Dr. Heidenhoff's Process by Edward Bellamy (e book reading free txt) 📖

evening meeting, he induced Fanny Miller, at whose father's house he boarded, to introduce him to Madeline, and afterward walked home with her, making himself very agreeable, and crowning his audacity by asking permission to call. Fanny, who went along with them, tattled of this, and it produced a considerable sensation among the girls, for it was the wont of Newville wooers to make very gradual approaches. Laura warmly expressed to Madeline her indignation at the impudence of the proceeding, but that young lady was sure she did not see any harm in it; whereupon Laura lost her temper a little, and hinted that it might be more to her credit if she did. Madeline replied pointedly, and the result was a little spat, from which Laura issued second best, as people generally did who provoked a verbal strife with Madeline. Meanwhile it was rumoured that Cordis had availed himself of the permission that he had asked, and that he had, moreover, been seen talking with her in the post-office several times.

The drug-store being next door to the post-office, it was easy for him, under pretence of calling for the mail, to waylay there any one he might wish to meet. The last of the week Fanny Miller gave a little tea-party, to make Cordis more generally acquainted. On that occasion he singled out Madeline with his attentions in such a pronounced manner that the other girls were somewhat piqued. Laura, having her brother's interest at heart, had much more serious reasons for being uneasy at the look of things. They all remarked how queerly Madeline acted that evening. She was so subdued and quiet, not a bit like herself. When the party broke up, Cordis walked home with Madeline and Laura, whose paths lay together.

"I'm extremely fortunate," said he, as he was walking on with Laura, after leaving Madeline at her house, "to have a chance to escort the two belles of Newville at once."

"I'm not so foolish as I look, Mr. Cordis," said she, rather sharply. She was not going to let him think he could turn the head of every Newville girl as he had Madeline's with his city airs and compliments.

"You might be, and not mind owning it," he replied, making an excuse of her words to scrutinise her face with a frank admiration that sent the colour to her cheeks, though she was more vexed than pleased.

"I mean that I don't like flattery."

"Are you sure?" he asked, with apparent surprise.

"Of course I am. What a question!"

"Excuse me; I only asked because I never met any one before who didn't."

"Never met anybody who didn't like to be told things about themselves which they knew weren't true, and were just said because somebody thought they were foolish enough to believe 'em?"

"I don't expect you to believe 'em yourself," he replied; "only vain people believe the good things people say about them; but I wouldn't give a cent for friends who didn't think better of me than I think of myself, and tell me so occasionally, too."

They stood a moment at Laura's gate, and just then Henry, coming home from the gun-shop of which he was foreman, passed them, and entered the house. "Is that your brother?" asked Cordis.

"Yes."

"It does one's eyes good to see such a powerful looking young man. Is your brother married, may I ask?"

"He is not."

"In coming into a new circle as I have done, you understand, Miss Burr, I often feel a certain awkwardness on account of not knowing the relations between the persons I meet," he said, apologizing for his questions.

Laura saw her opportunity, and promptly improved it.

"My brother has been attentive to Miss Brand for a long time. They are about as good as engaged. Good-evening, Mr. Cordis."

It so happened that several days after this conversation, as Madeline was walking home one afternoon, she glanced back at a crossing of the street, and saw Harrison Cordis coming behind her on his way to tea. At the rate she was walking she would reach home before he overtook her, but, if she walked a very little slower, he would overtake her. Her pace slackened. She blushed at her conduct, but she did not hurry.

The most dangerous lovers women have are men of Cordis's feminine temperament. Such men, by the delicacy and sensitiveness of their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other. They are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs. Cordis had seen her backward glance, and noted her steps grow slower with a complacent smile. It was this which emboldened him, in spite of the short acquaintance, to venture on the line he did.

"Good-evening, Miss Brand," he said, as he over took her. "I don't really think it's fair to begin to hurry when you hear somebody trying to overtake you.

"I'm sure I didn't mean to," she replied, glad to have a chance to tell the truth, without suspecting, poor girl, that he knew very well she was telling it.

"It isn't safe to," he said, laughing. "You can't tell who it may be. Now, it might have been Mr. Burr, instead of only me."

She understood instantly. Somebody had been telling him about Henry's attentions to her. A bitter anger, a feeling of which a moment before she would have deemed herself utterly incapable, surged up in her heart against the person, whoever it was, who had told him this. For several seconds she could not control herself to speak. Finally, she said--

"I don't understand you. Why do you speak of Mr. Burr to me?"

"I beg pardon. I should not have done so."

"Please explain what you mean.

"You'll excuse me, I hope," he said, as if quite distressed to have displeased her. "It was an unpardonable indiscretion on my part, but somebody told me, or at least I understood, that you were engaged to him."

"Somebody has told you a falsehood, then," she replied, and, with a bow of rather strained dignity turned in at the gate of a house where a moment before she had not had the remotest intention of stopping. If she had been in a boat with him, she would have jumped into the water sooner than protract the inter-view a moment after she had said that. Mechanically she walked up the path and knocked at the door. Until the lady of the house opened it, she did not notice where she had stopped.

Good-afternoon, Madeline. I'm glad to see you. You haven't made me a call this ever so long."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Tuttle, but I haven't time to stop to-day. Ha--have you got a--a pattern of a working apron? I'd like to borrow it."


CHAPTER V.


Now, Henry had not chanced to be at church that first Sunday evening when Cordis obtained an introduction to Madeline, nor was he at Fanny Miller's teaparty. Of the rapidly progressing flirtation between his sweetheart and the handsome drug-clerk he had all this time no suspicion whatever. Spending his days from dawn to sunset in the shop among men, he was not in the way of hearing gossip on that sort of subject; and Laura, who ordinarily kept him posted on village news, had, deemed it best to tell him as yet nothing of her apprehensions. She was aware that the affection between her brother and Madeline was chiefly on his side, and knew enough of her wilfulness to be sure that any attempted interference by him would only make matters worse. Moreover, now that she had warned Cordis that Madeline was pre-empted property, she hoped he would turn his attention elsewhere.

And so, while half the village was agog over the flirtation of the new drug-clerk with Madeline Brand, and Laura was lying awake nights fretting about it, Henry went gaily to and from his work in a state of blissful ignorance. And it was very blissful. He was exultant over the progress he had made in his courtship at the picnic. He had told his love--he had kissed her. If he had not been accepted, he had, at least, not been rejected, and that was a measure of success quite enough to intoxicate so ardent and humble a lover as he. And, indeed, what lover might not have taken courage at remembering the sweet pity that shone in her eyes at the revelation of his love-lorn state? The fruition of his hopes, to which he had only dared look forward as possibly awaiting him somewhere in the dim future, was, maybe, almost at hand. Circumstances combined to prolong these rose-tinted dreams. A sudden press of orders made it necessary to run the shop till late nights. He contrived with difficulty to get out early one evening so as to call on Madeline; but she had gone out, and he failed to see her. It was some ten days after the picnic that, on calling a second time, he found her at home. It chanced to be the very evening of the day on which the conversation between Madeline and Cordis, narrated in the last chapter, had taken place.

She did not come in till Henry had waited some time in the parlour, and then gave him her hand in a very lifeless way. She said she had a bad head-ache, and seemed disposed to leave the talking to him. He spoke of the picnic, but she rather sharply remarked that it was so long ago that she had forgotten all about it. It did seem very long ago to her, but to him it was very fresh. This cool ignoring of all that had happened that day in modifying their relations at one blow knocked the bottom out of all his thinking for the past week, and left him, as it were, all in the air. While he felt that the moment was not propitious for pursuing that topic, he could not for the moment turn his mind to anything else, and, as for Madeline, it appeared to be a matter of entire indifference to her whether anything further was said on any subject. Finally, he remarked, with an effort to which the result may appear disproportionate--

"Mr. Taylor has been making quite extensive alterations on his house, hasn't he?"

"I should think you ought to know, if any one. You pass his house every day," was her response.

"Why, of course I know," he said, staring at her.

"So I thought, but you said 'hasn't he?' And naturally I presumed that you were not quite certain."

She was evidently quizzing him, but her face was inscrutable. She looked only as if patiently and rather wearily explaining a misunderstanding. As she played with her fan, she had an unmistakable expression of being slightly bored.

"Madeline, do you know what I should say was the matter with you if you' were a man?" he said, desperately, yet trying to laugh.

"Well, really"--and her eyes had a rather hard expression--"if you prefer gentlemen's society, you'd better seek it, instead of trying to get along by supposing me to be a gentleman."

"It seems as if I couldn't say anything right," said Henry.

"I think you do talk a little strangely," she admitted, with a faint smile. Her look was quite like that of an uncomplaining martyr.

"What's the matter with you to-night, Madeline? Tell me, for God's sake!" he cried, overcome with sudden grief and alarm.

"I thought I told you I had