The Adventures of a Modest Man

"Me?"

"Certainly."

"Please don't – "

"You are always lingering dangerously close to the border of impertinence," she said. "I do not wish to be rude or ungracious. I have been unpardonably annoyed, and – when I consider my present false situation – I am annoyed still more. Let me be unmistakably clear and concise; I do not feel any – anger – toward you; I have no feeling whatever toward you; and I do not ever expect to see you again. Let it rest so. I will drop you my best curtsey when you lift your hat to me at Twenty-ninth Street. Can a guilty man ask more?"

"Your punishment is severe," he said, flushing.

"My punishment? Who am I punishing, if you please?"

"Me."

"What folly! I entertain no human emotions toward you; I have no desire to punish you. How could I punish you – if I wished to?"

"By doing what you are doing."

"And what is that?" she asked rather softly.

"Denying me any hope of ever knowing you."

"You are unfair," she said, biting her lip. "I do not deny you that 'hope,' as you choose to call it. Consider a moment. Had you merely seen me on the train you could not have either hoped or even desired ever to know me. Suppose for a moment – " she flushed, but her voice was cool and composed "suppose you were attracted to me – thought me agreeable to look at? You surely would never have dreamed of speaking to me and asking such a thing. Why, then, should you take unfair advantage of an accident and ask it now? You have no right to – nor have I to accord you what you say you desire."

She spoke very sweetly, meeting his eyes without hesitation.

"May I reply to you?" he asked soberly.

"Yes – if you wish."

"You will not take it as an affront?"

"Not – not if – " She looked at him. "No," she said.

"Then this is my reply: Wherever I might have seen you I should instantly have desired to know you. That desire would have caused you no inquietude; I should have remained near you without offense, perfectly certain in my own mind that somehow and somewhere I must manage to know you; and to that end – always without offense, and without your knowledge – I should have left the train when you did, satisfied myself where you lived, and then I should have scoured the city, and moved heaven and earth to find the proper person who might properly ask your permission to receive me. That is what I should have done if I had remained thirty seconds in the same car with you… Are you offended?"

"No," she said.

They journeyed on for some time, saying nothing; she, young face bent, sensitive lips adroop, perhaps considering what he said; he, cradling his golf-sticks, trying to keep his eyes off her and succeeding very badly.

"I wonder what your name is?" she said, looking up at him.

"James Seabury," he replied so quickly that it was almost pathetic.

She mused, frowning a little: "Where have I heard your name?" she asked with an absent-minded glance at him.

"Oh – er – around, I suppose," he suggested, vaguely.

"But I have heard it. Are you famous?"

"Oh, no," he said quickly. "I'm an architect, or ought to be. Fact is, I'm so confoundedly busy golfing and sailing and fishing and shooting and hunting that I have very little time for business."

"What a confession!" she exclaimed, laughing outright; and the beauty that transfigured her took his breath away. But her laughter was brief, her eyes grew more serious than ever: "So you are not in business?"

"No."

"I am employed," she said calmly, looking at him.

"Are you?" he said, astonished.

"So, you see," she added gaily, "I should have very little time to see anybody – "

"You mean me?"

"Yes, you, for example."

"You don't work all the while, do you?" he asked.

"Usually."

"All the time?"

"I dine – at intervals."

"That's the very thing!" he said with enthusiasm.

She looked at him gravely.

"Don't you see," he went on, "as soon as you'll let me know you my sister will call, and then you'll call, and then my sister will invite – "

She was suddenly laughing again – a curious laugh, quite free and unguarded.

"Of course, you'll tell your sister how we met," she suggested; "she'll be so anxious to know me when she hears all about it."

"Do you suppose," he said coolly, "that I don't know one of my own sort whenever or however I happen to meet her?"

"Men cannot always tell; I grant you women seldom fail in placing one another at first glance; but men rarely possess that instinct… Besides, I tell you I am employed."

"What of it? Even if you wore the exceedingly ornamental uniform of a parlor-maid it could not worry me."

"Do you think your sister would hasten to call on a saleswoman at Blumenshine's?" she asked carelessly.

"Nobody wants her to," he retorted, amused.

"Or on a parlor-maid – for example?"

"Let her see you first; you can't shock her after that… Are you?" he inquired gently – so gently, so pleasantly, that she gave him a swift look that set his heart galloping.

"Do you really desire to know me?" she asked. But before he could answer she sprang up, saying: "Good gracious! This is Twenty-eighth Street! It seems impossible!"