SCENE: Miss Reed opens the door, and receives Mr.Ransom with well-affected surprise and state, suffering him to stand awkwardly on the threshold for a moment.
SHE, coldly: "Oh!--Mr.Ransom!"
HE, abruptly: "I've come" -
SHE: "Won't you come in?"
HE, advancing a few paces into the room: "I've come" -SHE, indicating a chair: "Will you sit down?"HE: "I must stand for the present.I've come to ask you for that money, Miss Reed, which I refused yesterday, in terms that I blush to think of.I was altogether and wholly in the wrong, and I'm ready to offer any imaginable apology or reparation.I'm ready to take the money and to sign a receipt, and then to be dismissed with whatever ignominy you please.I deserve anything--everything!"SHE: "The money? Excuse me; I don't know--I'm afraid that I'm not prepared to pay you the whole sum to-day."HE, hastily: "Oh, no matter! no matter! I don't care for the money now.I merely wish to--to assure you that I thought you were perfectly right in offering it, and to--to" -SHE: "What?"
HE: "Nothing.That is--ah--ah" -
SHE: "It's extremely embarrassing to have people refuse their money when it's offered them, and then come the next day for it, when perhaps it isn't so convenient to pay it--VERY embarrassing."HE, hotly: "But I tell you I don't want the MONEY! I never wanted it, and wouldn't take it on any account."SHE: "Oh! I thought you said you came to get it?"HE: "I said--I didn't say--I meant--that is--ah--I"--He stops, open-mouthed.
SHE, quietly: "I could give you part of the money now."HE: "Oh, whatever you like; it's indifferent" -SHE: "Please sit down while I write a receipt." She places herself deliberately at the table, and opens her portfolio."I will pay you now, Mr.Ransom, for the first six lessons you gave me--the ones before you told me that I could never learn to do anything."HE, sinking mechanically into the chair she indicates: "Oh, just as you like!" He looks up at the ceiling in hopeless bewilderment, while she writes.
SHE, blotting the paper: "There! And now let me offer you a little piece of advice, Mr.Ransom, which may be useful to you in taking pupils hereafter."HE, bursting out: "I never take pupils!"SHE: "Never take pupils! I don't understand.You took ME."HE, confusedly: "I took you--yes.You seemed to wish--you seemed--the case was peculiar--peculiar circumstances."SHE, with severity: "May I ask WHY the circumstances were peculiar?
I saw nothing peculiar about the circumstances.It seemed to me it was a very simple matter.I told you that I had always had a great curiosity to see whether I could use oil paints, and I asked you a very plain question, whether you would let me study with you.Didn't I?"HE: "Yes."
SHE: "Was there anything wrong--anything queer about my asking you?"HE: "No, no! Not at all--not in the least."SHE: "Didn't you wish me to take the lessons of you? If you didn't, it wasn't kind of you to let me."HE: "Oh, I was perfectly willing--very glad indeed, very much so--certainly!"
SHE: "If it wasn't your CUSTOM to take pupils, you ought to have told me, and I wouldn't have forced myself upon you."HE, desperately: "It wasn't forcing yourself upon me.The Lord knows how humbly grateful I was.It was like a hope of heaven!"SHE: "Really, Mr.Ransom, this is very strange talk.What am I to understand by it? Why should you be grateful to teach me? Why should giving me lessons be like a hope of heaven?"HE: "Oh, I will tell you!"
SHE: "Well?"
HE, after a moment of agony: "Because to be with you" -SHE: "Yes?"
HE: "Because I wished to be with you.Because--those days in the woods, when you read, and I" -SHE: "Painted on my pictures" -
HE: "Were the happiest of my life.Because--I loved you!"SHE: "Mr.Ransom!"
HE: "Yes, I must tell you so.I loved you; I love you still.Ishall always love you, no matter what" -
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.Ibeseech 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"-
