Believable or not, just at that moment when I stood there under the bough arguing, reproaching and beguiling by turns and puzzled beyond measure—out of the Nowhere darted a little scarlet flame of frenzy—Tweetie himself—with his feathers ruffled and on fire with fury. The robin on the branch actually WAS an Impostor and Tweetie had discovered him red-breasted if not red-handed with crime. Oh! the sight it was to behold him in his tiny Berseker rage at his impudent rival. He flew at him, he beat him, he smacked him, he pecked him, he shrieked bad language at him, he drove him from the branch—from the tree, from one tree after another as the little traitor tried to take refuge—he drove him from the rose-garden—over the laurel hedge and into the pheasant cover in the wood. Perhaps he killed him and left him slain in the bracken. I could not see. But having beaten him once and forever he came back to me, panting—all fluffed up—and with blood thirst only just dying in his eye. He came down on to my table—out of breath as he agitatedly rearranged his untidy feathers—and indignant—almost unreconcilable because I had been such an undiscriminating and feeble-minded imbecile as to be for one moment deceived.
His righteous wrath was awful to behold. I was so frightened that I felt quite pale. With those wiles of the serpent which every noble woman finds herself forced to employ at times I endeavored to pacify him.
"Of course I did not really believe he was You," I said tremulously. "He was your inferior in every respect. His waistcoat was not nearly so beautiful as yours. His eyes were not so soul compelling. His legs were not nearly so elegant and slender. And there was an expression about his beak which I distrusted from the first. You HEARD me tell him he was an Impostor."
He began to listen—he became calmer—he relented. He kindly ate a crumb out of my hand.
We began mutually to understand the infamy of the situation. The Impostor had been secretly watching us. He had envied us our happiness. Into his degenerate mind had stolen the darkling and criminal thought that he—Audacious Scoundrel—might impose upon me by pretending he was not merely "a robin" but "The Robin"—Tweetie himself and that he might supplant him in my affections. But he had been confounded and cast into outer darkness and again we were One.
I will not attempt to deceive. He was jealous beyond bounds. It was necessary for me to be most discreet in my demeanor towards the head gardener with whom I was obliged to consult frequently. When he came into the rose-garden for orders Tweetie at once appeared.
He followed us, hopping in the grass or from rose bush to rose bush. No word of ours escaped him. If our conversation on the enthralling subjects of fertilizers and aphides seemed in its earnest absorption to verge upon the emotional and tender he interfered at once. He commanded my attention. He perched on nearby boughs and endeavored to distract me. He fluttered about and called me with chirps. His last resource was always to fly to the topmost twig of an apple tree and begin to sing his most brilliant song in his most thrilling tone and with an affected manner. Naturally we were obliged to listen and talk about him. Even old Barton's weather-beaten apple face would wrinkle into smiles.
"He's doin' that to make us look at him," he would say. "That's what he's doin' it for. He can't abide not to be noticed."
But it was not only his vanity which drew him to me. He loved me. The low song trilled in his little pulsating scarlet throat was mine. He sang it only to me—and he would never sing it when any one else was there to hear. When we were quite alone with only roses and bees and sunshine and silence about us, when he swung on some spray quite close to me and I stood and talked to him in whispers—then he would answer me—each time I paused—with the little "far away" sounding trills—the sweetest, most wonderful little sounds in the world. A clever person who knew more of the habits of birds than I did told me a most curious thing.
"That is his little mating song," he said. "You have inspired a hopeless passion in a robin."