Page:The New Penelope.djvu/36

30 know.' He very politely placed a chair for me, which I took. His manners were faultless in the matter of etiquette—and how very far a fine manner goes, in our estimate of people! I had not the shadow of a suspicion of what was coming. 'Mrs. Greyfield,' he said, with great gravity, 'I fear I have unintentionally compromised you very seriously. In advising you to take this house, and open it for boarders, I was governed entirely by what I conceived to be your best interests; but it seems that I erred in my judgment. You are very young—only twenty-three, I believe, and—I beg your pardon—too beautiful to pass unnoticed in a community like this. Your boarders, so far, are all gentlemen. Further, it has been noticed and commented upon that—really, I do not know how to express it—that I have seemed to take the place in your household that—pray, forgive me, Mrs. Greyfield—only a husband, in fact or in expectancy, could be expected or permitted to occupy. Do you see what I mean?'

"I sat stunned and speechless while he went on. 'I presume your good sense will direct you in this matter, and that you will grasp the right horn of the dilemma. If you would allow me to help you out of it, you would really promote my happiness. Dear Mrs. Greyfield, permit me to offer you the love and protection of a husband, and stop these gossips' mouths.'"

"You do not think he had premeditated this?" I asked.

"I did not take it in then, but afterwards I saw it plainly enough. He pressed me for an answer, all the time plausibly protesting that although he had hoped some time to win my love, he had not anticipated the necessity for urging his suit as a matter of expediency. In vain I argued that if his presence in the house was an injury to me, he could leave it. It was too late, he said. I indignantly declared that it was not my fault that my boarders were all men. I was working for my living, and would just as willingly have boarded any other creature if I could have got