Conversation -- Fiction; Entertaining -- Fiction; Hospitality -- Fiction; New England -- Fiction
"Wondering," mused the May Girl, "if you would ever want to marry me."
For a moment Allan John did not seem to understand--for a moment he
gazed aghast at the May Girl's impassive face. "Why--child," he
stammered.
"Why Honey-Dear," I intercepted wildly.
It was the strangest wooing I ever saw or dreamed of. The wooing by
a person who didn't even know she was wooing--of a person who
didn't even know he was being wooed.
"Well--all right--perhaps it doesn't matter," said the May Girl. "I
was only thinking how sad it would be--if Allan John ever did need
me for his wife and I was already married to somebody else."
When the Doctor came at noon he reported with eminent satisfaction
a decided improvement in both his patients. Claude Kennilworth,
contrary to one's natural expectations, was proving himself an
ideal patient despite his painful injury which he steadfastly
refused to acknowledge.
Even the May Girl's more subtle and mystifying complications seemed
to have cleared up most astonishingly, he felt, since his previous
visit.
"Oh, she's coming out all right," he assured us. "Fresh air, plenty
of range, freedom from all emotional concern or distress," were the
key-notes of his advice. "She's only a baby, grown woman-sized in
an all too brief eighteen years," he averred.
Words, phrases, judgments, rioted only too confusedly through my
mind that was already so inordinately perplexed with the whole
chaotic situation.
As I said "good-bye," and turned back from the front door, I was
surprised to see both my Husband and Ann Woltor standing close
beside me. The constrained expressions on their faces startled me.
"You heard what the Doctor said," I exclaimed. "You heard his exact
words--'great big overgrown baby,' he said. 'Ought to be turned out
to play in a sand-pile for at least two years more.' Just a baby,"
I protested, "And she'll be tending her own babies before the two
years are over! They are planning to marry her in September you
know to a man old enough to be her grandfather--almost. To Doctor
Brawne," I stormed!
"To whom?" gasped Ann Woltor. Her face was suddenly livid. "To
whom?"
A horrid chill went through me. "What's Doctor Brawne to you?" I
asked.
"It's time you told her," interposed my Husband, quietly.
"What is Doctor Brawne to you!" I demanded.
"Doctor Brawne? Nothing!" cried Ann Woltor. "But the girl--the girl
is my girl--my own little girl--my own big little girl."
"What!" I gasped. "What!" As though my knees had turned to straw I
sank into the nearest chair.
With the curious exultancy of a long strain finally relaxed, I saw
Ann Woltor's immobile face flame suddenly with amusement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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