“Those assets,” he said, “entitle you to a future. Should realize on them.... Ahem!...” Again he paused and touched his cravat fussily. He glanced down at his little shoes, immaculate, on his tailored legs and impressive abdomen. “Beauty,” he said, “requires ease and care.... Um!... Fades with hard work and economy.”
He crossed his hands on his stomach and smiled fatuously. “I,” he said, “have been a widower fifteen years. A long time.... Not from necessity. No, indeed. But my home, the sort of home I maintain—in keeping with my position—er—requires an adequate mistress.... One possessing qualities. Yes, indeed. Qualities suitable to the wife of Abner Fownes.”
He drew himself up to the utmost of his scanty height, making, as well, the most of his breadth. He resembled, Carmel thought, a dropsical pouter pigeon.
“The mistress of my home—er—mansion,” he amended, “would occupy enviable position. Extremely. Looked up to. Envied. Arbiter of local society. Ease, comfort—luxury. Everything money can buy.... Travel. Yes, indeed.... Clothes suitable to her station and mine.... Women are fond of clothes. Jewels. Amply able to provide my wife with jewels.”
Carmel was breathless. Her heart beat in a manner to cause her alarm lest it outdo itself. Her scalp prickled. She wondered if something physically unpleasant were going to happen—like fainting.
“Enviable picture,” he said, expansively. “Sufficient to attract any woman. Be pointed out as Abner Fownes’s wife. Women take pride in their husbands. Husband of a personage.” At this he swelled to his utmost.
“I have studied you,” he said, in a voice of one coming to the end of an oration. “I have found you in all ways capable of filling the position of my wife. Er—you would be a credit to me. Yes, indeed. End all your difficulties. Satisfy every whim. What more can anybody ask?”
He stared at her pompously, but with a horrid hunger in his eyes, stared as if waiting for an answer.
“I am asking you,” he said, “to become Mrs. Abner Fownes.”
She gasped to hear the unthinkable put into words. It had not seemed possible to her that it could be put into words. It was the sort of thing one hinted at, made use of double entendre to convey. But he dragged it out into the light and gloated over it. He insisted on stating it baldly.... She bore it as she would endure some shock, quivered under the affront of it, caught her breath, grasped at her heart as if to quiet it with her fingers. For moments she could not move nor speak. She was engulfed in material horror of the thing. It was as if she were immersed in some cold, clammy, clinging, living fluid—a fluid endowed with gristly life.