Patty's Perversities

"Yes. It is I."

"Would it be polite to ask if you walk in your sleep?"

"I can't walk awake at any rate," she replied, half laughing and half crying, "whatever I may do in my sleep."

"Then, you must have come here for air in your dreams."

"I came after that fan, and I've twisted my foot over again."

He restored the fan, and then seated himself at her feet on the lowest step.

"It is fortunate I took this way home," he said coolly. "I hear that you think I am miserly."

"What?" she exclaimed in surprise.

"I am told that you pronounce me miserly," he repeated. "I am very sorry, for I mean to ask you to be my wife."

Instead of answering this strange declaration, Patty covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. He laid his fingers lightly upon her hair, smoothing it with a caressing motion. Surprise, physical pain, anger, and love were all oddly mingled in Patty's mind. She knew that she loved this man, and she was bitterly angry with herself for having misjudged him. She was no less angry with him for knowing the latter fact, of which Emily Purdy had taken care that he should not remain ignorant. She had, too, that Amazonian repugnance to the caress of a lover which is often inborn in strong personalities. She shook off the lawyer's touch as if it were fire.

"I misjudged you," she said, by an angry effort controlling her tears, "and I am not too proud to own it. Now forget it."

"Very well," he said, "it is forgotten. But your opinion is every thing to me, for I have loved you these dozen years, Patty. I've watched you growing up, and loved you more and more every year. I've had the words in my mouth a hundred times; but now I am able to marry, and I ask you to be my wife."

However cool these words may seem in black and white, they were intense as Tom Putnam spoke them, his rich voice gathering force as he proceeded. He was moved from that calm which Flossy Plant declared to be an essential law of his existence. The passion he felt was too old, too well defined, to come stammering and broken from his tongue; but his voice trembled, and he bent forward until his hot breath touched her cheek. He did not again attempt to caress her, but she felt that his eyes were fixed upon her with a keenness that could almost pierce the darkness. Still her mood was a defensive one. That she fought against herself no less than against him, only added strength to her determination not to yield.

"You had little faith in the depth of my love," she said at last, after a silence which seemed to both very long, "if you thought I should be afraid of poverty with you."

"Then you do love me!" he exclaimed, in joyous, vibrating tones.

"I did not say so," she retorted quickly. "I was talking of your feelings, not mine."

"I had no right to ask you to share poverty," he said. "I loved you too well to do it."

"That is because you looked only at your own side," she persisted. "If I loved a man, I should be glad if he were poor. I should delight to show him that I loved him better than any thing money would buy. Oh! I should be proud and glad to work for him if I need – and you thought I wouldn't do it!"

He caught her hand, and kissed it passionately.

"You know it is not that," he said. "I never thought any thing of you but that you were the noblest woman I knew; but I was not worth so much hardship – I couldn't bring it on you. But since you love me, I can wait."

"I never said I loved you! I – I don't."

"I know better," said he, springing up; "but let that go. It is beginning to rain, and sentiment must give place to reason. How shall you get into the house?"

"But you must not go away thinking I love you," she said weakly.

"How can you help it?" he returned. "How shall you get back to your room?"

"If I only could wake Flossy, she'd help me."

"Which is her window?"

"The one over the rosebush."

He took up a handful of pebbles, and threw them lightly against the panes until Flossy came to the window.

"Who's there?" she called timidly.

"It's I," Patty answered. "Come down."

"What on earth!" began Flossy.

"Come quick, and keep quiet."

"She is coming," Putnam said. "Good-night, Patty. If you knew how I love you!"

He kissed her hand again, and was gone just in time to escape Flossy.

"How did you hit my window from the door-step?" the latter asked as the two girls climbed slowly the stairs.

"By sleight of hand," her cousin answered. "Good-night. Thank you very much. I want to get to bed and to sleep before it begins to lighten any worse."

But how could she sleep with those two kisses burning like live coals upon her hand?

CHAPTER XI

A BUNDLE OF PAPERS

Patty slept late the following morning, and before she was well awake the sense of something strange and sad was present in her mind. She opened her eyes, and slowly recalled the conversation of the previous night, with the most mingled feelings. That Tom Putnam loved her was a new, keen joy; but bitter indeed was it to remember how she had met the proffer of his heart. It was true he had not accepted her negative; but all the combativeness of the girl's disposition was aroused, and she felt something of the martyr spirit of men determined to die for a cause they know lost or hopeless. She felt that nothing would make her retract her denial; that she could not do so and retain her self-respect. And yet an inner double-consciousness knew that some time she meant to yield, and that she hoped for some fortunate turn of circumstances to bring about the means of graceful submission.

She dressed herself slowly and sadly, until, catching sight of her lugubrious face in the glass, she laughed in spite of herself, and determined to shake off her melancholy.

She descended to breakfast humming a gay air, and trying to appear as if she were no more lame than upon the day previous. No one but grandmother Sanford noticed that her gayety was forced; but the beautiful old Friend with silvery hair and snowy kerchief possessed a shrewd head and a tender heart, quick to detect and to sympathize with pain.

"Grand-daughter," she said after breakfast, when they were alone together, "something troubleth thee."

"Me, grandmother?" Patty began with affected surprise. But there was about the other a candor which enforced frankness in return. "It is nothing that can be helped," Patty said, sighing, "and indeed it is nothing to tell of."

"Thee must have confidence in thy grandmother, Patience, if so be that I can ever serve thee."

"I shall, I do. Grandmother, I" —

The door opened, and admitted Flossy and her aunt.

"I can trust the maid to clean the parlor," Mrs. Sanford was saying impressively; "but the cellar I must see to myself."

"Yes," Flossy returned, "and that reminds me, Aunt Britann: can you tell why a cat's breath always smells fishy?"

"It cleared off in the night," her aunt continued, without taking the slightest notice of the whimsical question, "and so ain't likely to stay pleasant."