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

Nattie.

"Yes," he replied, with a gesture of his arm that produced an impression as if that member had leaped out of its socket. "Yes, talking with the unseen, you know; I—I beg pardon, but it strikes me as ghostly."

Nattie stared.

"What a strange fancy!" she exclaimed. "'C' is very real, and of the earth, earthy to me, I assure you!"

Quimby's face lengthened some three inches. "Is he?" he said ruefully. "I—I beg pardon, but you haven't—you don't mean to say that—you have not taken a—bless my soul! how warm it is here!" and he mopped his face with a red silk handkerchief—a color very unbecoming to his complexion.

"Warm!" repeated Nattie, her lips curving in an amused smile, for she had a shawl over her shoulders, and was nevertheless slightly chilly. "I don't perceive it, I am sure."

"I—I beg pardon—but I've been walking, you know," Quimby said nervously. "But I—I was about to ask—I—I beg pardon—but you have not—not" desperately, "really fallen in love with him, have you?"

Nattie's eyes danced with amusement, but her color deepened slightly too, as she replied,

"How could one fall in love with an invisible? why, that would be even less satisfactory than an ideal!"

Quimby's face brightened, and he recovered himself sufficiently to put away the red silk handkerchief.

"I don't think—really, I should not think there could be much satisfaction in it!" then stealing a bashful but adoring glance at her, he added,

"I—I prefer a—a visible, as being something more substantial, you know!"

"Indeed?" said Nattie, demurely; then thinking perhaps he was drifting on to grounds that had best be avoided, she changed the subject, by saying,

"Do you not think Cyn a very charming young lady?"

"Oh, yes! I—I—yes, very charming!" Quimby answered, but not so enthusiastically as perhaps Mr. Norton might have done. For Quimby's heart was of the old-fashioned kind, and his fancy was not fickle; besides, being now, in a measure, launched upon the subject, of love, so awful to approach, he was unwilling thus soon to leave a theme so sweet, yet so formidable. Therefore, crossing his legs, and bracing up against the chair-back; he determined, now or never, to give her an inkling of his feelings, an intention so very palpable, that Nattie was glad indeed to hear from the sounder,

"B m—B m—B m—."

"Excuse me," she said, hastily. "They are calling me on the wire," and immediately answered, and began taking a message.

Meanwhile, to him had come a reaction, and he was in a state of total collapse. Before she had finished receiving that message of only ten words, he had drawn himself dejectedly to his feet, and was looking for his hat.

"I—I really—I must go, you know!" he faltered, blushing, as Nattie glanced up at him. "I—I fear I have intruded now—but I—I—" he stopped short, unable to find an ending to his sentence.

"I'm always glad of company," Nattie said, but a little distantly, as she gave "O. K." on the wire.

"I—I—really, you are very kind, you know," stammered Quimby. "I—I pass here on the way to dinner, you see—from the office, you know,"—he eked out his meagre income by writing in a lawyer's office—"where, 'pon my word, I ought to have been now. But it's—it's such a pleasure to see you—you know that—where can my hat be?"

All this time he had been looking around for his hat, and now Nattie fished it out of the waste basket, into which he had unwittingly dropped it. Taking it with many apologies, he bowed himself confusedly and ungracefully out, and went away, wondering if he would ever be able to get himself up to such a pitch again, and resolving, if it proved possible, that it should not occur next time where there was one of those aggravating "sounders."

"Now, I hope," thought Nattie, as she watched his retreating form, "that he is not going to make an idiot of himself! Not only because he is as good a fellow as he is a blundering one, and I wouldn't for the world hurt his feelings, but also because it would be dreadfully uncomfortable to have a rejected lover wandering around in the same house with one!"

And Nattie, judging from his late conduct that the contingency referred to was likely to occur, resolved to be careful and not give him any opportunity to express his feelings, and furthermore, to kindly and cautiously teach him the meaning of the word Friendship, and particularly to define the broad distinction between that and Love.

But circumstances are mulish things, and not to be governed at will, as
Nattie was soon to discover.

A few evenings after she called in to see Cyn, who happened to be out. But she was momentarily expected to return, as Mrs. Simonson said, so Nattie concluded to wait, and sat down at the piano. Not noticing she had left the door partly open, and never dreaming of approaching danger, she began to play, when suddenly, the hesitating voice of Quimby broke in upon the strains of the "First Kiss" waltz.

"I—may I come in?" he asked. "I—I beg your pardon, but I knocked several times, you know, and you didn't hear at all."

Nattie would gladly have refused the invitation he asked, but could think of no possible excuse for so doing, and was therefore compelled to say,

"Yes—come in, I expect Cyn every moment."

Availing himself of this permission, Quimby entered, balanced his hat on the edge of an album, and seating himself in a chair, seized a round on either side as if he was in danger of blowing away, and stared at her without a word.

"It has been a lovely day, hasn't it?" Nattie said at last, beginning to find the silence embarrassing, and reverting to Mrs. Simonson's safe topic.

"Yes—exactly so!" Quimby answered, strengthening his grasp on the chair in a vain endeavor to summon the requisite courage to avail himself of this rare opportunity of pouring out his feelings.

Nattie tried him again on another safe topic.

"Cyn and I dined together to-day."

"I—I can't eat!" burst forth Quimby in accents of despair.

"Can't you?" said Nattie, devoutly wishing Cyn would come. "I am very sorry, I hope you are not dyspeptic."

"No, no!" he answered, his eyes almost starting from his head between his determination to wind himself up to the point, and the tightness of his grasp on the chair. "It's—it's my heart, you know!"

"You don't mean to say you have heart disease?" said Nattie, seeing danger fast approaching, and taking refuge in obtusity.

"No; I—I beg pardon—not a—not a bodily heart disease, you know, but a mental one!" and he relaxed his grasp on the chair with one hand to tug at his necktie as if being hung, and disliking the sensation.

"That is something I never heard of," Nattie said dryly; then thinking,
"I'll drown him in music," she asked hastily,

"Do you like the First Kiss?"

The bounce of an India rubber ball is no comparison to the agility with which Quimby jumped from his chair at this question.

"Oh! Bless my soul! Wouldn't I?" he gasped.

"I will play it to you," exclaimed Nattie instantly aware of the indiscretion of her question, and she thundered as loud as she could on the piano, while Quimby, with a very red face, subsided into the chair again. But not long did he remain subsided; whether it was the music that inspired im, or a desperate determination that nerved him, he suddenly sprang up, and with one stride was beside her, exclaiming excitedly,

"No! That is—I beg pardon—but please do not play any more just now. There is something I must say to you! Oh! I can't express myself! It all comes upon me with a rush when I am alone, but now, at this supreme moment, I cannot tell you how I a—"

"Excuse me, but I am afraid I cannot remain now," hastily interrupted Nattie, feeling that something must be done to stop him, and adopting the first expedient that suggested itself. "I just happened to recollect I left my gas burning in close proximity to the lace curtains, and I must go immediately and attend to it."

With these words, Nattie rushed away, half amused and half annoyed, leaving him to stare after her with a blank and rueful face, to ask himself how any fellow could get on amid such drawbacks, to decide that proposing was a dreadful strain on the nerves, but to resolve his next attempt should be a success, if he had to inaugurate previously a series of private rehearsals. For although abashed and discomfited by his repeated failures to make his feelings understood, he was more in love than ever.

CHAPTER VI. COLLAPSE OF THE ROMANCE.

"B m—B m—B m—N—N—N—Oh! where are you, N? Where is the little girl at
B m—B m—B m?"

Such were the sounds that greeted Nattie's ears, as she entered the office the morning after her adventure with the love-lorn Quimby; and immediately she ceased to speculate on the probable embarrassment that must necessarily attend their not-to-be-avoided next meeting, and interrupted "C's" solitary conversation, by saying,

"What is the matter with you this morning? Here I am, N."

"G. M., my dear. I'm off, and wanted to say good-by before I went," responded "C."

"Off?" questioned Nattie, with a sudden fall in her mental temperature.

"Yes, I am going to a station five miles below to substitute, to-day. The operator there is obliged to go away, and couldn't find any one competent to do his work, and as there was a fellow that could do mine, he comes here and I go there."

"Oh, dear! what shall I do all day?" said Nattie, sinking into a chair, very much aggrieved.

"I am very sorry, but I couldn't well avoid accommodating him. But what will you do when I leave entirely, if you can't get along without me one day? happy I, to be so necessary to your existence!"

"But there is no prospect of your leaving at present, is there?" asked Nattie, forgetting in her alarm at such a possibility to challenge the last of his remark.

"There is some probability of it now," "C" responded. "I will tell you all about it to-morrow. I may come nearer to you; near enough even for you to see that twinkle."

"You don't mean you have a prospect of an office here in the city?" questioned Nattie, not knowing whether she would be glad or sorry if such were the case.

"Not exactly," replied "C." "I haven't time to explain; train is coming, so—"

"Where did you say you were going to-day?" broke in Nattie quickly.

"B a—five miles down the line nearer you, but not on this wire. Used to be, you know, but switched on wire number twenty-seven last week," "C" responded so hurriedly, that Nattie could hardly read it, although so accustomed to his style of making his dots and dashes; for, with the key, as with the pen, all operators have their own peculiar manner of writing.

"Ah, yes! I remember," responded Nattie quickly. "That hateful operator signing 'M' had it, that used to be fighting for the circuit always, and breaking in when we were talking. I wouldn't have gone for him."

"Couldn't well avoid it. Here is train. Good-by; shall miss you terribly, but will be with you again to-morrow. Good-by."

"Good-by. I am lonesome already," Nattie answered.

As "C" made no reply, it was supposable he had gone, and probably had to run for the train, thought Nattie, as she took off her hat rather dejectedly.

A broken companionship of any kind must ever leave a certain sense of loneliness, and this was none the less true now on account of the unique circumstances. Indeed, until to-day she had not fully realized how necessary "C" had become to her telegraphic life. Naturally, she had woven a sort of romance about him who was a friend "so near and yet so far." Perhaps too, a certain yearning for tenderness in her lonely heart, a feeling that every woman knows, found something, very pleasant in being always greeted with "Good morning, my dear," and hearing the last thing at night, "Good night, little girl at B m."

Miss Kling undoubtedly would have been shocked at being thus addressed even on the wire, by a strange person—a person certainly, although unseen; but Nattie, used to the license that distance gave, whether wisely or unwisely, had never, thought it necessary to check the familiarity.

Pondering over what he had hinted about leaving permanently, in the leisure usually devoted to chatting