I

I could have taken "No" like a man, and would have gone away decently and never bothered her again. I told her so straight out in the first angry flush of my rejection--but this string business, with everything left hanging in the air, so to speak, made a fellow feel like thirty cents.

"It simply means that I'm engaged and you are not," I said.

"It's nothing of the kind," she returned tearfully. "You're as free as free, Ezra. You can go away this moment, and never write, or anything!"

Her lips trembled as she said this, and I confess it gave me a kind of savage pleasure to feel that it was still in my power to hurt her.

It may sound unkind, but still you must admit that the whole situation was exasperating. Here was five-foot-five of exquisite, blooming, twenty-year-old American girlhood sending away the man she confessed to care for, because, forsooth, she would not marry before her elder sister! I always thought it was beautiful of Freddy (she was named Frederica, you know) to be always so sweet and tender and grateful about Eleanor; but sometimes grat.i.tude can be carried altogether too far, even if you are an orphan, and were brought up by hand. Eleanor was thirty-four if a day--a nice enough woman, of course, and college bred, and cultivated, and clever--but her long suit wasn't good looks. She was tall and bony; worshiped genius and all that; and played the violin.

"No," repeated Freddy, "I shall never, never marry before Eleanor.

It would mortify her--I know it would--and make her feel that she herself had failed. She's awfully frank about those things, Ezra--surprisingly frank. I don't see why being an old maid is always supposed to be so funny, do you? It's touching and tragic in a woman who'd like to marry and who isn't asked!"

"But Eleanor must have had heaps of offers," I said, "surely--"

"Just one."

"Well, one's something," I remarked cheerfully. "Why didn't she take him then?"

"She told me only last night that she was sorry she hadn't!"

Here, at any rate, was something to chew on. I saw a gleam of hope. Why shouldn't Eleanor marry the only one--and make us all happy!

"That was three years ago," said Freddy.

"I have loved you for four," I retorted. I was cross with disappointment. To be dashed to the ground, you know, just as I was beginning--"Tell me some more about him," I went on. I'm a plain business man and hang on to an idea like a bulldog; once I get my teeth in they stay in, for all you may drag at me and wallop me with an umbrella--metaphorically speaking, of course.

"Tell me his name, where he lives, and all."

"We were coming back from Colorado, and there was some mistake about our tickets. They sold our Pullman drawing-room twice over--to Doctor Jones and his mother, and also to ourselves. You never saw such a fight--and that led to our making friends, and his proposing to Eleanor!"

"Then why in Heaven's name didn't she" (it was on the tip of my tongue to say "jump at him ") "take him?"

"She said she couldn't marry a man who was her intellectual inferior."

"And was he?"

"Oh, he was a perfect idiot--but nice, and all that, and tremendously in love with her. Pity, wasn't it?"

"The obvious thing to do is to chase him up instantly. Where did you say he lived?"

"His mother told me he was going to New York to practise medicine."

"But didn't you ever hear from him again? I mean, was that the end of it all?"

"Yes?"

"Then you don't even know if he has married since?"

"No,"

"Nor died?"

"No."

"Nor anything at all?"

"No."

"What was his first name?"

"Wait a moment . . . let me think yes, it was Harry."

"Just Harry Jones, then, New York City?"

Freddy laughed forlornly.

"But he must have had antecedents," I cried out. "There are two ways of doing this Sherlock Holmes business--backward and forward, you know. Let's take Doctor Jones backward. As they say in post-office forms--what was his place of origin?"

"New York City."

"He begins there and ends there, does he, then?"

"Yes."

"But how sure are you that Eleanor would marry him if I did manage to find him and bring him back?"

"I'm not sure at all."

"No, but Freddy, listen--it's important. You told me yourself that she--I want the very identical words she used."

Freddy reflected.

"She said she was almost sorry she hadn't accepted that silly doctor!"

"That doesn't seem much, does it?" I remarked gloomily.

"Oh, from Eleanor it does, Ezra. She said it quite seriously.

She always hides her feelings under a veil of sarcastic humor, you know."

"You're certainly a very difficult family to marry," I said.

"Being an orphan--" she began.