“It’s all right in you, but just because the poor girl is Maddy Clyde, folks will talk. She is too handsome, Guy, for Madam Grundy to let alone. If Lucy were only here, it would be different. Why, in the name of wonder, are you two not married, if you are ever going to be?”
“Jealous, as I live!” and Guy’s hand came down playfully on the doctor’s shoulder. “I did not suppose you had got as far as that. You are afraid of the effect it may have on me teaching a sweet-faced little girl how to conjugate amo; and to cover up your own interest, you bring Lucy forward as an argument. Eh, Hal, have I not probed the secret?”
The doctor was in no mood for joking, and only smiled gloomily, while Guy continued:
“Honestly, doctor, I am doing it for you. I imagine you fancy her, as well you may. She’ll make a splend’d woman, but she needs educating, of course, and I am going to do it. You ought to thank me, instead of looking so like a thundercloud,” and Guy laughed merrily.
The doctor was ashamed of his mood, and could not tell what spirit prompted him to answer:
“I am obliged to you, Guy; but as far as I am concerned, you may spare yourself the trouble. If my wife needs educating, I can do it myself.”
Guy was puzzled. Could it be that, after all, he was deceived, and the doctor did not care for Maddy? It might be, and he hastened to change the conversation to another topic than Maddy Clyde. The doctor stayed to dinner, and as Guy watched him closely, he made up his mind that he did care for Maddy Clyde, and this confirmed him in his plan of educating her for him.
Magnanimous Guy! He felt himself very good, very generous, very condescending, and very forgiving, the early portion of the afternoon; but later in the day he began to view Guy Remington in the light of a martyr, said martyrdom consisting in the scornful toss of the head with which Agnes had listened to his plan, and the open opposition of Mrs. Noah.
“Was he beside himself, or what?” this worthy asked. “She liked Maddy Clyde, to be sure, but it wasn’t for him to demean himself by turning her school master. Folks would talk awfully, and she couldn’t blame ’em; besides, what would Lucy say to his bein’ alone in a room with a girl as pretty as Maddy? It was a duty he owed her at any rate to tell her all about it, and if she said ’twas right, why, go it.”
This was the drift of Mrs. Noah’s remarks, and as Guy depended much on her judgment, he decided to write to Lucy to see if she had the slightest objections to his teaching Maddy Clyde. Accordingly he wrote that very night, telling her frankly all he knew concerning Maddy Clyde, and narrating the circumstances under which he first had met her, being careful also to repeat what he knew would have weight with an English girl like Lucy, to wit, that though poor, Maddy’s father and grandfather Clyde had been gentlemen, the one a clergyman, the other a sea captain. Then he told of her desire for learning, and his plan to teach her himself, of what the doctor and Mrs. Noah said about it, and his final determination to consult her. Then he described Maddy herself, feeling a strange thrill as he told how pure, how innocent, how artless and beautiful she was, and asked if Lucy feared aught from his association with her.