Out Of The Question - William Dean Howells

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table. "I am going to make a flying toilet at one of these glasses. Do you think anyone will come in, Maggie?"

      Maggie: "There isn't the least danger. This is the parlor of the "transients," as they call them, — the occasional guests, — and Lilly and I have it mostly to ourselves when there are no transients. The regular boarders stay in the lower parlor. Shan't I help you, Leslie?"

      Leslie, rummaging through her bag: "No, indeed! It's only a question of brush and hair-pins. Do go with mamma!" As Maggie obeys, Leslie finds her brush, and going to one of the mirrors touches the blonde masses of her hair, and then remains a moment, lightly turning her head from side to side to get the effect. She suddenly claps her hand to one ear. "Oh, horrors! That ear-drop's gone again!" She runs to the table, reopens her bag, and searches it in every part, talking rapidly to herself. "Well, really, it seems as if sorrows would never end! To think of that working out a third time! To think of my coming away without getting the clasp fixed! And to think of my not leaving them in my trunk at the station! Oh dear me, I shall certainly go wild! What shall I do? It isn't in the bag at all. It must be on the floor." Keeping her hand in helpless incredulity upon the ear from which the jewel is missing, she scrutinizes the matting far and near, with a countenance of acute anguish. Footsteps are heard approaching the door, where they hesitatingly arrest themselves. "Have you come back for me? Oh, I've met with such a calamity! I've lost one of my ear-rings. I could cry. Do come and help me mouse for it." There is no response to this invitation, and Leslie, lifting her eyes, in a little dismay confronts the silent intruder. "Mr. Blake!"

      

      V. Leslie and Blake.

      Blake: "Excuse me. I expected to find your mother here. I didn't mean to disturb " —

      Leslie, haughtily: "There's no disturbance. It's a public room: I had forgotten that. Mamma has gone to tea. I thought it was my friend Miss Wallace. I " — With a flash of indignation: "When you knew it wasn't, why did you let me speak to you in that way?"

      Blake, with a smile: "I couldn't know whom you took me for, and I hadn't time to prevent your speaking."

      Leslie: "You remained."

      Blake, with a touch of resentment tempering his amusement: "I couldn't go away after I had come without speaking to you. It was Mrs. Bellingham I was looking for. I'm sorry not to find her, and I'll go, now."

      Leslie, hastily: "Oh no! I beg your pardon. I didn't mean "—

      Blake, advancing toward her, and stooping to pick up something from the floor, near the table: "Is this what you lost ? — if I've a right to know that you lost anything."

      Leslie: "Oh, my ear-ring! Oh, thanks! How did you see it? I thought I had looked and felt everywhere." A quick color flies over her face as she takes the jewel from the palm of his hand. She turns to the mirror, and, seizing the tip of her delicate ear between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, hooks the pendant into place with the other, and then gives her head a little shake; the young man lightly sighs. She turns toward him, with the warmth still lingering in her cheeks. "I'm ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Blake. I wish I had your gift of doing all sorts of services — favors — to people. I wish I could find something for you."

      Blake: "I wish you could — if it were the key to my room, which I came back in hopes of finding. I've mislaid it somewhere, and I thought I might have put it down with your shawls here on the table." Leslie promptly lifts one of the shawls, and the key drops from it. "That's it. Miss Bellingham, I have a favor to ask: will you give this key to your mother?"

      Leslie: "This key?"

      Blake: "I have found a place to sleep at a farm-house just down the road, and I want your mother to take my room; I haven't looked into it yet, and I don't know that it's worth taking. But I suppose it's better than no room at all; and I know you have none."

      Leslie, with cold hauteur, after looking absently at him for a moment: "Thanks. It's quite impossible. My mother would never consent."

      Blake: "The room will stand empty, then. I meant to give it up from the first, — as soon as I found that you were not provided for, — but I hated to make a display of it before all the people down there in the office. I'll go now and leave the key with the landlord, as I ought to have done, without troubling you. But — I had hardly the chance of doing so after we came here."

      Leslie, with enthusiasm: "Oh, Mr. Blake, do you really mean to give us your room after you've been so odiously — Oh, it's too bad; it's too bad! You mustn't; no, you shall not."

      Blake: "I will leave the key on the table here Good night. Or — I shall not see you in the morning: perhaps I had better say goodbye."

      Leslie: "Goodbye? In the morning?"

      Blake: "I've changed my plans, and I'm going away to-morrow. Goodbye."

      Leslie: "Going— Mamma will be very sorry to— Oh, Mr. Blake, I hope you are not going because — But indeed — I want you to believe"—

      Blake, devoutly: "I believe it. Goodbye!" He turns away to go, and Leslie, standing bewildered and irresolute, lets him leave the room; then she hastens to the door after him, and encounters her mother.

      VI. Mrs. Bellingham and Leslie; then Mrs. Murray.

      Mrs. Bellingham: "Well, Leslie. Are you quite ready? We went to look at Maggie's room before going down to tea. It's small, but we shall manage somehow. Come, dear. She's waiting for us at the head of the stairs. Why, Leslie!"

      Leslie, touching her handkerchief to her eyes: * I was a little overwrought, mamma. I'm tired." After a moment: "Mamma, Mr. Blake" —

      Mrs. Bellingham, with a look at her daughter: "I met him in the hall."

      Leslie: "Yes, he has been here; and I thought I had lost one of my ear-rings; and of course he found it on the floor the instant he came in; and" —

      Mrs. Murray, surging into the room, and going up to the table: "Well, Marion, the tea — What key is this? What in the world is Leslie crying about?"

      Leslie, with supreme disregard of her aunt, and adamantine self-control: "Mr. Blake had come" — she hands the key to Mrs. Bellingham — "to offer you the key of his room. He asked me to give it.

      Mrs. Bellingham: "The key of his room?"

      Leslie: "He offers you his room; he had always meant to offer it."

      Mrs. Bellingham, gravely: "Mr. Blake had no right to know that we had no room. It is too great k kindness. We can't accept it, Leslie. I hope you told him so, my dear."

      Leslie: "Yes, mamma. But he said he was going to lodge at one of the farm-houses in the neighborhood, and the room would be vacant if you didn't take it. I couldn't prevent his leaving the key."

      Mrs. Bellingham: "That is all very well. But it doesn't alter the case, as far as we are concerned, zt is very good of Mr. Blake, but after what has occurred, it's simply impossible. We can't take it."

      Mrs. Murray: "Occurred? Not take it? Of course we will take it, Marion! I certainly am astonished. The man will get a much better bed at the farmer's than he's accustomed to. You talk as if it were some act of self-sacrifice. I've no doubt he's made the most of it. I've no doubt he's given it an effect of heroism — or tried to. But that you should fall in with his vulgar conception of the affair, Marion, and Leslie should be affected to tears by his magnanimity, is a little

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