Latterly Guy had stopped telling the doctor that he was educating Maddy for him. Indeed, he did not talk of her at all, and the doctor might have fancied her out of his mind but for the frequent visits to New York, which Guy found it absolutely necessary to make. Guy did not himself understand the state of his own feelings with regard to Maddy, but if compelled to explain them they would have been something as follows: He fully expected to marry Lucy Atherstone; the possibility that he should not had never occurred to him, but that was no reason why Maddy Clyde need be married for these many years. She was very young yet; there was time enough for her to think of marrying when she was twenty-five, and in the meanwhile it would be splendid to have her at Aikenside as Lucy’s friend. Nothing could be nicer, and Guy did not care to have this little arrangement spoiled. But that the doctor had an idea of spoiling it, he had not a doubt, particularly after the doctor’s next remark.
“I have not seen Maddy since last spring, you know. Is she very much improved?”
“Yes, very much. There is no more stylish-looking girl to be seen on Broadway than Maddy Clyde,” and Guy shook down his pantaloons a little awkwardly.
“Well, is she as handsome as she used to be, and as childish in her manner?” the doctor asked; and Guy replied:
“I took her to the opera once, last month, and the many admiring glances cast at our box proved pretty positively that Maddy’s beauty was not of the ordinary kind.”
“The opera!” the doctor exclaimed; “Maddy Clyde at the opera! What would her grandfather say? He is very puritanical in his notions.”
“Yes, I know; and so is Maddy, too. She wrote and obtained his consent before she’d go with me. He won’t let her go to a theater anyhow. He considers that in the same block with the bottomless pit.”
Here an interval of silence ensued, and then the doctor began again:
“Guy, you told me once you were educating Maddy Clyde for me, and I tried to make you think I didn’t care; but I did, oh, so much. Guy, laugh at me if you please. I cannot blame you if you do; but the fact is, I believe I’ve loved Maddy Clyde ever since she was so sick. At all events, I love her now, and I was going down there this very afternoon to tell her so. She’s old enough. She was sixteen last October, the—the——”
“Tenth day,” Guy responded, thus showing that he, too, was keeping Maddy’s age, even to a day.