The Cinder Buggy (34 page)

“Yes?”

“I say I can’t explain it very clearly. You’ll just have to take a good deal of it for granted. The newspapers are so curious and impertinent. I’d like this to happen without anyone knowing it until the notice is published and we are gone. She has no home. I mean, she lives at a hotel. I have no home either. At a church or any public place like that we’d be noticed at once.”

“Will you ask the waiter to bring some more butter, please. Yes, go on. What can I do to help?”

“Take mine. I hoped you’d guess by this time. There’s no one else I can ask.”

“Thanks. No, I can’t guess.”

“Well, if you would let the ceremony take place in your apartment here and sort of manage the fussy part I’d never know how much to thank you.”

“Yes, indeed. I’d love to do it. Why did you make such a bother of asking? I’ll have some decorations sent in. What will she wear? What colors does she like?”

“I’ll have to find out.”

“And the time?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“As soon as you can. And that’s what you were so glum about? Now cheer up. Men are such lumps when they are happy.”

“You are very sweet about it.”

“Don’t mind me. Only go as fast as you can and get the details. You don’t know how important they are. I’ll expect to hear from you within an hour. You will call me up?”

“Yes.”

The next he knew he was in the Central Park Zoo looking at the monkeys and wondering why they were so mystified. What had they to be puzzled about? Then there was a little brown bear that precisely expressed the absurdity he felt in himself. He did not mind feeling absurd. No, that was even comforting. A pain in the ego counteracting one in the heart. Clumsy as the device was it had served his purpose. He had found out. But it was no relief whatever. In the way he hoped she might she cared less than not at all—less than a foster sister or an old maid aunt. He could not be mistaken. He had watched her closely. She had betrayed not the slightest sign of self-concern. He had that same diminished, ignominious feeling with which he retired from the boxwood hedge on the evening of their first youth-time encounter.

What an asinine thing to have done!

When he called her on the telephone two hours later, as he had promised to do, this conversation occurred:

“This is John.”

“Yes. Now tell me all about it. You’ve been a long time.”

“Hello.”

“Yes. What time?”

“Hello.”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Agnes, it’s too much of an imposition altogether. I can’t imagine how I could have asked you to do it. Thanks all the same, but we’ll call it off.”

“Nonsense. You’re not telling me the truth. Something has happened.”

“Maybe so. Anyhow, I withdraw the request.”

“Where are you?”

“Near by. Not very far.”

“Meet me in the tea room downstairs. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Not waiting for him to answer she closed the wire. She was there waiting when he arrived.

“I’m sorry if anything has happened,” she said, most sympathetically. “Can you tell me about it?”

“It’s off,” he said, feeling secretly and utterly ludicrous. “That’s all.”

“Oh, that can’t be,” she said. “Suppose I talk to her. I shan’t be modest about you. I’ll not promise to be even truthful.”

“No use,” he said. “I’ve said everything there is to say for myself. She knows me well enough—too well, perhaps. That may be it.”

“Tell me about her. What is she like?”

“Cold. You wouldn’t think so, but she is. The fact that a man loves her means nothing—not a thing.”

“Is she so used to it?”

“I don’t know. No. That isn’t it....”

“What?”

“I was going to say selfish. I ought not to say that. I’m selfish to want her. She wants to keep her life to herself. It’s her own life.”

“But it’s only postponed. She doesn’t say no, does she?”

“Worse than that. She says—”

“Yes. What does she say?”

“She says it’s nicer as it is. We shall go on being friends. Friendship is all right. It blooms in the next world.”

“Let me talk to her, please.”

“No. It’s hopeless.”

“I’d not urge you if I weren’t so sure I could change her mind. The fact is, I think I know her.”

John started and became rigid with astonishment. He regarded her fixedly with a groping, incredulous expression. She stirred her tea very thoughtfully and kept her eyes down.

“If she’s the person I think she is,” Agnes continued, still looking down, “what you say about her is probably true. And yet—”

“Agnes! Be careful what you say.”

“I’ll be as careful as I know how to be. Trust me.”

“How long have you known her?”

“In one way, of course, you deserve to be wretched. It isn’t all on one side. Do you think it’s nice—?” “How long have you known her, I ask?” “A long time. Longer than you have,” she said.

*      *      *      *      *

Note from the society column of the New York
Times,
November 6, 1901:

Mr. and Mrs. Breakspeare are passing their honeymoon in Mediterranean waters on Mr. Breakspeare’s yacht, the “Damascene.”

THE END