"Peter said most girls were so romantic and ready to fall in love, they often loved a man who cared nothing for them, but who married them rather than break their hearts, and that's what causes so many unhappy homes. Of course, it works the other way too, and he said the way to tell if it were a real true, undying love, was to try the 'expulsive power of a new love.' That's a fine phrase, isn't it?"
"Well, Peter was willing to be experimented on. He said if he had come to Millford about the same time you did, I might have selected him instead of you, and made a hero of him."
"He has his nerve," exclaimed the doctor.
"O, I don't know," she said. "I mean I didn't know. I was willing to see. So Peter stuck around all the time, and he drove me everywhere, and always saw me home. I like him—all right—but you see I couldn't make my heart beat when he came into the room, and there was no rainbow in the sky, or music in the air, when he came to see me, and every day I got more lonesome for you, until it just seemed as if I couldn't go on. The three years when I thought you loved me, I saved up a lot of happiness—sort of money in the bank—and I used it every day and told myself you would tell me everything some day—and it would all come right. I got that mixed in with my prayers every night. But when you didn't come—and didn't come—my balance in the bank grew less and less—and I got panicky, and afraid I had been mistaken. So just to be sure, I did try to like Peter—not because I wanted to, but just to see if it could be done—in the interest of scientific research, Peter said it was."
"But I couldn't get accustomed to having him with me—he tired me sometimes—he talked too much, and I never could let him pay for my lunch, when we had lunch together. I could not let him spend a cent on me—not even the price of a movie."
"I'm glad you didn't, Pearl," the doctor said quickly. "You were quite right about that, but you won't feel that way about me, will you dear? These new women can get to be so independent—they are uncomfortable to live with."
Pearl rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, like a well-pleased kitten.
"No chance!" she said. "I'll let you pay every time—I'll just love spending your money—I won't ever know it from mine."
"O won't you?" laughed the doctor. "Well now, I am glad to be warned, and I am glad there are some laws to protect poor simple-minded men like me. I'll speak to Driggs about it as soon as I go back, and you may expect to see on the front page of the 'Mercury' something like this: 'I, Horace Clay, physician of the village of Millford, hereby warn the public I will not be responsible for my wife's debts.'"
At that, they laughed so much that the woodpecker in the tree above them stopped drumming, to listen, and when he found out how matters stood, he turned the whole story into telegraphic code and sent it up and down the valley; and a brown squirrel looked at them through a tangle of cranberry leaves, and when he got the drift of their conversation, he raced to the top of the highest tree and chee—chee—chee-d the news to all the other squirrels in the woods; and old silver-spot, the crow, scenting a piece of gossip, came circling over the trees and made a landing on a stump quite near them, and with his head on one side, listened for a few minutes, and then, with an insufferable smirk, rose cautiously and, circling high over the trees, made a rapid flight up the river, without uttering a sound.