A Rebellious Heroine

“I find myself utterly unable to complete the work in the stipulated time,” he wrote, “for reasons entirely beyond my control.  Nor can I at this writing say with any degree of certainty when I shall be able to finish the story.  I have made constant and conscientious effort to carry out my agreement with you, but fruitlessly, and I beg that you will relieve me of the obligation into which I entered at the signing of our contract.  Of course I could send you something long enough to cover the required space—words come easy enough for that—but the result would be unsatisfactory to you and injurious to me were I to do so.  Please let me hear from you, releasing me from the obligation, at your earliest convenience, as I am about to leave town for a fortnight’s rest.  Regretting my inability to serve you at this time, and hoping soon to be able to avail myself of your very kind offer, I beg to remain,

    “Yours faithfully,
    “Stuart Harley.”

“Oh!” said I.  “You’ve finished it, then, by—”

“By giving it up,” said he, sadly.  “It’s the strangest thing that ever happened to me, but that girl is impossible.  I take up my pen intending to say that she did this, and before I know it she does that.  I cannot control my story at all, nor can I perceive in what given direction she will go.  If I could, I could arrange my scenario to suit, but as it is, I cannot go on.  It may come later, but it won’t come now, and I’m going to give her up, and go down to Barnegat to fish for ten days.  I hate to give the book up, though,” he added, tapping the table with his pen-holder reflectively.  “Chadwick’s an awfully good fellow, and his firm is one of the best in the country, liberal and all that, and here at my first opportunity to get on their list, I’m completely floored.  It’s beastly hard luck, I think.”

“Don’t be floored,” said I.  “Take my advice and tackle something else.  Write some other book.”

“That’s the devil of it!” he replied, angrily pounding the table with his fist.  “I can’t.  I’ve tried, and I can’t.  My mind is full of that woman.  If I don’t get rid of her I’m ruined—I’ll have to get a position as a salesman somewhere, or starve, for until she is caught between good stiff board covers I can’t write another line.”

“Oh, you take too serious a view of it, Stuart,” I ventured.  “You’re mad and tired now.  I don’t blame you, of course, but you mustn’t be rash.  Don’t send that letter yet.  Wait until you’ve had the week at Barnegat—you’ll feel better then.  You can write the book in ten days after your return; or if you still find you can’t do it, it will be time enough to withdraw then.”

“What hope is there after that?” he cried, tossing a bundle of manuscript into my lap.  “Just read that, and tell me what’s the use.  I’d mapped out a meeting between Marguerite Andrews and a certain Mr. Arthur Parker, a fellow with wealth, position, brains, good looks—in short, everything a girl could ask for, and that’s what came of it.”

I spread the pages out upon the table before me and read:

CHAPTER IV

A DECLARATION

“I have not seen
So likely an ambassador of love.”

    —“Merchant of Venice.”
Parker mounted the steps lightly and rang the bell.  Marguerite’s kindness of the night before, which was in marked contrast to her coolness at the MacFarland dance, had led him to believe that he was not wholly without interest to her, and her invitation that he should call upon her had given him a sincere pleasure; in fact, he wondered that he should be so pleased over so trivial a circumstance.

“I’m afraid I’ve lost my heart again,” he said to himself.  “That is, again if I ever lost it before,” he added.

And his mind reverted to a little episode at Bar Harbor the summer before, and he was not sorry to feel that that wound was cured—though, as a matter of fact, it had never amounted to more than a scratch.

A moment later the door opened, and Parker entered, inquiring for Miss Andrews as he did so.

“I do not know, but I will see if Miss Andrews is at home,” said the butler, ushering him into the parlor.  That imposing individual knew quite well that Miss Andrews was at home, but he also knew that it was not his place to say so until the young lady had personally assured him of the facts in so far as they related to this particular caller.  All went well for Parker, however.  Miss Andrews consented to be at home to him, and five minutes later she entered the drawing room where Parker was seated.

“How do you do?” she said, frigidly, ignoring his outstretched hand.

(“Think of that, will you?” interposed Harley.  “He’d come to propose, and was to leave engaged, and she insists upon opening upon him frigidly, ignoring his outstretched hand.”

I couldn’t help smiling.  “Why did you let her do it?” I asked.

“I could no more have changed it than I could fly,” returned Stuart.  “She ought never to have been at home if she was going to behave that way.  I couldn’t foresee the incident, and before I knew it that’s the way it happened.  But I thought I could fix it up later, so I went on.  Read along, and see what I got let into next.”

I proceeded to read as follows:)

“You see,” said Parker, with an admiring glance at her eyes, in spite of the fact that the coolness of her reception rather abashed him—“you see, I have not delayed very long in coming.”

“So I perceive,” returned Marguerite, with a bored manner.  “That’s what I said to Mrs. Willard as I came down.  You don’t allow your friends much leeway, Mr. Parker.  It doesn’t seem more than five minutes since we were together at the card party.”

(“That’s cordial, eh?” said Harley, as I read.  “Nice sort of talk for a heroine to a hero.  Makes it easy for me, eh?”

“I must say if you manage to get a proposal in now you’re a genius,” said I.

“Oh—as for that, I got reckless when I saw how things were going,” returned Harley.  “I lost my temper, and took it out of poor Parker.  He proposes, as you will see when you come to it; but it isn’t realism—it’s compulsion.  I simply forced him into it—poor devil.  But go on and read for yourself.”

I did so, as follows:)

This was hardly the treatment Parker had expected at the hands of one who had been undeniably gracious to him at the card-table the night before.  He had received the notice that she was to be his partner at the tables with misgivings, on his arrival at Mrs. Stoughton’s, because his recollection of her behavior towards him at the MacFarland dance had led him to believe that he was personally distasteful to her; but as the evening at cards progressed he felt instinctively drawn towards her, and her vivacity of manner, cleverness at repartee, and extreme amiability towards himself had completely won his heart, which victory their little tête-à-tête during supper had confirmed.  But here, this morning, was reversion to her first attitude.  What could it mean?  Why should she treat him so?

(“I couldn’t answer that question to save my life,” said Stuart.  “That is, not then, but I found out later.  I put it in, however, and let Parker draw his own conclusions.  I’d have helped him out if I could, but I couldn’t.  Go on and see for yourself.”

I resumed.)

Parker could not solve the problem, but it pleased him to believe that something over which he had no control had gone wrong that morning, and that this had disturbed her equanimity, and that he was merely the victim of circumstances; and somehow or other it pleased him also to think that he could be the victim of her circumstances, so he stood his ground.

“It is a beautiful day,” he began, after a pause.

“Is it?” she asked, indifferently.

(“Frightfully snubbish,” said I, appalled at the lengths to which Miss Andrews was going.

“Dreadfully,” sighed Harley.  “And so unlike her, too.”)

“Yes,” said Parker, “so very beautiful that it seemed a pity that you and I should stay indoors, with plenty of walks to be taken and—”

Marguerite interrupted him with a sarcastic laugh.

“With so much pity and so many walks, Mr. Parker, why don’t you take a few of them!” she said.

(“Good Lord!” said I.  “This is the worst act of rebellion yet.  She seems beside herself.”

“Read on!” said Harley, in sepulchral tones.)

This was Parker’s opportunity.  “I am not fond of walking, Miss Andrews,” he said; and then he added, quickly, “that is, alone—I don’t like anything alone.  Living alone, like walking alone, is—”

“Let’s go walking,” said Marguerite, shortly, as she rose up from her chair.  “I’ll be down in two minutes.  I only need to put my hat on.”

Parker acquiesced, and Miss Andrews walked majestically out of the parlor and went up-stairs.

“Confound it!” muttered Parker, as she left him.  “A minute more, and I’d have known my fate.”

(“You see,” said Harley, “I’d made up my mind that that proposal should take place in that chapter, and I thought I’d worked right up to it, in spite of all Miss Andrews’s disagreeable remarks when, pop—off she goes to put on her hat.”

“Oh—as for that—that’s all right,” said I.  “Parker had suggested the walk, and a girl really does like to stave off a proposal as long as she can when she knows it is sure to come.  Furthermore, it gives you a chance to describe the hat, and so make up for a few of the words you lost when she refused to discuss ball-dresses with Mrs. Willard.”

“I never thought of that; but don’t you think I worked up to the proposal skilfully?” asked Harley.