A Modern Instance. William Dean Howells

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СКАЧАТЬ every one, but would have shocked no one in the village if the whole village had known it; all that a girl's parents ordinarily exacted was that they should not be waked up.

      “Ugh!” said the girl. “It seems as if I never should get warm.” She leaned forward, and stretched her hands toward the stove, and he presently rose from the rocking-chair in which he sat, somewhat lower than she, and lifted her sack to throw it over her shoulders. But he put it down and took up his overcoat.

      “Allow my coat the pleasure,” he said, with the ease of a man who is not too far lost to be really flattering.

      “Much obliged to the coat,” she replied, shrugging herself into it and pulling the collar close about her throat. “I wonder you didn't put it on the sorrel. You could have tied the sleeves around her neck.”

      “Shall I tie them around yours?” He leaned forward from the low rocking-chair into which he had sunk again, and made a feint at what he had proposed.

      But she drew back with a gay “No!” and added: “Some day, father says, that sorrel will be the death of us. He says it's a bad color for a horse. They're always ugly, and when they get heated they're crazy.”

      “You never seem to be very much frightened when you're riding after the sorrel,” said Bartley.

      “Oh, I've great faith in your driving.”

      “Thanks. But I don't believe in this notion about a horse being vicious because he's of a certain color. If your father didn't believe in it, I should call it a superstition; but the Squire has no superstitions.”

      “I don't know about that,” said the girl. “I don't think he likes to see the new moon over his left shoulder.”

      “I beg his pardon, then,” returned Bartley. “I ought to have said religions: the Squire has no religions.” The young fellow had a rich, caressing voice, and a securely winning manner which comes from the habit of easily pleasing; in this charming tone, and with this delightful insinuation, he often said things that hurt; but with such a humorous glance from his softly shaded eyes that people felt in some sort flattered at being taken into the joke, even while they winced under it. The girl seemed to wince, as if, in spite of her familiarity with the fact, it wounded her to have her father's scepticism recognized just then. She said nothing, and he added, “I remember we used to think that a redheaded boy was worse-tempered on account of his hair. But I don't believe the sorrel-tops, as we called them, were any more fiery than the rest of us.”

      Marcia did not answer at once, and then she said, with the vagueness of one not greatly interested by the subject, “You've got a sorrel-top in your office that's fiery enough, if she's anything like what she used to be when she went to school.”

      “Hannah Morrison?”

      “Yes.”

      “Oh, she isn't so bad. She's pretty lively, but she's very eager to learn the business, and I guess we shall get along. I think she wants to please me.”

      “Does she! But she must be going on seventeen now.”

      “I dare say,” answered the young man, carelessly, but with perfect intelligence. “She's good-looking in her way, too.”

      “Oh! Then you admire red hair?”

      He perceived the anxiety that the girl's pride could not keep out of her tone, but he answered indifferently, “I'm a little too near that color myself. I hear that red hair's coming into fashion, but I guess it's natural I should prefer black.”

      She leaned back in her chair, and crushed the velvet collar of his coat under her neck in lifting her head to stare at the high-hung mezzotints and family photographs on the walls, while a flattered smile parted her lips, and there was a little thrill of joy in her voice. “I presume we must be a good deal behind the age in everything at Equity.”

      “Well, you know my opinion of Equity,” returned the young man. “If I didn't have you here to free my mind to once in a while, I don't know what I should do.”

      She was so proud to be in the secret of his discontent with the narrow world of Equity that she tempted him to disparage it further by pretending to identify herself with it. “I don't see why you abuse Equity to me. I Ve never been anywhere else, except those two winters at school. You'd better look out: I might expose you,” she threatened, fondly.

      “I'm not afraid. Those two winters make a great difference. You saw girls from other places,—from Augusta, and Bangor, and Bath.”

      “Well, I couldn't see how they were so very different from Equity girls.”

      “I dare say they couldn't, either, if they judged from you.”

      She leaned forward again, and begged for more flattery from him with her happy eyes. “Why, what does make me so different from all the rest? I should really like to know.”

      “Oh, you don't expect me to tell you to your face!”

      “Yes, to my face! I don't believe it's anything complimentary.”

      “No, it's nothing that you deserve any credit for.”

      “Pshaw!” cried the girl. “I know you're only talking to make fun of me. How do I know but you make fun of me to other girls, just as you do of them to me? Everybody says you're sarcastic.”

      “Have I ever been sarcastic with you?”

      “You know I wouldn't stand it.”

      He made no reply, but she admired the ease with which he now turned from her, and took one book after another from the table at his elbow, saying some words of ridicule about each. It gave her a still deeper sense of his intellectual command when he finally discriminated, and began to read out a poem with studied elocutionary effects. He read in a low tone, but at last some responsive noises came from the room overhead; he closed the book, and threw himself into an attitude of deprecation, with his eyes cast up to the ceiling.

      “Chicago,” he said, laying the book on the table and taking his knee between his hands, while he dazzled her by speaking from the abstraction of one who has carried on a train of thought quite different from that on which he seemed to be intent,—“Chicago is the place for me. I don't think I can stand Equity much longer. You know that chum of mine I told you about; he's written to me to come out there and go into the law with him at once.”

      “Why don't you go?” the girl forced herself to ask.

      “Oh, I'm not ready yet. Should you write to me if I went to Chicago?”

      “I don't think you'd find my letters very interesting. You wouldn't want any news from Equity.”

      “Your letters wouldn't be interesting if you gave me the Equity news; but they would if you left it out. Then you'd have to write about yourself.”

      “Oh, I don't think that would interest anybody.”

      “Well, I feel almost like going out to Chicago to see.”

      “But I haven't promised to write yet,” said the girl, laughing for joy in his humor.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ