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“Yes–uncomfortable; and you know how I hate to be uncomfortable! But it was part of my stupid pride, when the thing began, not to admit that I could be disturbed by the trifling matter of seeing two–

“And then I’d no reason, really, to suppose I was ill. As far as I knew I was simply bored–horribly bored. But it was part of my boredom–I remember–that I was feeling so uncommonly well, and didn’t know how on earth to work off my surplus energy. I had come back from a long journey–down in South America and Mexico–and had settled down for the winter near New York, with an old aunt who had known Washington Irving and corresponded with N. P. Willis. She lived, not far from Irvington, in a damp Gothic villa, overhung by Norway spruces, and looking exactly like a memorial emblem done in hair. Her personal appearance was in keeping with this image, and her own hair–of which there was little left–might have been sacrificed to the manufacture of the emblem.

“I had just reached the end of an agitated year, with considerable arrears to make up in money and emotion; and theoretically it seemed as though my aunt’s mild hospitality would be as beneficial to my nerves as to my purse. But the deuce of it was that as soon as I felt myself safe and sheltered my energy began to revive; and how was I to work it off inside of a memorial emblem? I had, at that time, the agreeable illusion that sustained intellectual effort could engage a man’s whole activity; and I decided to write a great book–I forget about what. My aunt, impressed by my plan, gave up to me her Gothic library, filled with classics in black cloth and daguerrotypes of faded celebrities; and I sat down at my desk to make myself a place among their number. And to facilitate my task she lent me a cousin to copy my manuscript.

“The cousin was a nice girl, and I had an idea that a nice girl was just what I needed to restore my faith in human nature, and principally in myself. She was neither beautiful nor intelligent–poor Alice Nowell!–but it interested me to see any woman content to be so uninteresting, and I wanted to find out the secret of her content. In doing this I handled it rather rashly, and put it out of joint–oh, just for a moment! There’s no fatuity in telling you this, for the poor girl had never seen any one but cousins …

“Well, I was sorry for what I’d done, of course, and confoundedly bothered as to how I should put it straight. She was staying in the house, and one evening, after my aunt had gone to bed, she came down to the library to fetch a book she’d mislaid, like any artless heroine on the shelves behind us. She was pink-nosed and flustered, and it suddenly occurred to me that her hair, though it was fairly thick and pretty, would look exactly like my aunt’s when she grew older. I was glad I had noticed this, for it made it easier for me to do what was right; and when I had found the book she hadn’t lost I told her I was leaving for Europe that week.

“Europe was terribly far off in those days, and Alice knew at once what I meant. She didn’t take it in the least as I’d expected–it would have been easier if she had. She held her book very tight, and turned away a moment to wind up the lamp on my desk–it had a ground glass shade with vine leaves, and glass drops around the edge, I remember. Then she came back, held out her hand, and said: ‘Good-bye.’ And as she said it she looked straight at me and kissed me. I had never felt anything as fresh and shy and brave as her kiss. It was worse than any reproach, and it made me ashamed to deserve a reproach from her. I said to myself: ‘I’ll marry her, and when my aunt dies she’ll leave us this house, and I’ll sit here at the desk and go on with my book; and Alice will sit over there with her embroidery and look at me as she’s looking now. And life will go on like that for any number of years.’ The prospect frightened me a little, but at the time it didn’t frighten me as much as doing anything to hurt her; and ten minutes later she had my seal ring on my finger, and my promise that when I went abroad she should go with me.