Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-39.djvu/598

588 leaned toward me. "Oh, it would be so pleasant! Floyd wants it; I am certain that he wants it more than you dream. The house is small, but then we could amply accommodate you here. You should have the whole third-story for all those mysterious scientific performances which you go through. And I am sure—or at least I am nearly sure, Douglas—that the effect of your presence here would be beneficial to Floyd as regards this odd, fanciful prejudice that has taken hold of him. And I should be so glad if you would come! . . Now will you promise me to think it over before you refuse?" She stretched out one hand toward me, and there was a half-playful supplication in her look.

At that moment it seemed to me as if I both loved and hated her. I cannot recall just how I received this most unforeseen proposition. For some little time, as I well recall, I could not divest myself of the idea that she was using me with a calculated, premeditated cruelty. . . And yet in my soul I knew this was the worst of egotistic delusions. It has been asserted more than once that no man was ever yet in love with a woman unless the woman somehow knew it. But Millicent Demotte never vaguely dreamed it of me. She had been reared in too complete an isolation from those girlish experiences which are the formative customs and usages of her sex. Her vanity was an unstirred deep, if it ever really existed. In all women I believe that it is merely the incident of an imposed education, acting upon their feminine recipiency of temperament. Women are by nature no vainer than men; our faulty modes of education alone make them so.

The piano was close at my side, with its disordered heap of music-sheets. I turned toward these and moved them to and fro just as Millicent herself had done a short while previously. Through my pained heart rushed the realization of how cold she must be pronouncing me. But I could not answer her just yet; I had a strong secret agitation to get well within bonds before I did so. . . And presently I said, knowing all this time that she had been watching intently my averted face,—

"You ask that I shall think your proposition over before I refuse it. But you don't refer to your own kindness in making it."

"Ah!" I heard her but did not see her exclaim. "You will accept it, then?"

"I—I will think it over," I answered, trying not stupidly to stammer the words.

"I see — you refuse."

I turned toward her. I had now gained mastery over myself, but I was by no means certain how long it might last.

"All that I can tell you just at this time," I said, "is that—I will think it over. There are reasons—practical reasons—why I should do so."

She looked at me with her beautiful eyes widely opened. "In what a solemn voice you say that! . . You're not going?"

I had taken her hand, shaken it, and then moved away toward the nearest door. "Yes—I must go. I have some business-letters that I can't delay till to-morrow. . . Shall you adopt that new plan with Floyd? . . you know to what I allude."

"Yes," she said.