The Judgment of Eve

by May Sinclair

Mr. Gatty, on the other hand, had a soul that was higher than any collar. That, Aggie maintained, was why he always wore the wrong sort. There was no wrong thing Mr. Gatty could have worn that Aggie would not have found an excuse for; so assiduously did he minister to the finer part of her. He shared all her tastes. If she admired a picture or a piece of music or a book, Mr. Gatty had admired it ever since he was old enough to admire anything. She was sure that he admired her more for admiring them. She wasn’t obliged to hide those things from Mr. Gatty; besides, what would have been the use? There was nothing in the soul of Aggie that Mr. Gatty had not found out and understood, and she felt that there would be no limit to his understanding.

But what she liked best about him was his gentleness. She had never seen any young man so gentle as Mr. Gatty.

And his face was every bit as nice as John’s. Nicer, for it was excessively refined, and John’s wasn’t. You could see that his head was full of beautiful thoughts, whereas John’s head was full of nothing in particular. Then, Mr. Gatty’s eyes were large and spiritual; yes, spiritual was the word for them. John’s eyes were small, and, well, spiritual would never be the word for them.

Unfortunately, John had been on the field first, before the unique appearance of Mr. Gatty, and Aggie felt that she was bound in honor to consider him. She had been considering him for some time without any compulsion. But when things began to look so serious that it really became a question which of these two she would take, she called in her mother to help her to decide.

Mrs. Purcell was a comfortable, fat lady, who loved the state of peace she had been born in, had married into, and had never lost. Aggie was her eldest daughter, and she was a little vexed to think that she might have married five years ago if she hadn’t been so particular. Meanwhile, what with her prettiness and her superiority, she was spoiling her younger sisters’ chances. None of her rejected suitors had ever turned to Kate or Susie or Eliza. They were well enough, poor girls, but as long as Aggie was there they couldn’t help looking plain. But as for deciding between John Hurst and Mr. Gatty, Mrs. Purcell couldn’t do it. And when Aggie said, in her solemn way, “Mother, I think it’s coming; and I don’t know how to choose between them,” her mother had nothing to say but:

“You must use your own judgment, my dear.”

“My own judgment? I wonder if I really have any? You see, I feel as if I liked them both about the same.”

“Then just say to yourself that if you marry John Hurst you’ll have a big house in the country, and if you marry Mr. Gatty you’ll have a little one in town, and choose between the houses. That’ll be easy enough.”

Secretly, Mrs. Purcell was all for John Hurst, though he couldn’t be considered as exactly Aggie’s equal in station. (They were always saying how like a gentleman he looked, which showed that that was the last thing they had expected of him. But in Queningford one does as best one can.) For all John’s merits, she was not going to force him on Aggie in as many words. Mrs. Purcell deeply desired her daughter’s happiness, and she said to herself: “If Aggie marries either of them, and it turns out unhappily, I don’t want her to be able to say I over-persuaded her. If her poor father were alive, he‘d have known how to advise her.”

Then, all of a sudden, without anybody’s advice, John was eliminated, too. It was not Aggie’s doing. In fact, he may be said to have eliminated himself. It happened in this way: