JONES
I
I could have taken "No" like a man, and would have gone away decently and never bothered her again. I told her so straight out in the first angry flush of my rejection—but this string business, with everything left hanging in the air, so to speak, made a fellow feel like thirty cents.
"It simply means that I'm engaged and you are not," I said.
"It's nothing of the kind," she returned tearfully. "You're as free as free, Ezra. You can go away this moment, and never write, or anything!"
Her lips trembled as she said this, and I confess it gave me a kind of savage pleasure to feel that it was still in my power to hurt her.
It may sound unkind, but still you must admit that the whole situation was exasperating. Here was five-foot-five of exquisite, blooming, twenty-year-old American girlhood sending away the man she confessed to care for, because, forsooth, she would not marry before her elder sister! I always thought it was beautiful of Freddy (she was named Frederica, you know) to be always so sweet and tender and grateful about Eleanor; but sometimes gratitude can be carried altogether too far, even if you are an orphan, and were brought up by hand. Eleanor was thirty-four if a day—a nice enough woman, of course, and college bred, and cultivated, and clever—but her long suit wasn't good looks. She was tall and bony; worshiped genius and all that; and played the violin.
"No," repeated Freddy, "I shall never, never marry before Eleanor. It would mortify her—I know it would—and make her feel that she herself had failed. She's awfully frank about those things, Ezra—surprisingly frank. I don't see why being an old maid is always supposed to be so funny, do you? It's touching and tragic in a woman who'd like to marry and who isn't asked!"
"But Eleanor must have had heaps of offers," I said, "surely—"
"Just one."