PAGE 14
The Register
by
SHE: “You forget yourself, Mr. Ransom. Has there been anything in my manner–conduct–to justify you in using such language to me?”
HE: “No–no” –
SHE: “Did you suppose that because I first took lessons of you from- -from–an enthusiasm for art, and then continued them for–for– amusement, that I wished you to make love to me?”
HE: “No, I never supposed such a thing. I’m incapable of it. I beseech you to believe that no one could have more respect– reverence”–He twirls his hat between his hands, and casts an imploring glance at her.
SHE: “Oh, respect–reverence! I know what they mean in the mouths of men. If you respected, if you reverenced me, could you dare to tell me, after my unguarded trust of you during the past months, that you had been all the time secretly in love with me?”
HE, plucking up a little courage: “I don’t see that the three things are incompatible.”
SHE: “Oh, then you acknowledge that you did presume upon something you thought you saw in me to tell me that you loved me, and that you were in love with me all the time?”
HE, contritely: “I have no right to suppose that you encouraged me; and yet–I can’t deny it now–I was in love with you all the time.”
SHE: “And you never said a word to let me believe that you had any such feeling toward me!”
HE: “I–I” –
SHE: “You would have parted from me without a syllable to suggest it–perhaps parted from me forever?” After a pause of silent humiliation for him: “Do you call that brave or generous? Do you call it manly–supposing, as you hoped, that I had any such feeling?”
HE: “No; it was cowardly, it was mean, it was unmanly. I see it now, but I will spend my life in repairing the wrong, if you will only let me.” He impetuously advances some paces toward her, and then stops, arrested by her irresponsive attitude.
SHE, with a light sigh, and looking down at the paper, which she has continued to hold between her hands: “There was a time–a moment– when I might have answered as you wish.”
HE: “Oh! then there will be again. If you have changed once, you may change once more. Let me hope that some time–any time, dearest” –
SHE, quenching him with a look: “Mr. Ransom, I shall NEVER change toward you! You confess that you had your opportunity, and that you despised it.”
HE: “Oh! NOT despised it!”
SHE: “Neglected it.”
HE: “Not wilfully–no. I confess that I was stupidly, vilely, pusillan–pusillan–illani” –
SHE: “‘Monsly” –
HE: “Thanks–‘mously unworthy of it; but I didn’t despise it; I didn’t neglect it; and if you will only let me show by a lifetime of devotion how dearly and truly I have loved you from the first moment I drove that cow away” –
SHE: “Mr. Ransom, I have told you that I should never change toward you. That cow was nothing when weighed in the balance against your being willing to leave a poor girl, whom you supposed interested in you, and to whom you had paid the most marked attention, without a word to show her that you cared for her. What is a cow, or a whole herd of cows, as compared with obliging a young lady to offer you money that you hadn’t earned, and then savagely flinging it back in her face? A yoke of oxen would be nothing–or a mad bull.”