The Lilac Girl Part 17

"Bless my soul!" The Doctor started to rise. "I do most heartily congratulate you, Mr. Herrick!"

"Hold on, though," said Wade. "Don't jump to conclusions. She hasn't accepted me, Doctor."

"What! But she's going to?"

"I wish I was certain," replied Wade, with a smile.

"But--why, I'd have said she was fond of you, Mr. Herrick. Miss Mullett and I were talking it over just the other day. Old busy-bodies, I suppose you'd call us. But what did she say--if that isn't an impertinent question, sir."

"Well, it seems that there's some one else."

"Never!"

"Yes. I don't know why there shouldn't be."

"Miss Mullett told me that Miss Eve had never shown the slightest favor to any one since she'd known her."

"Maybe this was before that. It isn't very clear just how the other chap stands with her. But she asked time to think it over."

The Doctor chuckled. "Who hesitates is lost, Mr. Herrick. Take my word for it,--she'll come around before long. I'm very glad. She's a fine woman, a fine woman. I knew her mother."

"Well, I hope you're right, Doctor. Maybe you'd better not say anything about it just yet."

"Not a word, sir. I presume, though, if you do marry her, you'll take her out West with you."

"I don't dare make plans yet. I'm sure, though, we'd come to Eden Village in the summer."

"I hope so. I wouldn't want to think I wasn't to see her again. I'm very fond of her in an old man's way. How is the house getting along? Workmen almost through, I guess."

"They've promised to get out to-morrow. And that reminds me, Doctor. I want the ladies and you to take dinner with me Sat.u.r.day night. It's to be a sort of house-warming, you know. Mrs. Prout is coming over to cook for me and Zephania is to serve. I may depend on you?"

"To be sure, sir. I'll just make a note of it. Sat.u.r.day, you said? H'm, yes, Sat.u.r.day. About half-past six, I presume?" The Doctor pulled himself from his chair and rummaged about his desk. "Well, I can't ...

seem to ... find my ... memorandum, but I'll remember without it.

You--ah--you might mention it to me again in a day or two. I hope by that time we'll be able to drink a toast, sir, to you and Miss Eve."

"You don't hope so any more than I do," said Wade gravely. "I only wish--" He stopped, frowned at his pipe and went on. "The devil of it is, Doctor, I feel so confoundedly cheeky."

"Eh?"

"I mean about asking her to marry a fellow like me."

"What's the matter with you? You're of sound body and mind, aren't you?"

"Yes, I reckon so. But I'm such a useless sort, in a way. I've never done anything except make some money."

"Some women would think you'd done quite enough," replied the Doctor, dryly.

"But she's not that sort. I don't believe she cares anything about money. I've been trying to get her to let me do the square thing with Ed's property, but she won't listen."

"Wanted to parcel some of it out to her, eh? Well, I guess Eve wouldn't have it."

"No, she wouldn't. She ought to, too. It should have been hers, by rights. If it wasn't for that silly quarrel between her father and Ed's--"

"I know, I know. But she's right, according to her lights, Mr. Herrick.

Irv Walton wouldn't have touched any of that money with a pair of pincers. Still, I don't see as you need to have such a poor opinion of yourself. We can't all be great generals or statesmen or financiers.

Some of us have to wear the drab. And, after all, it doesn't matter tuppence what you are, Mr. Herrick, if you've got the qualities that appeal to Eve. Lord love us! Where would civilization be if it was only the famous men who found wives? I don't think any the worse of myself, Mr. Herrick, because I've never made the world sit up and take notice.

I've had my battles and victories, and I don't despise them because there was no waving of flags or sounding of trumpets. I've lived clean--as clean as human flesh may, I guess,--I've been true to my friends and honest to my enemies, and here I am, as good as the next man, to my own thinking."

"I dare say you're right," answered Wade, "but when you love a woman, you sort of want to have a few trophies handy to throw down at her feet, if you see what I mean. You'd like to say, 'Look, I've done this and that! I've conquered here and there! I am Somebody!'"

"And if she didn't love you she'd turn up her nose at your trophies, and like as not walk off with the village fool."

"Well, but it seems to me that a woman isn't likely to love a man unless he has something to show besides a pocketbook."

"Mr. Herrick, there's just one reason why a woman loves a man, and that's because she loves him. You can invent all the theories you want, and you can write tons of poetry about it, and when you get through you'll be just where you started. You can find a reason for pretty near everything a woman does, though you may have to rack your brains like the devil to do it, but you can't explain why she falls in love with this man and not with that. Perhaps you recall Longfellows's lines: 'The men that women marry, and why they marry them, will always be a marvel and a mystery to the world.' Personally, I'm a bit of a fatalist regarding love. I think hearts are mated when they're fas.h.i.+oned, and when they get together you can no more keep them apart than you keep two drops of quicksilver from running into each other when they touch. It's as good a theory as any, for it can't be disproved."

"Then how account for unhappy marriages?" asked Wade.

"I said hearts were mated, not bodies and brains, nor livers, either.

Half the unhappy marriages are due, I dare say, to bad livers."

"Well," laughed Wade, rising and finding his hat, "your theory sounds reasonable. As for me, I have no theory--nor data. So I'll go home and go to sleep. Don't forget Sat.u.r.day night, Doctor."

"Sat.u.r.day night? Oh, to be sure, to be sure. I'll not forget, you may depend. Good night, Mr. Herrick, and thank you for looking in on me.

And--ah--Mr. Herrick?"

"Yes?"

"Ah--I wouldn't be too meek, if I were you. Even Fate may relish a little a.s.sistance. Good night. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a thunder storm before morning."

XIV.

Wade was relieved to find that Eve's manner toward him had undergone no change by reason of his impromptu declaration. They met quite as before, and if there was any embarra.s.sment on the part of either of them it was not on hers. During the next few days it happened that he seldom found himself alone with her for more than a few moments, but it did not occur to him that Chance alone was not responsible. As Wade understood it, it was a period of truce, and he was careful not to give word or look that might be construed into a violation of terms. Perhaps he overdid it a little, for there were times, usually when he was not looking, when Eve shot speculating, slightly puzzled glances at him. Perhaps she was thinking that such subjects as last night's thunder storm, dormer windows, and the apple crop outlook were not just what a declared lover might be supposed to choose for conversation. Once or twice, notably toward the end of the week, and when she had been presumably making up her mind for three days, she exhibited signs of irritability and impatience. These Wade construed as evidences of boredom and acted upon as such, cheerfully taking himself off.

The house-warming, as Wade chose to call his dinner-party, came off on Sat.u.r.day night. Wade had moved his bed back to the guest-room upstairs and the sitting-room had regained its former character. In this room and in the parlor and dining-room bowls and vases of pink roses--which had come from Boston on ice in great wooden boxes, and about which the village at large was already excitedly speculating--stood in every available spot. But if Eden Village found subject for comment in the extravagant s.h.i.+pment of roses, imagine its wonderment when it beheld, shortly after six o'clock, Doctor Crimmins parading magnificently up the street in swallow-tailed coat and white vest, a costume which Miss Cousins was certain he had not worn in twenty years!

Wade and his guests sat on the new side porch while awaiting dinner and Wade came in for a lot of praise for the improvements he had worked in his garden, praise which he promptly disclaimed in favor of Miss Mullett.

"Goodness only knows what I'd have done if it hadn't been for her," he laughed. "I wanted to plant American Beauty roses and maiden-hair fern all over the place. I even think I had some notion of growing four-dollar orchids on the pear trees. The idea of putting in things that would really grow was entirely hers."

"I like the idea of planting the old-fas.h.i.+oned, hardy things," said the Doctor. "They're the best, after all. Asters and foxgloves and deutzia and s...o...b..a.l.l.s and all the rest of them."

"And phlox," said Wade. "They told us we were planting too late, but the phlox has buds on it already. Come and see it."