We had a lovely time; certainly two of us had, Miss Langham and I. I was so bewitched with her that I couldn’t count my hands if they went above a double sequence; and when I struck home I never discovered it, and started up the outside row again, and would have lost the game every time, only the girl did the same, she being in jist my condition, you see; and consequently neither of us ever got out, or cared to wonder why we didn’t; we only jist knew we were happy, and didn’t wish to know anything else, and didn’t want to be interrupted. And I told her – I did, indeed – told her I loved her; and she – well, she blushed till her hair turned red, but she liked it; she said she did. Oh, there was never such an evening! Every time I pegged I put on a postscript; every time she pegged she acknowledged receipt of it, counting the hands the same. Why, I couldn’t even say “Two for his heels” without adding, “My, how sweet you do look!” and she would say, “Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and a pair are eight, and eight are sixteen – do you think so?” – peeping out aslant from under her lashes, you know, so sweet and cunning. Oh, it was jist too-too!
Well, I was perfectly honest and square with her; told her I hadn’t a cent in the world but jist the million- pound note she’d heard so much talk about, and it didn’t belong to me, and that started her curiosity; and then I talked low, and told her the whole history right from the start, and it nearly killed her laughing. What in the nation she could find to laugh about I couldn’t see, but there it was; every half-minute some new detail would fetch her, and I would have to stop as much as a minute and a half to give her a chance to settle down again. Why, she laughed herself lame – she did, indeed; I never saw anything like it. I mean I never saw a painful story – a story of a person’s troubles and worries and fears – produce jist that kind of effect before. So I loved her all the more, seeing she could be so cheerful when there wasn’t anything to be cheerful about; for I might soon need that kind of wife, you know, the way things looked. Of course, I told her we should have to wait a couple of years, till I could catch up on my salary; but she didn’t mind that, only she hoped I would be as careful as possible in the matter of expenses, and not let them run the least risk of trenching on our third year’s pay. Then she began to get a little worried, and wondered if we were making any mistake, and starting the salary on a higher figure for the first year than I would get. This was good sense, and it made me feel a little less confident than I had been feeling before; but it gave me a good business idea, and I brought it frankly out.
“Portia, dear, would you mind going with me that day, when I confront those old gentlemen?”
She shrank a little, but said:
“N-o; if my being with you would help hearten you. But – would it be quite proper, do you think?”
“No, I don’t know that it would –in fact, I’m afraid it wouldn’t; but, you see, there’s so much dependent upon it that–”
“Then I’ll go anyway, proper or improper,” she said, with a beautiful and generous enthusiasm. “Oh, I shall be so happy to think I’m helping!”
“Helping, dear? Why, you’ll be doing it all. You’re so beautiful and so lovely and so winning, that with you there I can pile our salary up till I break those good old fellows, and they’ll never have the heart to struggle.”
Sho! you should have seen the rich blood mount, and her happy eyes shine!
“You wicked flatterer! There isn’t a word of truth in what you say, but still I’ll go with you. Maybe it will teach you not to expect other people to look with your eyes.”
Were my doubts dissipated? Was my confidence restored? You may judge by this fact: privately I raised my salary to twelve hundred the first year on the spot. But I didn’t tell her; I saved it for a surprise.
All the way home I was in the clouds, Hastings talking, I not hearing a word. When he and I entered my parlor, he brought me to myself with his fervent appreciations of my manifold comforts and luxuries.
“Let me jist stand here a little and look my fill. Dear me! it’s a palace – it’s jist a palace! And in it everything a body could desire, including cosey coal fire and supper standing ready. Henry, it doesn’t merely make me realize how rich you are; it makes me realize, to the bone, to the marrow, how poor I am – how poor I am, and how miserable, how defeated, routed, annihilated!”
Plague take it! this language gave me the cold shudders. It scared me broad awake, and made me comprehend that I was standing on a halfinch crust, with a crater underneath. I didn’t know I had been dreaming – that is, I hadn’t been allowing myself to know it for a while back; but now – oh, dear! Deep in debt, not a cent in the world, a lovely girl’s happiness or woe in my hands, and nothing in front of me but a salary which might never – oh, would never – materialize! Oh, oh, oh! I am ruined past hope! nothing can save me!