Part 28 (1/2)
”Dear me, Mr. Olmstead! You're not a reporter, are you!”
”O no--but I wanted to have them clear and think about them,” he explained. ”Do you mind?” And he made as if to shut his little book again.
”I don't know as I mind,” she said slowly. ”But it looks so--businesslike.”
”This is a very serious business, Mrs. Leland, as you must know. Quite aside from any personal desire of my own, I am truly 'your sincere friend and well-wisher,' as the Complete Letter Writer has it, and there are so many men wanting to marry you.”
This she knew full well, and gazed pensively at the toe of her small flexible slipper, poised on a stool before the fire.
Mr. Olmstead also gazed at the slipper toe with appreciation.
”What's the next one?” he said cheerfully.
”Do you know you are a real comfort,” she told him suddenly. ”I never knew a man before who could--well leave off being a man for a moment and just be a human creature.”
”Thank you, Mrs. Leland,” he said in tones of pleasant sincerity. ”I want to be a comfort to you if I can. Incidentally wouldn't you be more comfortable on this side of the fire--the light falls better--don't move.” And before she realized what he was doing he picked her up, chair and all, and put her down softly on the other side, setting the footstool as before, and even daring to place her little feet upon it--but with so businesslike an air that she saw no opening for rebuke.
It is a difficult matter to object to a man's doing things like that when he doesn't look as if he was doing them.
”That's better,” said he cheerfully, taking the place where she had been. ”Now, what's the next one?”
”The next one is my boy.”
”Second--Boy,” he said, putting it down. ”But I should think he'd be a reason the other way. Excuse me--I wasn't going to criticize--yet! And the third?”
”Why should you criticize at all, Mr. Olmstead?”
”I shouldn't--on my own account. But there may come a man you love.”
He had a fine baritone voice. When she heard him sing Mrs. Leland always wished he were taller, handsomer, more distinguished looking; his voice sounded as if he were. And I should hate to see these reasons standing in the way of your happiness,” he continued.
”Perhaps they wouldn't,” said she in a revery.
”Perhaps they wouldn't--and in that case it is no possible harm that you tell me the rest of them. I won't cast it up at you. Third?”
”Third, I won't give up my profession for any man alive.”
”Any man alive would be a fool to want you to,” said he setting down, ”Third--Profession.”
”Fourth--I like _Freedom!”_ she said with sudden intensity. ”You don't know!--they kept me so tight!--so _tight_--when I was a girl! Then--I was left alone, with a very little money, and I began to study for the stage--that was like heaven! And then--O what _idiots_ women are!” She said the word not tragically, but with such hard-pointed intensity that it sounded like a gimlet. ”Then I married, you see--I gave up all my new-won freedom to _marry!_--and he kept me tighter than ever.” She shut her expressive mouth in level lines--stood up suddenly and stretched her arms wide and high. ”I'm free again, free--I can do exactly as I please!” The words were individually relished. ”I have the work I love. I can earn all I need--am saving something for the boy. I'm perfectly independent!”
”And perfectly happy!” he cordially endorsed her. ”I don't blame you for not wanting to give it up.”
”O well--happy!” she hesitated. ”There are times, of course, when one isn't happy. But then--the other way I was unhappy all the time.”
”He's dead--unfortunately,” mused Mr. Olmstead.
”Unfortunately?--Why?”
He looked at her with his straightforward, pleasant smile. ”I'd have liked the pleasure of killing him,” he said regretfully.
She was startled, and watched him with dawning alarm. But he was quite quiet--even cheerful. ”Fourth--Freedom,” he wrote. ”Is that all?”