A Modern Instance. William Dean Howells
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she! But she must be going on seventeen now."
"I dare say," answered the young man, carelessly, but with perfect intelligence. "She's good-looking in her way, too."
"Oh! Then you admire red hair?"
He perceived the anxiety that the girl's pride could not keep out of her tone, but he answered indifferently, "I'm a little too near that color myself. I hear that red hair's coming into fashion, but I guess it's natural I should prefer black."
She leaned back in her chair, and crushed the velvet collar of his coat under her neck in lifting her head to stare at the high-hung mezzotints and family photographs on the walls, while a flattered smile parted her lips, and there was a little thrill of joy in her voice. "I presume we must be a good deal behind the age in everything at Equity."
"Well, you know my opinion of Equity," returned the young man. "If I didn't have you here to free my mind to once in a while, I don't know what I should do."
She was so proud to be in the secret of his discontent with the narrow world of Equity that she tempted him to disparage it further by pretending to identify herself with it. "I don't see why you abuse Equity to me. I Ve never been anywhere else, except those two winters at school. You'd better look out: I might expose you," she threatened, fondly.
"I'm not afraid. Those two winters make a great difference. You saw girls from other places,—from Augusta, and Bangor, and Bath."
"Well, I couldn't see how they were so very different from Equity girls."
"I dare say they couldn't, either, if they judged from you."
She leaned forward again, and begged for more flattery from him with her happy eyes. "Why, what does make me so different from all the rest? I should really like to know."
"Oh, you don't expect me to tell you to your face!"
"Yes, to my face! I don't believe it's anything complimentary."
"No, it's nothing that you deserve any credit for."
"Pshaw!" cried the girl. "I know you're only talking to make fun of me. How do I know but you make fun of me to other girls, just as you do of them to me? Everybody says you're sarcastic."
"Have I ever been sarcastic with you?"
"You know I wouldn't stand it."
He made no reply, but she admired the ease with which he now turned from her, and took one book after another from the table at his elbow, saying some words of ridicule about each. It gave her a still deeper sense of his intellectual command when he finally discriminated, and began to read out a poem with studied elocutionary effects. He read in a low tone, but at last some responsive noises came from the room overhead; he closed the book, and threw himself into an attitude of deprecation, with his eyes cast up to the ceiling.
"Chicago," he said, laying the book on the table and taking his knee between his hands, while he dazzled her by speaking from the abstraction of one who has carried on a train of thought quite different from that on which he seemed to be intent,—"Chicago is the place for me. I don't think I can stand Equity much longer. You know that chum of mine I told you about; he's written to me to come out there and go into the law with him at once."
"Why don't you go?" the girl forced herself to ask.
"Oh, I'm not ready yet. Should you write to me if I went to Chicago?"
"I don't think you'd find my letters very interesting. You wouldn't want any news from Equity."
"Your letters wouldn't be interesting if you gave me the Equity news; but they would if you left it out. Then you'd have to write about yourself."
"Oh, I don't think that would interest anybody."
"Well, I feel almost like going out to Chicago to see."
"But I haven't promised to write yet," said the girl, laughing for joy in his humor.
"I shall have to stay in Equity till you do, then. Better promise at once."
"Wouldn't that be too much like marrying a man to get rid of him?"
"I don't think that's always such a bad plan—for the man." He waited for her to speak; but she had gone the length of her tether in this direction. "Byron says,—
'Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,—
'Tis woman's whole existence.'
Do you believe that?" He dwelt upon her with his tree look, in the happy embarrassment with which she let her head droop.
"I don't know," she murmured. "I don't know anything about a man's life."
"It was the woman's I was asking about."
"I don't think I'm competent to answer."
"Well, I'll tell you, then. I think Byron was mistaken. My experience is, that, when a man is in love, there's nothing else of him. That's the reason I've kept out of it altogether of late years. My advice is, don't fall in love: it takes too much time." They both laughed at this. "But about corresponding, now; you haven't said whether you would write to me, or not. Will you?"
"Can't you wait and see?" she asked, slanting a look at him, which she could not keep from being fond.
"No, no. Unless you wrote to me I couldn't go to Chicago."
"Perhaps I ought to promise, then, at once."
"You mean that you wish me to go."
"You said that you were going. You oughtn't to let anything stand in the way of your doing the best you can for yourself."
"But you would miss me a little, wouldn't you? You would try to miss me, now and then?"
"Oh, you are here pretty often. I don't think I should have much difficulty in missing you."
"Thanks, thanks! I can go with a light heart, now. Good by." He made a pretence of rising.
"What! Are you going at once?"
"Yes, this very night,—or to-morrow. Or no, I can't go to-morrow. There's something I was going to do to-morrow."
"Perhaps go to church."
"Oh, that of course. But it was in the afternoon. Stop! I have it! I want you to go sleigh-riding with me in the afternoon."
"I don't know about that," Marcia began.
"But I do," said the young man. "Hold on: I'll put my request in writing." He opened her portfolio, which lay on the table. "What elegant stationery! May I use some of this elegant stationery? The letter is to a lady,—to open a correspondence. May I?" She laughed her assent. "How ought I to begin? Dearest Miss Marcia, or just Dear Marcia: which is better?"
"You had better not put either—"
"But I must. You're one or the other, you know. You're dear—to your family,—and you're Marcia: you can't deny it. The only question is whether you're the dearest of all the Miss Marcias. I may be mistaken, you know. We'll err on the safe side: Dear Marcia:" He wrote it down. "That looks well, and it reads well. It looks very natural, and it reads like poetry,—blank verse; there's no rhyme for it that I can remember. Dear Marcia: Will you go sleigh-riding with me to-morrow afternoon, at two o'clock sharp? Yours—yours? sincerely, or cordially, or affectionately, or what? The 'dear Marcia' seems to call for something out of the common. I think it had better be affectionately." He suggested it with ironical gravity.
"And I think it had better be 'truly,'" protested the girl.
"'Truly' it shall be, then. Your word is law,—statute in such case made and provided." He wrote, "With unutterable devotion, yours truly, Bartley J. Hubbard," and read it aloud.
She leaned forward, and lightly caught it away from him, and made a feint of tearing it. He seized her hands. "Mr. Hubbard!" she cried, in undertone. "Let me go, please."
"On two conditions,—promise not to tear up my letter, and promise to answer