Part 3 (2/2)
”Oh, I can't!”
”Try! Would it make it easier if I were to call you by yours?”
”Mine is Miss Parsloe.”
”Pooh! How can that be your name which you are going to change so soon?
When I look at you, I see your name; when I think of you, I say it to myself,--Grace!”
”How do you know I am going to change my name soon--or ever?”
”Whom are you talking to?”
”To you,--Harvey! Oh!” She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away and pressed it over her lips.
”How do I know you are beautiful, Grace, and--irresistible?”
”But I'm not! You're making fun of me! Besides, I'm twenty.”
”How many times have you been engaged?”
”Never. n.o.body wants to be engaged to a poor girl. Oh me!”
”Do you know what you are made of, Grace? Fire and flowers! Few men in the world are men enough to be a match for you. But what have you been doing with yourself all this time? Why do you come to a place like this?”
”Maybe I had a presentiment that... What nonsense we are talking! But what you said reminds me. It's the strangest coincidence!”
”What is it?”
”Your Professor Meschines----”
”On the contrary, he is a most matter-of-fact old gentleman.”
”Do be quiet, and listen to me! When my mamma was a girl in school, there were two boys there,--it was a boy-and-girls' school,--and they were great friends. But they both fell in love with my mamma----”
”I can understand that,” put in Freeman.
”How do you know I am like my mamma? Well, as I was saying, they both fell in love with her, and quarrelled with each other, and had a fight.
The boy that won the fight is the man to whose house I am going.”
”Then he didn't marry your mamma?”
”Oh, no; that was only a childish affair, and she married another man.”
”The one who got thrashed?”
”Of course not. But the one who got thrashed is your Professor Meschines.”
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