New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American
She asked herself if she was really getting interested in Addison
Wyngard. And she could not answer her own question. Of course it had
been very pleasant to feel that he was interested in her. And she
thought he really was interested. He had told her that he did not like
his position with Smyth, Mackellar & Hubbard, and a classmate at
Columbia had offered him a place with a railroad company down in Texas.
But he had said that he hated to give up the law and to leave New
York--and all his friends. And as he said that, he looked at her. She
had felt that he was implying that she was the reason why he was
unwilling to go. She remembered that she had laughed lightly as she
rejoined that she would feel homesick herself if she went out of sight
of the Madison Square Tower. He had answered that there were other
things in New York besides the Diana, things just as distant and just as
unattainable. And to that she had made no response.
Then he had told her that he had another classmate in the office of the
Corporation Counsel, Judge McKinley; there was a vacancy there, and his
name had been suggested to the judge. She had smiled and expressed the
hope that he might get the appointment. And now, as she sat there alone,
with the stir and bustle of the department-store all about her, she felt
certain as never before that if he did get the place he would be
assured that he had at last money enough to marry on, and that he would
ask her to be his wife. If she accepted him she would have a husband and
a home of her own. She would have her chance for the fuller life that
can come to a woman only when she is able to fulfil her destiny.
Later he had found a chance to say that he was going to stick it out in
New York a little longer--and then, if the Texas offer was still open,
he'd have to take it. He had paused to hear what she would say to that.
And all she had said was that Texas did seem a long way off. She had
given him no encouragement; she had been polite--nothing more. If he did
ever propose, and if she should refuse him, he could never reproach her
for having lured him on.
Suddenly it seemed to her that this chilly attitude of hers was
contemptible. The man wanted her--and for the first time she began to
suspect that all the woman in her wanted him to want her. She hated
herself for having been so unresponsive, so discouraging, so cold. She
knew that he was a man of character and of ability, a clean man, a man
his wife might be proud of. And she had looked ahead sharply and
realized how desolate the Cotillion of One Hundred and the Thursday
Theater Club would be for her if Addison Wyngard should go to Texas,
after all. She began to fear that, if he did decide to leave New York,
he would never dare to ask her to marry him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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