He paused, and was smoking thoughtfully, as I asked, “To Miss Fame?”
“No; she didn't reciprocate; and maybe it's just as well. I am engaged to a talented actress by the name of Maud Isabel Manning.”
He paused again as if to note the effect of this impressive name, and continued: “She's from New York, and beautiful as a dream. Came here with a show, and one morning she walked into the office. Told me that she used my toilet soap, and wanted to see the factory. I showed her about, and fell in love with her. She's a wonder—grand clothes, and knows how to wear 'em; wonderful education, fine talker, sings like a bird, and can make the piano roar. I told her about my false leg and foot and my family—that's worse than a wooden leg—but she doesn't mind, and we're going to be married.”
I fear that I shared the prejudice of my Puritan fathers against the stage, and was a little taken aback and a bit conservative in my comment.
I think he felt it, for he blushed and began to argue, although a little off the point.
“I think every gentleman ought to marry. There's something about women that makes a man gentle. Old bachelors are about as ugly as a bear with a sore head. I want somebody to work for besides myself. I can't love myself well enough to pay for the struggle. I've got to have somebody who grows happy as I grow rich, or I wouldn't care for money, upon my word I wouldn't. Then the Bible says that men should increase and multiply and replenish the earth.”
I wished him all happiness, and tried to put his mind at ease.
“I am forgetting you in talking of myself—you will want to retire,” he said, and we closed the office and walked to the inn together.
Next morning some one rapped at my bedroom door. “Who's there?” I demanded.
“A friend and fellow-citizen from St. Lawrence County,” was the answer, and I knew it was Pearl.