Part 29 (2/2)

”You must have noticed,” he went on, as if he were repeating a lesson, ”that I entertain a great respect for your character.”

”Indeed, Mr. Saychase,” I responded, with a laugh which was princ.i.p.ally nerves, ”you evidently mean to make me unbearably vain.”

”That you could never be,” he returned with an air of gallantry I should not have thought him capable of. ”Your modesty is one of your greatest charms.”

The girl who can hear her modesty praised and not be amused must be lacking in a sense of humor. I laughed aloud before I realized what I was doing. Then, as he looked hurt, I apologized humbly.

”It's no matter,” he said graciously; ”of course you wouldn't be modest if you knew how modest you are.”

This sounded so ambiguous and so like comic opera that in spite of myself I laughed again.

”Come, Mr. Saychase,” I begged him, ”don't say any more about my modesty, please. We'll take it for granted. Have you seen Aunt Naomi this week? She has had a little return of her bad cold.”

”I came over to-night,” he broke out explosively, not in the least diverted by my question, ”to ask you to marry me.”

All I could do was to blurt out his name like an awkward schoolgirl.

”I dare say you are surprised, Miss Ruth,” he went on, evidently relieved to have got the first plunge over with, ”but that, as we were saying, may be laid to modesty.”

I respect Mr. Saychase,--at least I think he means well, and I hated to be the means of making him uncomfortable; but this return to my modesty was too funny, and nearly sent me off into laughter again. My sense of the fun of the situation brought back, however, my self-control.

”Mr. Saychase,” I said, as gravely as I could, ”I am not so dull as not to feel the honor you have done me, but such a thing is entirely impossible. We had better talk of something else.”

”But I am in earnest, Miss Privet,” he urged.

I a.s.sured him that I was not less so.

”I hope you will not decide hastily,” was his response. ”I have long recognized your excellent qualities; our ages are suitable; and I think I am right in saying that we both find our highest satisfaction in doing good. Be sure my esteem for you is too great for me to easily take a refusal.”

”But, Mr. Saychase,” I argued, catching at any excuse to end his importunity, ”you forget that I am not a sharer in your beliefs. A clergyman ought not to marry a woman that half his parish would think an atheist.”

”I have thought of that,” he responded readily, ”and knew you must recognize that a clergyman's wife should be a helpmeet in his religious work; but I hoped that for the sake of the work, if not for mine, you might be willing to give up your unhappy views.”

There was a sort of simplicity about this which was so complete as to be almost n.o.ble. It might be considered an amazing egotism, and it might be objected that Mr. Saychase had a singular idea of the sincerity of my ”unhappy views;” but the entire conviction with which he spoke almost made me for the moment doubt myself. Unfortunately for him, a most wickedly absurd remembrance came into my mind of a sentimental story in an old red and gold annual that was grandmother's. A n.o.ble Christian chieftain has falled in love with a Moorish damsel, and says to her: ”Beautiful Zorahida, only become a Christian, and thou shalt be my bride.” Beautiful Zorahida took at once to the proposition, but I am made of more obstinate stuff. I hid the smile the story brought up, but I determined to end this talk at once.

”Mr. Saychase,” I said as firmly as I could, ”you are kind, but it is utterly impossible that I should change my views or that I should marry you. We will, if you please, consider the subject closed entirely. How soon do you go to Franklin to the annual conference?”

He evidently saw I was in earnest, and to my great relief said no more in this line. He could not help showing that he was uncomfortable, although I was more gracious to him than I had ever been in my life. He did not stay long. As he was going I said I was sure he would not let anything I had said wound him, for I had not meant to hurt him. He said ”Oh, no,” rather vaguely, and left me. I wonder how many girls ever get an offer of marriage without a hint of love from beginning to end!

July 30. Tomine is more adorable every day. I wish Tom could see her oftener. It would soften him, and take out of his face the hard look which is getting fixed there. He surely could not resist her when she wakes up from her nap, all rosy and fresh, and with a wonder-look in her eyes as if she had been off in dreamland so really that she could not understand how she happens not to be there still. I think the clasp of her soft little fingers on his would somehow take the ache out of his heart. Poor Tom! I wonder how far being sorry for a thing makes one better. Repentance is more than half discomfort, Mother used to say. I always told her that to me it seemed like a sort of moral indigestion which warned us not to eat any more of the forbidden fruit that caused it. Tom is unhappy. He is proud, and he feels the disgrace more than he would own. Any country town is so extremely p.r.o.nounced in its disapproval of sins of a certain kind that a man would have to be covered with a rhinoceros hide not to feel it; and to stand up against it means to a man of Tom's disposition a constant att.i.tude of defiance.

Sometimes I find myself feeling so strongly on Tom's side that I seem to have lost all moral sense. It is my instinct, the cruelly illogical injustice of my s.e.x perhaps, to lay the blame on poor dead Julia.

Only--but I cannot think of it, and how I come to be writing about it is more than I can tell. I do think a good deal about Tom, however, and wonder what the effect on his character will be. He is of a pretty stubborn fibre when once he has taken a determination; and now that he has made up his mind to fight down public opinion here he will do it.

The question is what it will cost him. Sometimes it seems a pity that he could not have gone away from home, into a broader atmosphere, and one where he could have expended his strength in developing instead of resisting. Here he will be like a tree growing on a windy sea-cliff; he will be toughened, but I am afraid he will be twisted and gnarled.

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