Man Proposes

by Elizabeth Jordan

Man Proposes

BY ELIZABETH JORDAN

BY the count of the hostess, there were twelve at dinner. By that of her youngest man guest, Teddy Hapgood, there was exactly One. Far removed from him, but, fortunately, on the other side of the table, where his adoring eyes could reach and linger on her, Dorothy Winter sat. Though she was so pervadingly present, she seemed in another way incredibly remote. He could hardly realize that she was the girl he had met dozens of times during the past summer, and with whom at first he had chatted and danced and, yes, flirted, too, with heart-free abandon. Now it was all different. He tried to remember just when it had begun to seem different, but he couldn't; and what did it matter, anyway? He was in love with her—fathoms deep in love—and as yet she didn't know it. But she was going to. It was this certainty which had strengthened the lines of young Hapgood's mouth. He was a bit afraid of her, but in their first moment alone together he would tell her all that was in his heart.

Between them, besides an endless expanse of embroidered linen, were flowers and candles and bobbing human heads that sadly interfered with the most wonderful view in the world. This was well, for the existence of these barriers steadied the nerves of the impetuous young man, enabling him from time to time to drop a casual word into the ears of vague shadows on his right and left, who also imagined themselves women. As he listened to them and pretended to eat, his mind worked busily. This was Saturday night, and the hour was nine. Within a few minutes the women would leave the table. After a decent interval with the men—the smoking, say, of half a cigarette—he would follow Dorothy to the drawing-room, and, being the only man there, he would quite naturally take her out on the veranda for a glimpse of the moon or the stars. Given five minutes, uninterrupted, he could pour into her ear the story of his love, tell her of his new prospects and his impending journey west, and ask her to be his, thus putting an end for all time to the suspense that had tortured him for weeks.

If she loved him—oh, if she loved him (his heart melted within him at the thought)—they would have a glorious Sunday together in this hospitable home where they were fellow-guests for the week-end. If she didn't—for a second his heart stood still, then dropped into some bottomless void—well, if she didn't, he would simply go off and die in the shrubbery. Or, if that seemed inconsiderate toward his hostess, he would take an early train Sunday morning and get back to town, where he would live through the day in some fashion. In any event he had to leave for Kansas City, the field of his new duties, on Monday morning. There, a young captain of industry, with brooding eyes and stern, set lips, he would make Work his goddess, and possibly find in the piling up of millions a dreary compensation for his loveless life. As his reflections reached this mournful stage he became conscious that the girl at his right was talking.

"—tell me what you think of it," was all he caught, but it was addressed to him, and Miss Bigelow's blue eyes, wide with interest, were fastened on his face. He made a desperate clutch at the trailing end of what, he vaguely surmised, had been a detailed account of one of her experiences. Betty was always having things happen to her, and making interesting stories of them.

"I think it was great," he said. "Awf'ly nice for you, too," he added, conscious that he was on thin ice, but heedless of his peril.

"Why, Mr. Hapgood! How perfectly dreadful!"

Betty Bigelow's voice was pitched on a high note of horror.

"Just think!"—she was addressing the general assemblage now—"I told Mr. Hapgood there were nine cases of typhoid in our settlement district this month, and three deaths, and he thinks it's great! And so nice for me!"

Under the surprised stare in the many eyes now turned upon him, the unfortunate young man's pink face deepened into crimson.

"I—I—was saying," he explained, wildly, "that I think it's a great opportunity to learn things about typhoid and—and—stamp it out, you know. That's what I meant."

His voice failed him. She was looking at him across the table, and in the quizzical gleam of her brown eyes he saw something that made his nerves sing.

"She understands," he told himself. "At least she knows I haven't heard a word Miss Bigelow's been saying, and she jolly well guesses why!"

Comforted by this thought, he beamed back at her until she looked away. Then, turning, and impressed by the continued silence, he realized that his immediate neighbor at the table was still awaiting the expression of his views on the opportunities attending typhoid.

"They're learning a lot about how to cure it now, you know," he told Betty, his eyes again drawn irresistibly to their magnet. "But ten years ago" (why the deuce was she listening with such interest to that ass, Howe, on her left? Howe had never uttered an original remark in his life)—"why, ten years ago," he added, "they let a fellow I knew die of typhoid."

What further idiocy he might have uttered he and his hearer never knew. Mercifully, his hostess gave the signal for departure to her women guests, who in another minute had made their rustling exit; and Mr, Hapgood, having crawled under the table for two fans and one pair of gloves, was resting after his exertions and moodily chewing the end of a cigarette.

To propose, yes—but how? In what well-chosen words? They must be few, of course, but just right—the kind of thing that thrilled a girl with the knowledge of a man's tremendous earnestness.

"Dorothy, I cant live without you! Will you trust yourself to me?"

No, he didn't like that. It sounded like the stuff men said in books.

"We were going fifty miles an hour," the man next to him was saying, "and we turned out to let another car pass. The next thing I remember was feeling the earth drop away from me, and seeing Kennedy sail through the air, head-first, toward the nearest tree, his legs working exactly as if he were swimming—"

Hapgood wondered if she liked automobiling. If she did, of course they would have a car. His salary, added to his private income, would stand it. But unless she was really keen on motors, they might do well to wait a year or two. However, anything—everything she wanted! Think of buying her things—of having the right to do it! And one thing was certain. He'd give her a big allowance, so she wouldn't have to come and ask him for money. He knew what that meant to a proud woman. He had read about it in magazines. His happy thoughts ran on.

"We hadn't been out of the room more than a minute before my wife smelled smoke, so we went back."

Perkins, the host, was leaning back in his chair, telling his best story.

"Tongues of flame were shooting out from the electric fixture and the surrounding woodwork, and the next minute the whole place was blazing. We were on the tenth floor, with no fire-escapes, and my wife was ill—"

They would have to select a house together, Hapgood reflected, buoyantly, and furnish it. That would be interesting. That would be something like. But what infernal twaddle were these fools talking now? It interfered with serious thought. He rose to his feet.

"If you don't mind, old man, I'll join the ladies," he remarked, as he started for the door. His host, who at that instant in his narrative was clinging to a window-sill of the tenth floor with his left hand, and supporting his wife in his strong right arm, regarded him with natural irritation. This was not only his best story, but it was also true. Teddy Hapgood, in blithe ignorance of his disapproval, was already on his way to the drawing-room. Pausing on its threshold, he studied the scene before him with an anxious eye. She was off in a corner with Miss Bigelow, and their faces wore the look of patient waiting which dims the features of most women guests during their lonely after-dinner vigil. But even as he started rapturously toward her the picture changed.

"And I lost ten pounds," Betty Bigelow remarked, casually. As the words left her lips, four women who had been sitting together at one end of the room rose to their feet. Simultaneously they swept toward Miss Bigelow. Simultaneously one word burst from their lips:

"How?"

By the time Hapgood had reached her, Betty Bigelow was launched upon a recital of such absorbing interest that at first even the Only One was oblivious to his approach. When, she finally saw him, he could not escape the knowledge that her recognition was wholly devoid of personal emotion.

"But I never got the slightest results from buttermilk," he heard her say, pathetically, while her gaze drifted across him as impersonally as a rose petal drifts across a garden path. Young as he was, Teddy Hapgood knew the world. Moreover, he had sisters. He strolled away from the absorbed group and stood gazing moodily out. of the window, his hands in his pockets, his ears strained to catch the first word of a new topic in which he could take an intelligent part.

But flesh-reduction held the women enthralled for ten minutes, and then the men came in. Three tables of bridge were promptly arranged, and Mr. Hapgood, who had hoped that a malignant fate had exhausted itself in the outrage of the reduction episode, discovered that he was still its helpless victim; for he was not even at her table, and there was to be no pivoting. Until almost midnight he played bridge solemnly with three stern and exacting players, whose resentment of any absent-mindedness on his part was strong and freely expressed.

When the party broke up for the night, he went with Dorothy to the foot of the stairs, gazing at her with such touching appeal that she wavered uncertainly for a moment on the lowest step. But it was obviously impossible to tell her of his love with his late partner at his elbow urgently pointing out some fault in his last game. He could only look deep into her eyes and spend the remainder of the night in alternate hope and belief and doubt and fear over what he read there.

His wakefulness led to his sleeping until after nine o'clock the next morning, and when he came down to breakfast at ten it was to find her gone to church with her hostess. This blow was severe, for he had planned a walk and talk with her along quiet country roads, with the glory of the autumn foliage as an excuse. He had but little time to mourn, however, for he was promptly selected for a foursome by his host, whose interest in golf was second only to his absorption in money-making. Hapgood accompanied his friends to the links willingly enough. He had to do something to kill time, and golf would answer his purpose as well as the next thing. His plan was to go over the four-mile course once during the morning, and then return to the house for luncheon and a long afternoon with Her.

But this was not to be. The morning match was intensely interesting. Knowing that she was, for the time at least, beyond his reach, he put his mind on what he was doing and played brilliantly—so brilliantly that he and his host finished all square with two opponents who were really much their superiors. Perkins was shamelessly jubilant. He immediately issued a challenge for an afternoon match, and ordered luncheon at the club-house. From this programme there proved to be no possible escape. Hapgood developed a frightful headache, but it did not save him. During the early afternoon he was the victim of several alarming accidents. He injured a kneecap, he sprained a thumb, he almost broke an ankle. In fact, he was sure he had broken it, until Perkins insisted on examining its fair, unblemished surface, afterward turning his eyes from it to Hapgood's face with black suspicion in their depths. When each of his injuries in turn had been thoughtfully scrutinized by a fellow-guest in the foursome, who was also a physician, the game went on, and for very shame Teddy had to cease his frantic efforts to break it up. His play, however, was abominable. Whereas in the morning he had earned the golden opinions of his fellow-players, this afternoon he pulled, he sliced, he topped, and he drove out of bounds. The language he evoked from Perkins was enough to cause a sulphurous haze to rise over the links. But it was five o'clock before he got back to the house, disgusted and, incidentally, badly defeated, and saw Her for a moment, pouring tea for an animated group of guests who had come in automobiles to swell the house-party. He was desperate by this time, but, short of actual physical force, there seemed no way of getting her to himself for a moment before dinner.

As he dressed for that function he experienced almost a sense of panic. To-night was his last chance. To-night the word must be spoken—and would be, he decided, casting aside the third tie he had ruined—if he perished in the effort. He remembered that his hostess was a good sort, and he decided to ask her to help him out, at least to the extent of putting him beside the Only One at dinner. He met Mrs. Perkins in the hall as he was going down-stairs, and breathlessly made his plea. She listened, with sympathy and understanding in her rather prominent gray eyes.

"I'm sorry, Teddy," she said, "but I just can't do it to-night. I've already promised both Mr. Howe and Arthur Bryce a place beside her."

Then, seeing his despair, her heart yearned over him.

"But I'll help you to get her away after dinner," she added, "and I'll put you next her at breakfast."

Teddy thanked her gloomily. He hadn't much faith in the after-dinner promise, or, for that matter, in the breakfast plan. Half the guests were leaving on early morning trains, and the women would have their hats on and would all talk at once about engagements for dress-fittings in town. There was sure to be an indescribable atmosphere of confusion and haste around the table—not at all the right scene for an avowal to the One Woman. However, if breakfast was all he could get, he would take it. Besides, there was still to-night. But what did Howe want to say to her? Had Howe asked her, and had she, perhaps, consented to let him sit beside her? And how did it happen that Bryce was also in the running—Bryce, who had been devoted to Betty Bigelow all summer? Was it possible that Miss Winter liked Bryce? He told himself gloomily that no one could possibly like Bryce, ignoring the fact that he himself had liked him very much until this minute.

If stern disapproval in the gaze of one human being could blight another, both Mr. Howe and Mr. Bryce would have shriveled up as they sat beside Her half an hour later. They remained, however, in excellent health and spirits, and it was evident even to the prejudiced eyes of Mr. Hapgood that they were entertaining. She seemed absorbed in them, and not once during the endless, maddening meal, with its foolish laughter and its silly talk, did her gaze stray toward Teddy.

After dinner, in the drawing-room, that young man approached her with a look of stern decision on his handsome face. Bryce and another man were in the group around her, and he added himself to the circle with something of the effect of a corner-stone settling into place. Before he had a chance to speak, however, a sweet, old, quavering voice addressed her, and Mrs. Tremaine, eighty and still a spoiled belle, was drawing the girl's arm through her own.

"You've promised to play for me, my dear," she said, gently, "and I'm not going to let you off. I've been looking forward to your music all through dinner—and at my age, you know, we don't postpone our pleasures longer than we can help."

Hapgood followed them to the music-room, with several of his fellow-guests, and for an hour listened dreamily and almost happily to Chopin, Richard Strauss, and Grieg. It was not what he wanted, but it was better than seeing her talk to other men; and he could dream that she was playing for him alone, far away, in their own home. While he was mentally shaping the opening words of his proposal his host entered suddenly.

"Will you come and make up a table, Ted?" he asked, catching the young man's eye. "I know you don't care for bridge," he added, apologetically, "but we're just one player short."

Hapgood planted himself, as it were, and pulled back with all the strength that was in him.

"Old man," he said, solemnly, "I've got such a splitting headache that I couldn't tell the difference between an ace and a ten-spot. Awfully sorry, but my playing would simply spoil the game for every one else."

"Oh, all right. Sorry. Why don't you ask Thompson to fix up something for your head?"

Perkins spoke absently, his gaze roaming round the room; and now it fell upon its victim. He was a man of one idea. He descended joyfully upon the Only One, who was at that moment rising from the piano.

"All through, Miss Winter? Good!" he exclaimed, tactfully. "Come and make a fourth at bridge. We're one short."

He offered her his arm, and Dorothy Winter, with a surprised and somewhat dazed expression in her eyes, was firmly led past Hapgood and away to the card-table. Ted looked after them, struggling with a conviction that darkness had settled permanently over the universe. Suffering, rebellious, he finally followed her, stopping long enough to swallow a nauseating mixture which Perkins, now in high good humor, had thoughtfully ordered for his headache.

It was all over. Fate was against him. That was evident. He would have to go away without telling her, and then he would have to write, and the whole business would probably take another week, and he would be kept in this unspeakable misery just that much longer. Of course, he could telegraph, but who wants to do the thing as crudely as that?

Love you. Will you marry me? Got new job K. C. five thousand a year. Answer collect.

The message flashed across Ted's mental vision as vividly as if some one had written it out. He uttered a groan of self-disgust, turned on his heel and, dazed by his misfortune, half sick over his disappointment and the nervous strain of the whole experience, went sulkily up-stairs and to bed.

That night he slept, to his own great surprise as he subsequently realized the fact, but the next morning he was the first person in the dining-room. He had already investigated the contents of the hot dishes on the sideboard, and was beginning his breakfast when his hostess appeared. Behind her trotted her three-year-old daughter, Marjorie, a small, fat infant with upstanding curls, whose maiden heart had long since been openly and shamelessly bestowed upon Hapgood.

"Goin' to sit by Teddy," she now announced promptly, forestalling objection by climbing into the chair at his left.

"Darling, mother doesn't know whether she'll have room." Mrs. Perkins, however, was as clay in the hands of the small potter. "Wouldn't you like your own little table better?" she added, weakly, "with Nellie to wait on you all the time?"

Miss Perkins would not, and said so. She was already mentioning her preference in the matter of food, and Hapgood waited on her tenderly, effecting a judicious compromise between what she wanted and what she was allowed to have, but incidentally keeping an anxious eye on the empty chair at his right. If any one tried to take that chair—

Fate and his hostess were with him. Half a dozen guests entered almost together, Miss Winter among them. Mrs. Perkins caught her glance.

"Will you sit next to Mr. Hapgood, Dorothy?" she asked, "and help him to keep Marjorie in order? She would sit beside him, and I'm afraid that five minutes from now he'll be simply kalsomined with her breakfast food!"

Other duties called her, but if death itself had claimed her now, the radiant young man next to Miss Winter would have remained unmoved. To him, Mrs. Perkins had fulfilled her mission on this earth. Beamingly he rose and went to the sideboard for Dorothy's breakfast. She wanted poached eggs and bacon and a muffin, she said, and the largest cup of coffee Mrs. Perkins knew how to pour. When Hapgood returned to her side with the well-filled plate, it nearly fell from his nerveless hand. Howe was sitting placidly in the chair he had vacated, while the protestations of Miss Marjorie Perkins rent the atmosphere.

"Why, Mr. Howe, tha's Teddy's place! Tha's my Teddy's place. He's sittin' 'tween me an' Miss Winter," she was ejaculating, in despairing accents.

"Marjorie!"

The look in Mrs. Perkins's eye was not to be mistaken. Marjorie studied it an instant, and her voice sank to a whimper, then was lost in the mug of milk in which she sought to drown her grief. Howe, calmly ignoring the little episode, devoted himself to Dorothy, while Hapgood, choking over his bacon in the place he had taken at the end of the table, looked at his watch and told himself that now, beyond any question, all was indeed lost. His train left in forty minutes, and it would take half an hour to drive to the station. His bag, hat, and coat were in the hall. As others were to take the same train, breakfast was a hurried meal. Very soon every one was out of the dining-room and the bustle of their impending departure filled the house.

Marjorie and Dorothy came into the hall hand in hand, the child's chin still quivering over the disappointment of a few minutes before. Even the blue bow on her short curls seemed to droop. Her Teddy was going away on the cars, and he had already told her that she might be a big girl before he saw her again. With a gulp she dropped Miss Winter's hand and ran to him, and he knelt down and took her in his arms, laying his face against her yellow head. He felt as if his chin and lips were quivering, too.

Then an inspiration came to him.

"Marjorie," he whispered, "will you do a favor for me—a great big favor?"

"Yes."

The answer was gratifyingly prompt. Marjorie's quivering chin steadied. The tears which had begun to flow were checked.

"Then listen."

Hapgood whispered earnestly in her ear. It seemed to be a very important message, for he repeated it several times. Then, to be quite sure she understood it, he made her whisper it to him. After this rehearsal Marjorie walked slowly over to Miss Winter, an expression of vast earnestness on her small face, her manner that of one carrying a full pitcher whose contents she might spill.

"I got to whis'er to you," she exclaimed, impressively. "It's a secret!"

If it was a secret, it promptly ceased to be one. Miss Winter knelt, and Marjorie's small mouth approached her ear. In the next second the half-dozen men and women who were drawing on coats and gloves in the hall had the pleasure of listening to Ted's message, uttered as distinctly as the traditional stage aside. Delivered in an auditorium, it should have reached the last row. Clear, sharp, penetrating, it filled every nook and corner of the wide hall.

"Teddy says he loves you awf'ly, Miss Winter. An' will you p'ease mahwy him!"

Miss Winter stood up hastily, her fair face scarlet. There was a second's hush around her, then a general rush toward the front door. Teddy Hapgood had a passing vision of fleeing figures, of waving scarfs and veils, of coat-tails erect in the haste of departure. The next moment the place was deserted save by three persons. She was in his arms, and no one was left to view the picture save Marjorie, who shamelessly drew nearer, wide-eyed and wondering, to give her whole attention to the appealing spectacle of Miss Winter crying on her Teddy's breast.

"Oh, Ted, I've been so perfectly wretched," sighed the Only One, when her lips were free for speech. "I was dreadfully afraid you'd have to go away without saying it!"