Wired Love - Ella Cheever Thayer (read any book txt) 📗

am so sorry for my share in it! How strange it would be if he should, as he once said, marry the wrong woman, after all!" CHAPTER XIV. QUIMBY ACCEPTS THE SITUATION.

When Quimby rushed out into the street, it was with some wild and indefinite intention of flying to the ends of the earth, but recalled to his senses by the stares of the passers-by, he concluded he had better first return and get his hat. When he reached his own room, where Clem was thoughtfully pacing the floor, he flung himself face downwards upon the bed, groaning and kicking his feet spasmodically.

"What is the matter?" Clem inquired.

"I've done it now! I've done it now!" was all the answer Quimby gave him.

"Has she rejected you?" asked Clem, his mind going back to their morning's conversation.

"No! no! she has accepted me!" wailed Quimby, with a prodigious kick.

"What!" shouted Clem, stopping short in his promenade.

"She has! Oh, she has!" moaned the wretched victim of mistakes. "I am engaged! Oh, heavens! engaged!"

"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Rogers has accepted you?" inquired
Clem harshly.

This name completely unmanned poor Quimby, and he began to cry like a school-boy.

"Miss Rogers!—No! never—never! but she—Celeste!"

"Celeste!" echoed Clem; "Celeste!"

"Yes! I—oh!—I made a mistake, you know!" explained Quimby, wiping his eyes on the bedspread.

An irresistible smile, but quickly suppressed, curved Clem's lips as he asked,

"But how could you possibly make such a mistake as that? Come, cheer up, my boy, tell me, and let me help you out!"

Quimby looked at him mournfully.

"It—it was dark," he answered dejectedly, "she sat in the chair—the lost Nattie I mean, it was she, for she spoke to me! Why did I not seize the chance then? But no! I left her to—to rehearse a little first, and when I returned—Oh!—it was still dark, and I did not know a transformation had been effected—I burst forth in eloquence, and—oh!—it was Celeste, you know! I fled—she followed,—caught and hugged me in the hall! Her father saw—roared 'Marry her' and I—there was no escape, you know!"

"But, my dear fellow," remonstrated Clem, "you can explain the mistake! you are not obliged to marry Celeste because you accidentally proposed to her!"

Quimby shook his head hopelessly.

"She—she—would sue me for breach of promise you know, and take all—all my little property! And her terrific father—I don't know what he would not do to me! Only one thing could make me brave all!—If Miss Rogers—Nattie, would say it might have been, had not this fearful mistake occurred, I would face even old Fishblate and break all bonds."

"Dear old fellow, I am afraid she—Nattie would have rejected you, in any case. She is—a flirt!" said Clem, somewhat savagely. "She leads people on, for the sake of dropping them, when it suits her convenience!"

"I—now really, I—I cannot think that; even though she had rejected me, I could not think that!" said Quimby, loyally; then with sudden decision, "I will settle it now! If I had not put it off before, as I did, I might not have blundered into this awful fix, you know! I hear them in Cyn's room now; Cyn and Nattie; come with me! I—I will have witnesses, and no mistakes this time, you know!"

"What are you going to do?" asked Clem, following his excited friend, rather reluctantly.

"I am going to find out if she—Nattie—likes me, you know! if she does, I will brave Celeste—her fierce father—the law! if not—why then, I must be a martyr anyway, you know, and I don't care how big a one I am!"

So saying, Quimby went across to Cyn's room, Clem, not exactly liking the position thrust upon him, but unwilling to refuse, accompanying him.

Meanwhile, Nattie had pounced upon Cyn, the moment she returned, exclaiming,

"Oh! Cyn! such a dreadful thing has happened!"

"What? how? when?" asked Cyn, while, from the effects of the melodrama she had just been witnessing, visions of Clem, with a dozen bullets in his head, danced before her eyes.

"Quimby! poor Quimby! I have ruined him!" was Nattie's remorseful and unintelligible answer.

"Well, my dear, if you could possibly be a trifle lucid, perhaps I could understand the plot of the piece," said Cyn, decidedly relieved of her first surmise.

Upon which Nattie, half laughing and half crying, explained. But the ludicrous side was too much for Cyn, and she could only laugh.

"What a farce it would make!" she said, as soon as she could speak.

"Oh, Cyn!" Nattie said, reproachfully. "Think how dreadful it is for
Quimby, and for me, the un-meaning instrument of it all!"

"Nonsense, my dear," said Cyn, more seriously, and bringing her philosophy to bear on the subject, "It was not your fault! she was determined to have him in any case! Had it been you, as he supposed, you would of course have declined the proffered honor, and she would have caught him in the rebound! If he has spirit enough, he can get out of marrying her in some way. If not—she will make him a good wife enough. Men, you know, as she says, prefer to marry women who don't know too much; so it is all right!"

And with this Nattie was fain to be content. But she felt great pity for the poor fellow; perhaps because of the unhappiness in her own heart.

It is only from the depths of our own sorrows that we learn to feel for that of others.

As Quimby and Clem entered, both Nattie and Cyn looked surprised and curious, but Quimby, so excited now that his usual nervous bashfulness was forgotten, said immediately,

"I—I beg pardon, I am sure, for calling so late, but my business will not wait, and I wanted Clem as witness—he and Cyn—so as to make no mistake now!" then turning to the astonished Nattie, he went on,

"Nattie, I—I—my feelings for you have long been of—of adoration—no, please, hear me—" as she made a gesture to interrupt him. "To-night, in this room, I addressed another—Celeste—" here he groaned, but recovered himself and went on, "in the dark, you know, with words intended for you. I want to know now, what, had I not been so deceived, you would have said?"

"But what difference can it make now?" asked Nattie, hesitating, and wishing to spare him, as he paused for a reply.

"Every difference!" said Quimby, wildly. "I beg you to—to answer me truly, in order that I may know what course to take!"

"Then since you wish," replied Nattie, with a pitying glance, "I will tell you that as a friend I think very highly of you, and always shall. But, that is all."

"Then come on, Celeste!" exclaimed Quimby, in a burst of despair. "She—she says, she loves me, and I—I may get used to it in time! all but her teeth," he added, in his strict honesty, "to those I never can!"

Cyn felt a mischievous desire to hint that time might relieve him of his objection, but restrained herself and said,

"But you can explain the matter to her, you know!"

"Just what I have been telling him," said Clem. "No woman would force herself on a man under such circumstances!"

"She would, I feel it!" answered the unconvinced Quimby. "Miss Rogers—Nattie, I—I thank you, I—I shall always remember you as something unattainable and dear, and hope somebody more worthy may be to you what I would have been if I could. But I—I was born to make mistakes, you know, and I—I am used to it—and ought to be thankful it was not Miss Kling!"

"I am very, very sorry!" murmured Nattie, and Clem saw there were tears in her eyes.

"Moral—never make love in the dark!" said Cyn, looking with solemn warning at Clem.

"Be sure that all—all the gas in the room is lighted if ever you propose!" added Quimby, miserably, to his friend.

"I will remember," said Clem, glancing at Nattie. "There are worse mistakes made in the dark than on the wire, it seems!"

"Far—far worse!" groaned Quimby, as Nattie hastily turned her head aside.

"But now, really, Quimby!" urged Cyn, seriously, "do be sensible. Do not be foolish enough to marry a woman you do not want, because you cannot have the one you do!"

But Quimby, with the fear of old Fishblate, and a breach of promise suit, and a dread of explanations in his mind—moreover, having firmly decided that a little more or less of misery did not matter, could not be persuaded to take any steps himself, or allow them to be taken, to free himself from the result of his latest mistake.

Therefore, it came about, to the surprise of those not in the secret, and the unconcealed exultation of one of the parties immediately concerned, that the engagement of Quimby and Celeste was announced.

CHAPTER XV. ONE SUMMER DAY.

The week that decided Quimby's fate so unexpectedly and brought him so much woe, to Cyn brought good tidings. Her success at the concert had been so decided that she was the recipient of many offers for the coming season, and was enabled to accept those that promised most advantageously. No one was more honestly glad than was Nattie in her congratulations; Nattie, who had fought and overcome that selfish pain and bitter wonder of hers, why Cyn should have everything and she nothing.

Since the approach of summer, a much-talked of project among them had been a little picnic party in the woods, and as Clem now proposed to get it up in honor of Cyn's success, the plan was immediately carried out. Mrs. Simonson, with a feeble protest, because Miss Kling was not invited, accompanied them. The "them," of course, consisted of Cyn, Nattie, Clem, Jo, and the newly betrothed ones.

Nature was kind to these seekers of her solitudes, and gave them a perfect day; one of those that occur in our uncertain climate less often than might be wished, but that penetrate everywhere with their sunshine, when they do come, even into hearts where sunshine seldom glances. So, for the nonce, our friends forgot all their little troubles; even Quimby brightening up, and ceasing to think of his engagement, as they stood underneath the green trees, by the banks of a small river; sunshine everywhere, and the music of birds in the air.

"Is it not glorious?" cried Cyn, like a child, in her exuberance.

"Why not camp out here, and stay all summer?" ecstatically suggested
Clem, as he fondled his fishing tackle.

"But it might not always be pleasant like this," said practical Mrs.
Simonson.

"When the sun shines we forget it may ever storm," said Jo, and looking admiringly at Cyn as he spoke.

"Is our artist a philosopher, as well as all the rest we know he is?" asked Cyn, laughing.

"A very little one; five feet six!" replied Jo.

"Well, we will have no shadows to-day," said Cyn.

"No shadows to-day!" echoed Jo; then turning to Mrs. Simonson, asked, "I hope you do not still regret Miss Kling!"

"I suppose she would spoil it all!" that good lady committed herself enough to say.

"Well, really, I must say," remarked Celeste, who now gave herself many airs, and evidently looked upon Cyn and Nattie as commonplace creatures, not engaged!—"I must say, now that you are speaking of her, that she does Kling in a way that is not pleasant sometimes. She actually annoys pa!"

"I thought she entertained a high regard for The Tor—for your father," said mischievous Cyn.

"That is exactly it!" replied Celeste. "Too high a regard! Truly, she behaves very ridiculously! Why, she positively waylays pa! so indelicate in a woman, you know!" with sublime unconsciousness of ever having indulged in the pastime of waylaying herself! "Such an old creature, too! she is always coming and wanting to mend his old clothes and stockings! Poor pa actually has to lock himself in his room sometimes!"

The vision of "poor pa" thus pursued was too much for the gravity of the company, and there was a general laugh.

"It is true," asserted Celeste. "Now; isn't it, Ralfy?" appealing to her betrothed with appropriate bashfulness.

Everybody stared at this. No one before ever really knew that Quimby possessed a front door to his name, and he, as surprised as any one at the cognomen Love had discovered, fell back on a rolling log, and clutched his legs to that extent that they must have been black and blue for a week afterwards.

Clem saved the discomfited "Ralfy" the necessity of