William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
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"Yes. Two weeks ago, in Boston," said Gaites. "Miss Axewright and I stopped at the S. B. & H. C. freight-depot to see that your piano started off all right."
He explained himself further, and, "Well, I don't see what you did to it," Miss Desmond pouted. "It just got here this afternoon."
"Probably they 'throwed a spell' on it, as the country people say," suggested the master of ceremonies. "But all's well that end's well. The great thing is to have your piano, Miss Phyllis. I'm coming up to-morrow morning to see if it's got here in good condition."
"That's some compensation," said the girl ironically; and she added, with the kind of repellent lure with which women know how to leave men the responsibility of any reciprocal approach, "I don't know whether it won't need tuning first."
"Well, I'm a piano-tunist myself," the young fellow retorted, and their banter took a course that left Miss Axewright and Gaites to themselves. The dancers began to stray in again from the stairways and verandas.
"Dear me!" said Miss Desmond, "it's time already;" and as she dropped upon the piano-stool she called to Miss Axewright with an authority of tone which Gaites thought augured well for her success as a teacher, "Millicent!"
VIII
The next morning when Gaites came down to breakfast he had a question which solved itself contrary to his preference as he entered the dining-room. He was so early that the head waiter had to jump from his own unfinished meal, and run to pull out his chair; and Gaites saw that he left at his table the landlord's family, the clerk, the housekeeper, and Miss Axewright. It appeared that she was not only staying in the hotel, but was there on terms which indeed held her above the servants, but separated her from the guests.
He hardly knew how to dissemble the feeling of humiliation mixed with indignation which flashed up in him, and which, he was afterwards afraid, must have made him seem rather curt in his response to the head waiter's civilities. Miss Axewright left the dining-room first, and he hurried out to look her up as soon as he had despatched the coffee and steak which formed his breakfast, with a wholly unreasoned impulse to offer her some sort of reparation for the slight the conditions put upon her. He found her sitting on the veranda beside the friendly tabby of his last night's acquaintance, and far, apparently, from feeling the need of reparation through him. She was very nice, though, and after chatting a little while she rose, and excused herself to the tabby, with a politeness that included Gaites, upon the ground of a promise to Miss Desmond that she would come up, the first thing after breakfast, and see how the piano was getting along.
When she reappeared, in her hat, at the front of the Inn, Gaites happened to be there, and he asked her if he might walk with her and make his inquiries too about the piano, in which, he urged, they were mutually interested. He had a notion to tell her all about his pursuit of Miss Desmond's piano, as something that would peculiarly interest Miss Desmond's friend; but though she admitted the force of his reasoning as to their common concern in the fate of the piano, and had allowed him to go with her to rejoice over its installation, some subtle instinct kept him from the confidence he had intended, and they walked on in talk (very agreeable talk, Gaites found it) which left the subject of the piano altogether intact.
This was fortunate for Miss Desmond, who wished to talk of nothing else. The piano had arrived in perfect condition. "But I don't know where the poor thing hasn't been, on the way," said the girl. "It left Boston fully two weeks ago, and it seems to have been wandering round to the ends of the earth ever since. The first of last week, I heard from it at Kent Harbor, of all places! I got a long despatch from there, from some unknown female, telling me it had broken down on the way to Burymouth, and been sent by mistake to Kent Harbor from Mewers Junction. Have you ever been at Kent Harbor, Mr. Gaites?"
"Oh, yes," said Gaites. This was the moment to come out with the history of his relation to the piano; but he waited.
"And can you tell me whether they happen to have a female freight agent there?"
"Not to my knowledge," said Gaites, with a mystical smile.
"Then do you know anybody there by the name of Elaine W. Maze?"
"Mrs. Maze? Yes, I know Mrs. Maze. She has a cottage, there."
"And can you tell me why Mrs. Maze should be telegraphing me about my piano?"
There was a note of resentment in Miss Desmond's voice, and it silenced the laughing explanation which Gaites had almost upon his tongue. He fell very grave in answering, "I can't, indeed, Miss Desmond."
"Perhaps she found out that it had been a long time on the way, and did it out of pure good-nature, to relieve your anxiety."
This was what Miss Axewright conjectured, but it seemed to confirm Miss Desmond's worst suspicions.
"That is what I should like to be sure of," she said.
Gaites thought of all his own anxieties and interferences in behalf of the piano of this ungrateful girl, and in her presence he resolved that his lips should be forever sealed concerning them. She never would take them in the right way. But he experimented with one suggestion. "Perhaps she was taken with the beautiful name on the piano-case, and couldn't help telegraphing just for the pleasure of writing it."
"Beautiful?" cried Miss Desmond. "It was my grandmother's name; and I wonder they didn't call me for my great-grandmother, Daphne, and be done with it."
The young man who had chosen himself master of ceremonies at the hop the night before now proposed from the social background where he had hitherto kept himself, "I will call you Daphne."
"You will call me Miss Desmond, if you please, Mr. Ellett." The owner of the name had been facing her visitors from the piano-stool with her back to the instrument. She now wheeled upon the stool, and struck some chords. "I wish you'd thought to bring your fiddle, Millicent. I should like to try this piece." The piece lay on the music-rest before her.
"I will go and get it for her," said the ex-master of ceremonies.
"Do," said Miss Desmond.
"No, no," Gaites protested. "I brought Miss Axewright, and I have the first claim to bring her fiddle."
"I'm afraid you couldn't either of you find it," Miss Axewright began.
"We'll both try," said the ex-master of ceremonies. "Where do you think it is?"
"Well, it's in the case on the piano."
"That doesn't sound very intricate," said Gaites, and they all laughed.
As soon as the two men were out of the house, the ex-master of ceremonies confided: "That name is a very tender spot with Miss Desmond. She's always hated it since I knew her, and I can't remember when I didn't know her."
"Yes, I could see that—too late," said Gaites. "But what I can't understand is, Miss Axewright seemed to hate it, too."
Mr. Ellett appeared greatly edified. "Did you notice that?"
"I think I did."
"Well, now I'll tell you just what I think. There aren't any two girls in the world that like each other better than those two. But that shows just how it is. Girls are terribly jealous, the best of them. There isn't a girl living that really likes to have another girl praised by a man, or anything about her, I don't care who the man is. It's a fact, whether you believe it or not, or whether you respect it. I don't respect it myself. It's narrow-minded. I don't deny it: they are narrow-minded. All the same, we can't help ourselves. At least, I can't."
Mr. Ellett broke into a laugh of exhaustive intelligence and clapped Gaites on the back.
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