So we will let the explanation thus worded, which you have
written to my uncles and stated verbally to Mrs. Keller, stand; also, that
the undue haste was caused by your pressing need of me during your
accident. I think, indeed, from my cousin Harry's letter yesterday, and
one from Shelton last week, they have taken the idea that we have been
spending the summer together, and that you were following me home when you
were stayed in your mad career by a broken leg.
I am done; are you not thankful? There have been some things in this
letter very hard to say, which, if I were braver or knew you better, I
should have liked to be more outspoken about. But enough has, I think,
been said to make you appreciate my earnest desires and my reasons for
them. I am most truly,
PERCY.
And he, prone upon his back this warm September day, read this long
epistle from his new wife, then laid it down and closing his eyes murmured
softly, "What a strange little puss it is!" Lying in the dim light her
hand had created for him, he thought of his own troubles and hers, just as
she had stated them. The blood would flush up to his brow as her cool
ignoring of his surpassing attractions, to which all other women accorded
their full meed of praise, rose up before him. He of whom it had been said
if he beckoned with his finger women left their duties, gave up their very
life to do his pleasure!--he to have the girl he had honored by making his
wife, a little brown woman, plain and almost _passe_ (he was man enough
not to care for her poverty), show she cared no more for his love than he
did for hers I--was as indifferent to him as he to her! Indifference from
a woman was a new experience to him, and annoyed him.
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