An Impossible Coincidence [pp. 66-81]

An Impossible Coincidence.
all the things she most admired and desired;
to express her innocent devotion in a good
story, and stumble into the unaccountable
folly of transferring his name to the page;
then to realize too late, what cause for offence she had given (how she has compromised herself, she cannot know, for she does
not know that I know her signature), and to
take it thus seriously-it causes me compunction, for I might have taken warning.
I miss her companionship, and find all
my books spoiled by the now uncomfortable association. It is raining dismally outside, heavily, as if the clouds had dropped
the rain they were too tired to hold any
longer, not as if they dashed it down with a
good will. It is horribly depressing. I am
counting the weeks till I may come home.
Think over her side of it, and write and
tell me if you do not think we were too
harsh in the first shock. E. B.
February i st.
I DON'T like your tone, Boscawen. However, if you choose to distress yourself about
my dangerous weakness toward Dora Tessenam, you may set your mind at rest: there
is no danger, because it is past danger.
Think what you like of me, but I am in love
with her. Oh, I know I am a fool; I know
all about the difference in station, and that I
am brought up to a fastidiousness which all
her circumstances are unpleasant to, and
which even she herself has shown herself capable of offending (yet only once, in all my
knowledge of her). I can't help it. I am
going to marry her, and you may disown me
if you like. I have missed her too horribly
not to know that she is more to me than
you and all the rest of the world put together. I met her last week in the street; she
blushed, barely bowed, and slipped around
a corner before I could speak. But I knew
then what I had been longing after ever
since she left me. The whole world broke
into blossom when I caught sight of the little trim gray figure. Good-by to you, Boscawen, forever or not, just as you choose; I
am going to keep my world in blossom.
EVERETT BOSCAWEN.
SAN FRANCISCO, February 2d.
MY DEAR COUSIN:
You may add to my epithet of fool, applied to myself in my letter of yesterday, as
much emphasis as you choose; I had at the
time of writing no conception of its appropriateness. Is it possible no one has detected
me hitherto for a despicable idiot? or have
you all known it all along? I wish 1 were a mediaeval ascetic, given to the use of the scourge.
The best substitute possible under modern
circumstances is probably to relate to you
every word of what has passed. Don't imagine I dislike to do it. I am so absolutely sick of the cad in question, that I take
satisfaction in abasing him; if he writhes
a little over every detail of his discomfiture,
so much the better.
I hunted her up and sent my card to her
room. She came down to the boardinghouse parlor, and she was self-possessed
enough at bottom, under a thin film of embarrassment. T was not embarrassed-not
I; I smiled at her reassuringly and affectionately. Her conventional "Good morning"
smile faded at once, and she looked interrogative. She had put out her hand as a matter of course, and I took it and held it, while
I looked down tenderly into her eyes, and
said:
"My poor little girl, I am afraid you have
been fretting yourself greatly over that story.
Put it out of your mind now; we will both
forget it. Perhaps it was a good thing after
all, for it revealed to me that the world was
empty after my little Dora had gone."
Long before I had ended that speech,
she had pulled her hand away, and retreated
some steps to a table at the side of the
room (a painfully shabby room, and the
table was covered with stamped green flannel); she put one hand on the table, and I
saw the fingers of the other curl up tightly
into the pink palm. She did not say a word,
but looked straight at me. I followed her,
and said:
"I know now that I want Dora Tessenam
and no one else for my wife. Come to me,
my Dora, and we will not let any foolish
memories come between us."
1885.]
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