“Thank you,” you parried gravely, “but so old a volume can hardly be lacking in association. I think we must be going.”
I took you down to the carriage, and Mrs. Blodgett kindly offered me the fourth seat. You were absolutely silent in the drive up-town, and I was scarcely less so as I tried to read your thoughts. What feelings had that scrap of writing stirred in you?
I have often since then recalled our parting words that afternoon, and wondered if I allowed a mere scruple—a cobweb that a stronger man would have brushed aside without a second thought—to wreck my life. If I had taken what you offered? Perhaps the time might have come when I could have told you of my trick, and you would have forgiven it. Perhaps—
You said to me graciously, when we separated at your door, “I shall be very happy, Dr. Hartzmann, if you will come to see me.”
I flushed with pleasure, for I felt it was not a privilege you gave to many. But even as I hesitated for words with which to express my gratitude, I realized that I had no moral right to gain your hospitality by means of my false name; and when I spoke it was to respond, “I thank you for the favor most deeply, Miss Walton, but I am too busy a man for social calls.”
Oh, my darling, if you had known what those few words cost me, and the struggle it was to keep my voice steady as I spoke them! For I knew you could only take them to mean that I declined your friendship. Hide my shame as I might try to do, I could not escape its pains. God keep you from such suffering, Maizie, and good-night.
XIV
March 5. Though I committed the rudeness of refusing to call, you never in our subsequent intercourse varied your manner by the slightest shade, treating me always with a courtesy I ill deserved. After such a rebuff, it is true, you were too self-respecting to offer me again any favor tending to a better acquaintance, but otherwise you bore yourself towards me as you did towards the thousand other men whom you were obliged to meet.
Your life as a social favorite, and mine as a literary hack, gave little opportunity for our seeing each other, yet we met far more frequently than would have seemed possible. Occasionally I found you at the Blodgetts’, though not as often as our informal footing in that household had led me to hope; for you were in such social demand that your morning hours were the time you usually took to run in upon them. But now and then we lunched or dined there, and Mrs. Blodgett little dreamed how willingly I obeyed her positive command that I was to come to every one of her afternoons when Agnes told me that you were to receive or pour tea. Little I had of your attention, for you were a magnet to many, but I could stand near you and could watch and listen, and that was happiness.