Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great ExperimentGibbs, George
General
Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment
Gibbs, George
Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Satire
It seems that when they got into the machine Una was very quiet and
answered his questions only in mono-syllables, but Jerry was patient
and all idea of Marcia's party being out of his head, he drove slowly
so that he would not reach the city until everything was clear and
friendly between them again. Her profile was very sober and demure, he
said. He wasn't quite sure for a long time whether she was going to
burst into anger, tears, or to laugh. Jerry must have looked sober too
and for awhile it couldn't have been a very cheerful ride, but at last
the boy saw Una looking at him slantwise and when he turned toward
her she burst into the merriest kind of a laugh.
"Oh, Jerry, is it home you're driving me to, or just a funeral?"
He gasped in relief at her sudden change of mood. "I was just
waiting," he said quietly. "I didn't want to intrude, Una."
"But you _do_ look _so_ like the undertaker's assistant," she smiled.
"You have no right to be glum. I have. I'm the corpse. A corpse
_might_ laugh in sheer relief when the lid was screwed down and
everything comfortable."
"Una! I don't see anything so funny--"
"My reputation! A trifling thing," she said coolly, "still, I value
it."
"_Your_ reputation! That's absurd--nothing could hurt _you_. I don't
understand."
"I can't quite see yet how it all came out," she went on thoughtfully,
"how Marcia knew that I had been inside the wall. Why, Jerry, unless
she learned it recently, since I saw you in New York--" she paused.
"No," protested Jerry uncomfortably. "It was last summer--"
"But I had no name to you then--I was merely Una--"
"And I blurted it out, Una, the only name I knew, never thinking that
you and Marcia were acquaintances."
"Oh, I see," and she smiled a little. "If my name had been plain Jane
or even Mary, my reputation would have been safe."
"What rubbish, Una! Can't a fellow and a girl have a chat without--"
"Yes, but the girl mustn't get through eight-foot walls."
"I don't see what difference that makes." She must have given him a
swift glance here. But she laughed again. "You evidently don't
realize, Jerry, that monasteries are supposed to be taboo for young
girls."
"Yes, but you didn't know about it being a monastery," he said
seriously.
"Of course, or I shouldn't have dared. But that makes no difference to
Marcia. I was there. You told her. Don't you know, Jerry, that it
isn't good form to tell _everything_ you know?"
"She guessed it," he muttered. "It's such a lot of talk about
nothing." I think Jerry was getting a little warm now. "Suppose you
_were_ in there, whose affair is it but yours and mine?"
"Everybody's," she shrugged. "Everybody's business! That ought to be
inscribed on the tombstone of every dead reputation. _Hic jacet_ Una
Habberton. Nice girl, but she _would_ visit monasteries."
But nothing was humorous to Jerry's mood just then.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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