American fiction -- 20th century; Detective and mystery stories
Then I told him—the whole thing—out it came with tears and sobs—all to
him, every word of it, with not a voice to interrupt, and when it was
done, down went my head on the table with my hair in the ice cream.
Well, what do you think happened? Was he mad—did he say, "You’re a
false, deceitful woman. Begone?" Oh, he didn’t—he _didn’t_! He got up
and came around the table and Carol and Jack slipped away somewhere and
left us alone.
Afterward in the parlor, me a sight with my nose red and the ice cream
only half out of my hair, we talked it all out and they—Oh well, they
said a lot of things—I can’t tell you what—too many and sort of
affecting. It made me feel awful uncomfortable, not knowing what to say,
but Babbitts _adored_ it, couldn’t get enough of it, just sat there
nodding like the Chinese image on the mantelpiece, while those two fine
people sat and threw bouquets at his wife.
On the way up the street, we didn’t say much, walking close together
hand tucked in arm. But suddenly, up under one of those big arc lights
in Gramercy Park, he stopped short, and looking strange and solemn, gave
me a kiss, a good loud smack, and said, sort of husky:
"I love you more this evening, Morningdew, than I ever did since the
first day I met you."
Well—that’s the end. Jack and Carol are going to be married this spring
and go to Firehill. Babbitts and I have a standing invitation down there
for every Sunday and all summer if we want. There’s a great lawsuit
started to prove the claims of Mrs. Whitehall and Carol as Johnston
Barker’s wife and child. He died without a will, so in the end they’ll
get most all he left—piles and piles of money. It’s in the Whitney
office and last time I saw Mr. Whitney he told me Carol would some day
be one of the richest women in New York.
It won’t spoil her—she’s not that kind—a grand, fine woman, true blue
every inch of her. I’ve come to know her well and I’m satisfied she’s
just the girl I would have chosen for Jack Reddy. Queer, isn’t it, the
way things come about? Here was I, searching for a wife for him, turning
them all down, and he goes and stumbles on the only one in the country
I’d think good enough. That’s the way it is with life—when it looks most
like a muddle it’s going straightest. It sure is sort of confusing—but
it’s a good old world after all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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