“I’m sure you haven’t here,” he went on, “for I’ve not seen an eligible fellow native to this village since I came.” He paused a moment, awaiting an admission, and then continued: “How do you pass the time, anyway, and isn’t life here monotonous? Don’t you long for some excitement, some fun, some color to it all? I’ve watched these villagers now for three weeks and their lives seem so prosy, so dead slow, it is painful. They get up, eat, chase the cows and chickens, hoe in the gardens, mow hay, and every blessed woman wears the same calico gown six days in the week. Sundays they all spruce up, go to meeting, and the next week repeat the programme. Isn’t it so?”
“I presume it is,” answered Chip, with rising ire; “but if folks here weren’t satisfied, they could move away, couldn’t they? And if it’s all so dull, what did you come here for? Nobody asked you, did they?”
“No,” he responded, laughing, “no one did, and no one will miss me when I go–not even you. The only redeeming feature is that they all seem willing to take my money.”
“Would you stay if they weren’t,” she returned, still more hotly, “would you sponge on us folks and sneer at us as well?”
“Keep cool, my dear girl,” he answered unruffled, “keep cool, and let your lovely hair grow. I’m not sneering at you or any one. I am merely stating facts. To us who live in the whirl of city life, a few weeks here is a delightful change, and we are glad to pay well for it. I am only speaking of how it must seem to live this way all the time.”
He paused a moment, watching Chip’s face turned half away, and then continued persuasively: “I am sorry you are so ready to believe ill of me or to think I am sneering at all things. In that you have changed very much since last summer. Then you seemed to enjoy talking with me; now you blaze up into wrath at my pleasantry. I am very sorry you feel as you do. I’d like to be better friends with you if possible, otherwise I wouldn’t have risked the rebuff I received from your excellent aunt yesterday. I’d like very much to call on you, and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to entertain you and your aunt on my boat. I am an idle fellow, I’ll admit, with nothing to do but spend my time and money, but that is my misfortune, and you ought to have pity on me.”
And so this smooth-tongued, persuasive talker ran on and on while Chip, fascinated, in spite of her dislike of him, listened.
More than that, he grew eloquent and even pathetic at times in describing his hopes and ambitions in life. He even asserted that he longed to live differently and to become a useful man, instead of an idle one. It was all hypocrisy, of course, but Chip was scarce able to detect it, and lulled by his specious, pleading voice, she admitted that she had no real reason for distrusting or disliking him. Also, that she would enjoy a sail on his boat, and would try to persuade her aunt to accept another invitation.
This especially was what he most wanted, for shrewd schemer that he was, he knew that if he could ingratiate himself with this guardian aunt, permission to call must follow, and with that, some opportunity to make a conquest of this simple country girl.
Sated as he was with the society of more polished and therefore artificial womanhood, blasé to all the purities of life and refined society, a roué and rake conversant with all vice, this fearless, wholesome, yet unsophisticated girl who seemed like a breath from the pine woods, attracted him as no other could.