The Register Part 3

RANSOM: "I don't mean your legal advice."

GRINNIDGE: "I'm sorry. What have you been doing?"

RANSOM: "I've been making an a.s.s of myself."

GRINNIDGE: "Wasn't that rather superfluous?"

RANSOM: "If you please, yes. But now, it you're capable of listening to me without any further display of your cross-examination wit, I should like to tell you how it happened."

GRINNIDGE: "I will do my best to veil my brilliancy. Go on."

RANSOM: "I went up to Ponkwa.s.set early in September for the foliage."

GRINNIDGE: "And staid till late in October. There must have been a reason for that. What was her name? Foliage?"

RANSOM, coming up to the corner of the chimney-piece, near which his friend sits, and talking to him directly over the register: "I think you'll have to get along without the name for the present. I'll tell you by and by." As Mr. Ransom p.r.o.nounces these words, Miss Reed, on her side of the part.i.tion, lifts her head with a startled air, and, after a moment of vague circ.u.mspection, listens keenly. "But she was beautiful. She was a blonde, and she had the loveliest eyes--eyes, you know, that could be funny or tender, just as she chose--the kind of eyes I always liked." Miss Reed leads forward over the register.

"She had one of those faces that always leave you in doubt whether they're laughing at you, and so keep you in wholesome subjection; but you feel certain that they're GOOD, and that if they did hurt you by laughing at you, they'd look sorry for you afterward. When she walked you saw what an exquisite creature she was. It always made me mad to think I couldn't PAINT her walk."

GRINNIDGE: "I suppose you saw a good deal of her walk."

RANSOM: "Yes; we were off in the woods and fields half the time together." He takes a turn towards the window.

MISS REED, suddenly shutting the register on her side: "Oh!"

MISS SPAULDING, looking up from her music: "What is it, Ethel?"

MISS REED: "Nothing, nothing; I--I--thought it was getting too warm.

Go on, dear; don't let me interrupt you." After a moment of heroic self-denial she softly presses the register open with her foot.

RANSOM, coming back to the register: "It all began in that way. I had the good fortune one day to rescue her from a--cow."

MISS REED: "Oh, for shame!"

MISS SPAULDING, desisting from her piano: "What IS the matter?"

MISS REED, clapping the register to: "This ridiculous book! But don't--don't mind me, Nettie." Breathlessly: "Go--go--on!" Miss Spaulding resumes, and again Miss Reed softly presses the register open.

RANSOM, after a pause: "The cow was grazing, and had no more thought of hooking Miss--"

MISS REED: "Oh, I didn't suppose he WOULD!--Go on, Nettie, go on!

The hero--SUCH a goose!"

RANSOM: "I drove her away with my camp-stool, and Miss--the young lady--was as grateful as if I had rescued her from a menagerie of wild animals. I walked home with her to the farm house, and the trouble began at once." Pantomime of indignant protest and burlesque menace on the part of Miss Reed. "There wasn't another well woman in the house, except her friend Miss Spaulding, who was rather old and rather plain." He takes another turn to the window.

MISS REED: "Oh!" She shuts the register, but instantly opens it again. "Louder, Nettie."

MISS SPAULDING, in astonishment: "What?"

MISS REED: "Did I speak? I didn't know it. I" -

MISS SPAULDING, desisting from practice: "What is that strange, hollow, rumbling, mumbling kind of noise?"

MISS REED, softly closing the register with her foot: "I don't hear any strange, hollow, rumbling, mumbling kind of noise. Do you hear it NOW?"

MISS SPAULDING: "No. It was the Brighton whistle, probably."

MISS REED: "Oh, very likely." As Miss Spaulding turns again to her practice Miss Reed re-opens the register and listens again. A little interval of silence ensues, while Ransom lights a cigarette.

GRINNIDGE: "So you sought opportunities of rescuing her from other cows?"

RANSOM, returning: "That wasn't necessary. The young lady was so impressed by my behavior, that she asked if I would give her some lessons in the use of oil."

GRINNIDGE: "She thought if she knew how to paint pictures like yours she wouldn't need any one to drive the cows away."

RANSOM: "Don't be farcical, Grinnidge. That sort of thing will do with some victim on the witness-stand who can't help himself. Of course I said I would, and we were off half the time together, painting the loveliest and loneliest bits around Ponkwa.s.set. It all went on very well, till one day I felt bound in conscience to tell her that I didn't think she would ever learn to paint, and that--if she was serious about it she'd better drop it at once, for she was wasting her time."

GRINNIDGE, getting up to fill his pipe: "That was a pleasant thing to do."

RANSOM: "I told her that if it amused her, to keep on; I would be only too glad to give her all--the hints I could, but that I oughtn't to encourage her. She seemed a good deal hurt. I fancied at the time that she thought I was tired of having her with me so much."

MISS REED: "Oh, DID you, indeed!" To Miss Spaulding, who bends an astonished glance upon her from the piano: "The man in this book is the most CONCEITED creature, Nettie. Play chords--something very subdued--ah!"

MISS SPAULDING: "What are you talking about, Ethel?"

RANSOM: "That was at night; but the next day she came up smiling, and said that if I didn't mind she would keep on--for amus.e.m.e.nt; she wasn't a bit discouraged."

MISS REED: "Oh!--Go on, Nettie; don't let my outbursts interrupt you."

RANSOM: "I used to fancy sometimes that she was a little sweet on me."

MISS REED: "You wretch!--Oh, scales, Nettie! Play scales!"

MISS SPAULDING: "Ethel Reed, are you crazy?"

Ransom, after a thoughtful moment: "Well, so it went on for the next seven or eight weeks. When we weren't sketching in the meadows, or on the mountain-side, or in the old punt on the pond, we were walking up and down the farmhouse piazza together. She used to read to me when I was at work. She had a heavenly voice, Grinnidge."

MISS REED: "Oh, you silly, silly thing!--Really this book makes me sick, Nettie."

RANSOM: "Well, the long and the short of it was, I was. .h.i.t--HARD, and I lost all courage. You know how I am, Grinnidge."

MISS REED, softly: "Oh, poor fellow!"

RANSOM: "So I let the time go by, and at the end I hadn't said anything."

MISS REED: "No, sir! You HADN'T!"

MISS SPAULDING gradually ceases to play, and fixes her attention wholly upon Miss Reed, who bends forward over the register with an intensely excited face.

RANSOM: "Then something happened that made me glad, for twenty-four hours at least, that I hadn't spoken. She sent me the money for twenty-five lessons. Imagine how I felt, Grinnidge! What could I suppose but that she had been quietly biding her time, and storing up her resentment for my having told her she couldn't learn to paint, till she could pay me back with interest in one supreme insult?"