GRINNIDGE: "So you sought opportunities of rescuing her from other cows?"RANSOM, returning: "That wasn't necessary.The young lady was so impressed by my behavior, that she asked if I would give her some lessons in the use of oil."GRINNIDGE: "She thought if she knew how to paint pictures like yours she wouldn't need any one to drive the cows away."RANSOM: "Don't be farcical, Grinnidge.That sort of thing will do with some victim on the witness-stand who can't help himself.Of course I said I would, and we were off half the time together, painting the loveliest and loneliest bits around Ponkwasset.It all went on very well, till one day I felt bound in conscience to tell her that I didn't think she would ever learn to paint, and that--if she was serious about it she'd better drop it at once, for she was wasting her time."GRINNIDGE, getting up to fill his pipe: "That was a pleasant thing to do."RANSOM: "I told her that if it amused her, to keep on; I would be only too glad to give her all--the hints I could, but that I oughtn't to encourage her.She seemed a good deal hurt.I fancied at the time that she thought I was tired of having her with me so much."MISS REED: "Oh, DID you, indeed!" To Miss Spaulding, who bends an astonished glance upon her from the piano: "The man in this book is the most CONCEITED creature, Nettie.Play chords--something very subdued--ah!"MISS SPAULDING: "What are you talking about, Ethel?"RANSOM: "That was at night; but the next day she came up smiling, and said that if I didn't mind she would keep on--for amusement; she wasn't a bit discouraged."MISS REED: "Oh!--Go on, Nettie; don't let my outbursts interrupt you."RANSOM: "I used to fancy sometimes that she was a little sweet on me."MISS REED: "You wretch!--Oh, scales, Nettie! Play scales!"MISS SPAULDING: "Ethel Reed, are you crazy?"Ransom, after a thoughtful moment: "Well, so it went on for the next seven or eight weeks.When we weren't sketching in the meadows, or on the mountain-side, or in the old punt on the pond, we were walking up and down the farmhouse piazza together.She used to read to me when I was at work.She had a heavenly voice, Grinnidge."MISS REED: "Oh, you silly, silly thing!--Really this book makes me sick, Nettie."RANSOM: "Well, the long and the short of it was, I was hit--HARD, and I lost all courage.You know how I am, Grinnidge."MISS REED, softly: "Oh, poor fellow!"
RANSOM: "So I let the time go by, and at the end I hadn't said anything."MISS REED: "No, sir! You HADN'T!"
MISS SPAULDING gradually ceases to play, and fixes her attention wholly upon Miss Reed, who bends forward over the register with an intensely excited face.
RANSOM: "Then something happened that made me glad, for twenty-four hours at least, that I hadn't spoken.She sent me the money for twenty-five lessons.Imagine how I felt, Grinnidge! What could Isuppose but that she had been quietly biding her time, and storing up her resentment for my having told her she couldn't learn to paint, till she could pay me back with interest in one supreme insult?"MISS REED, in a low voice: "Oh, how could you think such a cruel, vulgar thing?" Miss Spaulding leaves the piano, and softly approaches her, where she has sunk on her knees beside the register.
RANSOM: "It was tantamount to telling me that she had been amusing herself with me instead of my lessons.It remanded our whole association, which I had got to thinking so romantic, to the relation of teacher and pupil.It was a snub--a heartless, killing snub; and I couldn't see it in any other light." Ransom walks away to the window, and looks out.
MISS REED, flinging herself backward from the register, and hiding her face in her hands: "Oh, it wasn't! it wasn't! it wasn't! How could you think so?"MISS SPAULDING, rushing forward, and catching her friend in her arms:
"What is the matter with you, Ethel Reed? What are you doing here, over the register? Are you trying to suffocate yourself? Have you taken leave of your senses?"GRINNIDGE: "Our fair friend on the other side of the wall seems to be on the rampage."MISS SPAULDING, shutting the register with a violent clash: "Ugh!
how hot it is here!"
GRINNIDGE: "Doesn't like your conversation, apparently."MISS REED, frantically pressing forward to open the register: "Oh, don't shut it, Nettie, dear! If you do I shall die! Do-o-n't shut the register!"MISS SPAULDING: "Don't shut it? Why, we've got all the heat of the furnace in the room now.Surely you don't want any more?"MISS REED: "No, no; not any more.But--but--Oh, dear! what shall Ido?" She still struggles in the embrace of her friend.
GRINNIDGE, remaining quietly at the register, while Ransom walks away to the window: "Well, what did you do?"MISS REED: "There, there! They're commencing again! DO open it, Nettie.I WILL have it open!" She wrenches herself free, and dashes the register open.
GRINNIDGE: "Ah, she's opened it again."
Miss Reed, in a stage-whisper: "That's the other one!"RANSOM, from the window: "Do? I'll tell you what I did."MISS REED: "That's Ol--Mr.Ransom.And, oh, I can't make out what he's saying! He must have gone away to the other side of the room--and it's at the most important point!"
MISS SPAULDING, in an awful undertone: "Was that the hollow rumbling I heard? And have you been listening at the register to what they've been saying? O ETHEL!"MISS REED: "I haven't been listening, exactly."MISS SPAULDING: "You have! You have been eavesdropping!"MISS REED: "Eavesdropping is listening through a key-hole, or around a corner.This is very different.Besides, it's Oliver, and he's been talking about ME.Hark!" She clutches her friend's hand, where they have crouched upon the floor together, and pulls her forward to the register."Oh, dear, how hot it is! I wish they would cut off the heat down below."GRINNIDGE, smoking peacefully through the silence which his friend has absent-mindedly let follow upon his last words: "Well, you seem disposed to take your time about it."RANSOM: "About what? Oh, yes! Well" -
