This brought from me the rejoinder: "I know it, but you would have shown better breeding yourself had you not told me of it!"
And then he was on his knee in the entrance, begging forgiveness, and saying his "cursed, cracking voice made a madman of him!"
As it really did, for he often accused people of guying him if they did but clear their own throats. And so we went on till something in his manner—his increased efforts to find me alone at rehearsal, for as I was without a room-mate in Columbus, I could not receive him at home, and I truly think he would have kept silence forever rather than have urged me to break any conventional rule of propriety—this something gave me the idea that Frank was going to be—well—explicit, that—that—I was going to be proposed to according to established form.
Now, though a proposal of marriage is a thing to look forward to with desire, to look back upon with pride, it is also a thing to avoid when it is in the immediate future, and I so successfully evaded his efforts to find me alone, at the theatre or at some friend's house, that he was forced at last to speak at night, while escorting me home.
I lodged in a quiet little street, opening out of the busier, more noisy Kinsman Street. In our front yard there lived a large, greedy old tree, which had planted its foot firmly in the very middle of the path, thus forcing everyone to chassé around it who wished to enter the house. Its newly donned summer greenery extended far over the gate, and as the moon shone full and fair the "set" was certainly appropriate.
We reached the gate, and I held out my hand for my bag—that small catch-all of a bag that, in the hand of the actress, is the outward and visible sign of her profession; but he let the bag slip to the walk and caught my hand in his. The street was deserted. Leaning against the gate beneath the sheltering boughs of the old tree, the midnight silence all about us, he began to speak earnestly.
I made a frantic search through my mind for something to say presently, when my turn would come to speak. I rejected instantly the ancient wail of "suddenness." Frank's temper did not encourage an offer of "sisterhood." I was just catching joyously at the idea of hiding behind the purely imaginary opposition of my mother, when Frank's words: "Then, too, dear heart! I could protect you, and—" were interrupted by a yowl, so long, so piercing, it seemed to rise like a rocket of anguish into the summer sky.
"Oh!" I thought, "that's one-eared Jim from next door, and if our Simmons hears him—and he'd have to be dead not to hear—he will come out to fight him!" I clenched my teeth, I dropped my eyes that Frank might not see the threatening laughter there. I noted how much whiter his hand was than mine, as they were clasped in the moonlight. The pause had been long; then, very gently, he started again: "Mignonne!"
Distinctly I heard the thump of Simmons's body dropping from the porch-roof. "Mignonne, look up! you big-eyed child, and tell me that I may go to your mother with your promise!"
"Mi-au! Mi-au! Wow! Spit! Spit! Wow!" Four balls of fire glowed for a moment beneath the tree, then two dark forms became one dark form, that whirled and bounded through space, emitting awful sounds. The cats were too much for me, I threw back my head and laughed.