Scene: Miss Reed opens the door, and receives Mr. Ransom with well-affected surprise and state, suffering him to stand awkwardly on the threshold for a moment.
She, coldly: “Oh!—Mr. Ransom!”
He, abruptly: “I’ve come”—
She: “Won’t you come in?”
He, advancing a few paces into the room: “I’ve come”—
She, indicating a chair: “Will you sit down?”
He: “I must stand for the present. I’ve come to ask you for that money, Miss Reed, which I refused yesterday, in terms that I blush to think of. I was altogether and wholly in the wrong, and I’m ready to offer any imaginable apology or reparation. I’m ready to take the money and to sign a receipt, and then to be dismissed with whatever ignominy you please. I deserve anything—everything!”
She: “The money? Excuse me; I don’t know—I’m afraid that I’m not prepared to pay you the whole sum to-day.”
He, hastily: “Oh, no matter! no matter! I don’t care for the money now. I merely wish to—to assure you that I thought you were perfectly right in offering it, and to—to”—
She: “What?”
He: “Nothing. That is—ah—ah”—
She: “It’s extremely embarrassing to have people refuse their money when it’s offered them, and then come the next day for it, when perhaps it isn’t so convenient to pay it— very embarrassing.”
He, hotly: “But I tell you I don’t want the money! I never wanted it, and wouldn’t take it on any account.”
She: “Oh! I thought you said you came to get it?”
He: “I said—I didn’t say—I meant—that is—ah—I”—He stops, open-mouthed.
She, quietly: “I could give you part of the money now.”
He: “Oh, whatever you like; it’s indifferent”—
She: “Please sit down while I write a receipt.” She places herself deliberately at the table, and opens her portfolio. “I will pay you now, Mr. Ransom, for the first six lessons you gave me—the ones before you told me that I could never learn to do anything.”
He, sinking mechanically into the chair she indicates: “Oh, just as you like!” He looks up at the ceiling in hopeless bewilderment, while she writes.
She, blotting the paper: “There! And now let me offer you a little piece of advice, Mr. Ransom, which may be useful to you in taking pupils hereafter.”
He, bursting out: “I never take pupils!”
She: “Never take pupils! I don’t understand. You took me.”
He, confusedly: “I took you—yes. You seemed to wish—you seemed—the case was peculiar—peculiar circumstances.”
She, with severity: “May I ask why the circumstances were peculiar? I saw nothing peculiar about the circumstances. It seemed to me it was a very simple matter. I told you that I had always had a great curiosity to see whether I could use oil paints, and I asked you a very plain question, whether you would let me study with you. Didn’t I?”
He: “Yes.”
She: “Was there anything wrong—anything queer about my asking you?”
He: “No, no! Not at all—not in the least.”
She: “Didn’t you wish me to take the lessons of you? If you didn’t, it wasn’t kind of you to let me.”
He: “Oh, I was perfectly willing—very glad indeed, very much so—certainly!”
She: “If it wasn’t your custom to take pupils, you ought to have told me, and I wouldn’t have forced myself upon you.”
He, desperately: “It wasn’t forcing yourself upon me. The Lord knows how humbly grateful I was. It was like a hope of heaven!”
She: “Really, Mr. Ransom, this is very strange talk. What am I to understand by it? Why should you be grateful to teach me? Why should giving me lessons be like a hope of heaven?”
He: “Oh, I will tell you!”
She: “Well?”
He, after a moment of agony: “Because to be with you”—
She: “Yes?”
He: “Because I wished to be with you. Because— those days in the woods, when you read, and I”—
She: “Painted on my pictures”—
He: “Were the happiest of my life. Because—I loved you!”
She: “Mr. Ransom!”
He: “Yes, I must tell you so. I loved you; I love you still. I shall always love you, no matter what”—
She: “You forget yourself, Mr. Ransom. Has there been anything in my manner—conduct—to justify you in using such language to me?”
He: “No—no”—
She: “Did you suppose that because I first took lessons of you from—from—an enthusiasm for art, and then continued them for—for—amusement, that I wished you to make love to me?”
He: “No, I never supposed such a thing. I’m incapable of it. I beseech you to believe that no one could have more respect—reverence”—He twirls his hat between his hands, and casts an imploring glance at her.
She: “Oh, respect—reverence! I know what they mean in the mouths of men. If you respected, if you reverenced me, could you dare to tell me, after my unguarded trust of you during the past months, that you had been all the time secretly in love with me?”
He, plucking up a little courage: “I don’t see that the three things are incompatible.”
She: “Oh, then you acknowledge that you did presume upon something you thought you saw in me to tell me that you loved me, and that you were in love with me all the time?”
He, contritely: “I have no right to suppose that you encouraged me; and yet—I can’t deny it now—I was in love with you all the time.”
She: “And you never said a word to let me believe that you had any such feeling toward me!”
He: “I—I”—
She: “You would have parted from me without a syllable to suggest it—perhaps parted from me forever?” After a pause of silent humiliation for him: “Do you call that brave or generous? Do you call it manly—supposing, as you hoped, that I had any such feeling?”
He: “No; it was cowardly, it was mean, it was unmanly. I see it now, but I will spend my life in repairing the wrong, if you will only let me.” He impetuously advances some paces toward her, and then stops, arrested by her irresponsive attitude.
She, with a light sigh, and looking down at the paper, which she has continued to hold between her hands: “There was a time—a moment—when I might have answered as you wish.”
He: “Oh! then there will be again. If you have changed once, you may change once more. Let me hope that some time—any time, dearest”—
She, quenching him with a look: “Mr. Ransom, I shall never change toward you! You confess that you had your opportunity, and that you despised it.”
He: “Oh! not despised it!”
She: “Neglected it.”
He: “Not wilfully—no. I confess that I was stupidly, vilely, pusillan—pusillan—illani”—
She: “’Monsly”—
He: “Thanks—’mously unworthy of it; but I didn’t despise it; I didn’t neglect it; and if you will only let me show by a lifetime of devotion how dearly and truly I have loved you from the first moment I drove that cow away”—
She: “Mr. Ransom, I have told you that I should never change toward you. That cow was nothing when weighed in the balance against your being willing to leave a poor girl, whom you supposed interested in you, and to whom you had paid the most marked attention, without a word to show her that you cared for her. What is a cow, or a whole herd of cows, as compared with obliging a young lady to offer you money that you hadn’t earned, and then savagely flinging it back in her face? A yoke of oxen would be nothing—or a mad bull.”
He: “Oh, I acknowledge it! I confess it.”
She: “And you own that I am right in refusing to listen to you now?”
He, desolately: “Yes, yes.”
She: “It seems that you gave me lessons in order to be with me, and if possible to interest me in you; and then you were going away without a word.”
He, with a groan: “It was only because I was afraid to speak.”
She: “Oh, is that any excuse?”
He: “No; none.”
She: “A man ought always to have courage.” After a pause, in which he stands before her with bowed head: “Then there’s nothing for me but to give you this money.”
He, with sudden energy: “This is too much! I”—
She, offering him the bank-notes: “No; it is the exact sum. I counted it very carefully.”
He: “I won’t take it; I can’t! I’ll never take it!”
She, standing with the money in her outstretched hand: “I have your word as a gentleman that you will take it.”
He, gasping: “Oh, well—I will take it—I will”—He clutches the money, and rushes toward the door. “Good-evening; ah—good-by”—
She, calling after him: “The receipt, Mr. Ransom! Please sign this receipt!” She waves the paper in the air.
He: “Oh, yes, certainly! Where is it—what—which”— He rushes back to her, and seizing the receipt, feels blindly about for the pen and ink. “Where shall I sign?”
She: “Read it first.”
He: “Oh, it’s all—all right”—
She: “I insist upon your reading it. It’s a business transaction. Read it aloud.”
He, desperately: “Well, well!” He reads. “‘Received from Miss Ethel Reed, in full, for twenty-five lessons in oil-painting, one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and her hand, heart, and dearest love forever.’” He looks up at her. “Ethel!”
She, smiling: “Sign it, sign it!”
He, catching her in his arms and kissing her: “Oh, yes— here!”
She, pulling a little away from him, and laughing: “Oh, oh! I only wanted one signature! Twenty autographs are too many, unless you’ll let me trade them off, as the collectors do.”
He: “No; keep them all! I couldn’t think of letting any one else have them. One more!”
She: “No; it’s quite enough!”
She frees herself, and retires beyond the table. “This unexpected affection”—
He: “ Is it unexpected—seriously?”
She: “What do you mean?”
He: “Oh, nothing!”
She: “Yes, tell me!”
He: “I hoped—I thought—perhaps—that you might have been prepared for some such demonstration on my part.”
She: “And why did you think—hope—perhaps— that, Mr. Ransom, may I ask?”
He: “If I hadn’t, how should I have dared to speak?”
She: “Dared? You were obliged to speak! Well, since it’s all over, I don’t mind saying that I did have some slight apprehensions that something in the way of a declaration might be extorted from you.”
He: “Extorted? Oh!” He makes an impassioned rush toward her.
She, keeping the table between them: “No, no.”
He: “Oh, I merely wished to ask why you chose to make me suffer so, after I had come to the point.”
She: “Ask it across the table, then.” After a moment’s reflection, “I made you suffer—I made you suffer—so that you might have a realizing sense of what you had made me suffer.”
He, enraptured by this confession: “Oh, you angel!”
She, with tender magnanimity: “No; only a woman—a poor, trusting, foolish woman!” She permits him to surround the table, with imaginable results. Then, with her head on his shoulder: “You’ll never let me regret it, will you, darling? You’ll never oblige me to punish you again, dearest, will you? Oh, it hurt me far worse to see your pain than it did you to—to—feel it!” On the other side of the partition, Mr. Grinnidge’s pipe falls from his lips, parted in slumber, and shivers to atoms on the register. “Oh!” She flies at the register with a shriek of dismay, and is about to close it. “That wretch has been listening, and has heard every word!”
He, preventing her: “What wretch? Where?”
She: “Don’t you hear him, mumbling and grumbling there?”
Grinnidge: “Well, I swear! Cash value of twenty-five dollars, and untold toil in coloring it!”
Ransom, listening with an air of mystification: “Who’s that?”
She: “Gummidge, Grimmidge—whatever you called him. Oh!” She arrests herself in consternation. “Now I have done it!”
He: “Done what?”
She: “Oh—nothing!”
He: “I don’t understand. Do you mean to say that my friend Grinnidge’s room is on the other aide of the wall, and that you can hear him talk through the register?” She preserves the silence of abject terror. He stoops over the register, and calls down it. “Grinnidge! Hallo!”
Grinnidge: “Hallo, yourself!”
Ransom, to Miss Reed: “Sounds like the ghostly squeak of the phonograph.” To Grinnidge: “What’s the trouble?”
Grinnidge: “Smashed my pipe. Dozed off and let it drop on this infernal register.”
Ransom, turning from the register with impressive deliberation: “Miss Reed, may I ask how you came to know that his name was Gummidge, or Grimmidge, or whatever I called him?”
She: “Oh, dearest, I can’t tell you! Or—yes, I had better.” Impulsively: “I will judge you by myself. I could forgive you anything!”
He, doubtfully: “Oh, could you?”
She: “Everything! I had—I had better make a clean breast of it. Yes, I had. Though I don’t like to. I—I listened!”
He: “Listened?”
She: “Through the register to—to—what—you—were saying before you—came in here.” Her head droops.
He: “Then you heard everything?”
She: “Kill me, but don’t look so at me! It was accidental at first—indeed it was; and then I recognized your voice; and then I knew you were talking about me; and I had so much at stake; and I did love you so dearly! You will forgive me, darling? It wasn’t as if I were listening with any bad motive.”
He, taking her in his arms: “Forgive you? Of course I do. But you must change this room at once, Ethel; you see you hear everything on the other side, too.”
She: “Oh, not if you whisper on this. You couldn’t hear us?” At a dubious expression of his: “You didn’t hear us? If you did, I can never forgive you!”
He: “It was accidental at first—indeed it was; and then I recognized your voice; and then I knew you were talking about me; and I had so much at stake; and I did love you so dearly!”
She: “All that has nothing whatever to do with it. How much did you hear?”
He, with exemplary meekness: “Only what you were saying before Grinnidge came in. You didn’t whisper then. I had to wait there for him while”—
She: “While you were giving your good resolutions a rest?”
He: “While I was giving my good resolutions a rest.”
She: “And that accounts for your determination to humble yourself so?”
He: “It seemed perfectly providential that I should have known just what conditions you were going to exact of me.”
She: “Oh, don’t make light of it! I can tell you it’s a very serious matter.”
He: “It was very serious for me when you didn’t meet my self-abasement as you had led me to expect you would.”
She: “Don’t make fun! I’m trying to think whether I can forgive you.”
He, with insinuation: “Don’t you believe you could think better if you put your head on my shoulder?”
She: “Nonsense! Then I should forgive you without thinking.” After a season of reflection: “No, I can’t forgive you. I never could forgive eavesdropping. It’s too low.”
He, in astonishment: “Why, you did it yourself!”
She: “But you began it. Besides, it’s very different for a man. Women are weak, poor, helpless creatures. They have to use finesse. But a man should be above it.”
He: “You said you could forgive me anything.”
She: “Ah, but I didn’t know what you’d been doing!”
He, with pensive resignation, and a feint of going: “Then I suppose it’s all over between us.”
She, relenting: “If you could think of any reason why I should forgive you”—
He: “I can’t.”
She, after consideration: “Do you suppose Mr. Grumage, or Grimidge, heard too?”
He: “No; Grinnidge is a very high-principled fellow, and wouldn’t listen; besides, he wasn’t there, you know.”
She: “Well, then, I will forgive you on these grounds.” He instantly catches her to his heart. “But these alone, remember.”
He, rapturously: “Oh, on any!”
She, tenderly: “And you’ll always be devoted? And nice? And not try to provoke me? Or neglect me? Or anything?”
He: “Always! Never!”
She: “Oh, you dear, sweet, simple old thing—how I do love you!”
Grinnidge, who has been listening attentively to every word at the register at his side: “Ransom, if you don’t want me to go stark mad, shut the register!”
Ransom, about to comply: “Oh, poor old man! I forgot it was open!”
Miss Reed, preventing him: “No! If he has been vile enough to listen at a register, let him suffer. Come, sit down here, and I’ll tell you just when I began to care for you. It was long before the cow. Do you remember that first morning after you arrived”— She drags him close to the register, so that every word may tell upon the envious Grinnidge, on whose manifestations of acute despair, a rapid curtain descends.