: You are going to marry--”
”The most beautiful woman in the world.”
”That reminds me. What is she like? I've not heard her described for ages.”
”Because there was no one in New York who could do justice to her.”
”You are the knightliest of knights. Go on. Describe her.”
”Well, she is neither very tall nor very small. But the grace of her, the young, surpa.s.sing grace of her, makes you know as soon as your eyes have rested on her that her height, whatever it chances to be, is the perfect height for a woman. And then there is the n.o.ble heart of her.
What other daughter would have buried herself, as she has done, in a little mountain village--”
Miss Knowles looked quickly about the luxurious room, then out upon the busy avenue, then back at him, suspecting raillery. But he was staring straight through her; straight into the land of visions. His eyes never wavered when she moved slowly out of their range and sat, huddled and white-faced, in the corner of a big chair.
”And all,” Jimmie went on, ”so bravely, so cheerily, that it makes one's throat ache to see. And one's heart hot to see. Then there is the beauty of her. Her hair is dark, her eyes are dark, but her skin is the fairest in the world.”
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