I wonder what he's doing this very minute—three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. Perhaps he's playing golf in a Norfolk Scotch tweed; perhaps he's oiling an engine in blue overalls; perhaps he's at the point of death with typhoid fever and is lying in bed with a thermometer in his mouth, and I am going to lose him! Oh, I hope he will be spared! I'll love him, overalls and all, and be proud too, to stand at the back-door and wave my apron when his train goes by, just as they do in magazine stories. I don't believe, after all, I'm a bit ambitious when it comes to marrying.
I suppose every reader of this résumé chapter of mine is simply skipping paragraphs by the dozen in the fond hope that he'll run across some exciting reference to Dr. Maynard. People are always so suspicious of an old love-affair. Let me relieve your mind. As much as you may be disappointed, I must announce that I am not reserving any sweet sentimental morsel, for a climactic finale. Far from it. I haven't got it to reserve. I only wish I had. A sweet memory is such a comforting possession, a thrilling romance of the past such a reassurance. But it is very evident that Dr. Maynard has no intention of providing me with sweet memories or thrilling romances. All the balm and comfort that his proposal may have given me in the beginning he has destroyed by being hopelessly commonplace ever since. I wish you could read his letters! Impersonal? Why, they might easily be addressed to a maiden aunt. Never once has he referred to that starry night, when he asked me to go to Germany with him; never intimated that he wished that I were there to see the castles on the Rhine, or hear the music in the gardens above Heidelberg; never asked, as any normal man would do, if I had changed my mind. Not that I have in the least. I haven't! Only it seems to me almost impolite not as much as to inquire.
Dr. William Ford Maynard is becoming quite well known here in America. There have been several articles already in the magazines about him and the remarkable results of his scientific research. I ought to be flattered to receive envelopes addressed to me from him at all, I suppose. We write about once a month. His letters are full of descriptions of pensions, and cafés, and queer people at his boarding-place. I know some of his guinea-pigs by name—the ones who have the typhoid, the scarlet-fever, and the spinal meningitis; the convalescents, the fatalities, and the triumphant recoveries are reported to me monthly. But as honoured as I ought to feel, I suppose, to share the results of this man's famous work, the truth is I don't enjoy his letters one bit! I am glad I was foresighted enough not to marry such a passionless man. I never would have been satisfied. I see it clearly now.
My letters to him are regular works of art. I'm bound not to let him pity me, at any rate, and if he can write cheerful and enthusiastic descriptions so can I. To Dr. Maynard I am simply delighted over our burst into prosperity and social splendour. Edith's improvements on the house I rave over. I describe bridge parties, teas and dances as if I gloried in them. I refer to various men—mostly Ruth's suitors, I must confess—frequently and with familiarity. I am simply "Living," with a big capital L, in my letters to Dr. Maynard, and my stub pen crosses its T's and ends its sentences with great broad, militant dashes that are bold with triumph.
Once only did Dr. Maynard condescend to refer to the past, and that was in a little insignificant postscript at the end of a long humorous description of a German family that he saw in a café. This is what he wrote, all cramped up in a little bit of space, after he had signed his name:
"How is San Francisco progressing in her reconstruction? Does she need any outside help in building up her beautiful city? Please let me know when she does!"
I tell you I wrote him the gayest, most flippant little note I could compose—all about how busy I was with engagements, etc., etc.; and then after I had signed my name, along the margin of the paper I said:
"About San Francisco—she is progressing wonderfully, she doesn't need any help from any one, unless possibly lead weights to keep her from soaring. The earthquake did her good. She's becoming very modernised and when you see her next I doubt if you recognise her on account of all the changes. Is Lizzie better? Or was it Nibbles who had the typhoid?"
If Dr. Maynard couldn't afford a fresh sheet of paper, go upstairs and shut himself in his room, and ask me seriously and quietly if I were unhappy or lonely, I would starve first before I'd ask bread of him.