“I was in love with her almost from the first,” he went on, “in spite of my father’s objection to the attachment. The first Edwards of our family, Mr. Trant, came to Massachusetts in 1660. So my father has the idea that anybody who came later cannot possibly be our equal; and Miss Silber, who came to America to work—the women of our family have stayed idly at home—did not get here until a short time ago.”
“Coming from where?” asked the psychologist.
“I don’t know,” the young man answered simply. “I think she is an Austrian, for the Magyar dialect she speaks is the least likely of the languages she knows to have been learned by choice. I spoke of this to her once, and she did not contradict me.” He paused to control his agitation, and then went on: “She had, so far as I know, no friends. So you see, Mr. Trant, that all that makes my father’s consent to my marrying her only a greater proof of her evident goodness and charm!”
“Then he did consent to your marrying her?” Trant interjected.
“Yes; two weeks ago. I had begged and begged her, but she never had been willing to give me her promise. A week ago last Wednesday, after she had known for more than a week that father had agreed to it, she finally consented—but only conditionally. I was going away for a short business trip, and Eva told me that she wanted that much time to think it over, but that when I came back she would tell me all about herself and, if I still wanted to marry her after hearing it, she would marry me. I never imagined that any one could force her to change her mind!”
“Yet she did change her mind, you think?” put in Trant.
“Without question, Mr. Trant!” was the emphatic reply. “And it seems to have been wholly because of the visit of the ‘hammering man,’ who came to see her at the office the day after I left Chicago. It sounds queer to call him that, but I do not know his name, nor anything about him, except the fact of his hammering.”
“But if the people in the office saw him, you have at least his description,” said Trant.
“They say he was unusually large, gross, almost bestial in appearance, and red headed. He was plainly dressed. He asked to see Eva. When she caught sight of him she turned back and refused to speak with him.”
“How did the man take her refusal?” was the next question.