III The Calyxlike Bonnet
Now it was into this lily calyx that the unregenerate Doctor John Rem looked one day, with precisely the emotions which the mother of Mary Ann had foretold—though, of course, he had not time to formulate them with such beauty. It was only a moment. And he was bewildered.
And the wonder of it was that he had found her with the wife of his friend Jarn, whom they both called Bell-Bell, for no better reason than that her name was Belle, and that she was the wisest and brightest and best of young wives and comrades—even though that does sound like a certain hymn.
“In heaven’s name, Bell-Bell, what does it mean?”
Mrs. Jarn became mysterious.
“Little boys must be seen, not heard.”
“I am not a little boy. Observe the bald spot on my head.”
“Any unmarried man is as a little boy concerning women, be he as old as you. Moral: Get married. And I wish you would hurry. I can’t employ you till you do. And until I employ you, you will have no patients.”
Doctor Rem laughed good-naturedly.
“Well, you know, I have such an awful reputation for being a brute—”
“She has never heard of you. I have been too ashamed.”
“But she will. There’s that horrible story of my having crippled Leggett. Some of the newspapers said I killed him, and that story still survives. She couldn’t miss that!”
Rem sighed hopelessly.
“She doesn’t read the newspaper—it isn’t permitted in Quaker families, you know, until it has been expurgated. Then it has lost all interest for her, and her mind will fix itself only upon the holes where the awful things have been excised. Once or twice I have taken the precaution to let her see what they were in my copy. But not often—not before I myself have been over them. For, say what you please, her Quaker innocence is the loveliest attribute she will ever have—the worldliness I shall teach her is not a half compensation—and she shall not be spoiled—she shall always be a Quaker. Yes, sir—but I shall teach her just enough worldliness to make some one—not you—want her enough to—Oh, I haven’t mentioned you. I have been ashamed to do it. Therefore, she is assailable.”
“Huh! She flew away the moment I came.”
“Fear of your fascinations.”
“Say,—Bell-Bell, was it on my account?”
“It was. But not because of your fascinations. You are a rather rude diamond. It was because we have a deep, dark, deadly secret from you.”
She whispered it, in quite the conspirator fashion.
“Oh!” said Rem, stiffly. “Then I was de trop?”
“Decidedly.”
“All right. When I hear both of you pounding the piano, I won’t come in. She is learning to play.”
“I know perfectly well that the more you hear that piano in the future, the more you will come in.”
“It is dull practising medicine and trying to get a reputation for steadiness. No one thinks it possible for me,” sighed Rem.
“Poor boy! Nothing is so dreadful as reformation. And I will continue to help you. So shall she!”
Rem brightened at once.
“Say, Bell-Bell, will she, though?”
“Aha! Piquant, isn’t it?—an affair with a little dove of a Quaker! Remember that I can protect her. So you may come whenever you hear the piano—just to help you to reform, and we will stop and put on our other clothes and entertain you gravely. Then some day, when you have proved that you are quite respectable, and are received at the bedsides of elderly ladies, we will confess all—what sort of crime we are up to—what sort of clothes we wear at our rehearsals—where and when we met. No, all that must wait until I have her safely married and out of your reach. For, I tell you frankly, she says that she has one reason for liking you—you are tall.”
“Oh!” laughed Doctor Rem. “But, say, I have never made love to a Quaker in my life. However, thanks! I’m willing.”
“You are to be nothing but friends, do you hear? I won’t have her mouth turned down instead of up at the corners!”
Then, as a woman will, she forthwith tempted him to his destruction:
“She’s lovely, John! The very loveliest human being I have ever known! Oh, she and I are old friends. And that is the only reason I permit you and she to become old friends. While you were busy at such nasty things as administering the two parts of a seidlitz powder so that ebullition would take place in the stomach of the poor person at your college dispensary, I was making love to the little Quaker—who would have preferred a man.”
“Of course,” said John Rem.
“Oh, not ‘of course.’ But if you were not what you are, I would let you try to interest her. Nothing would please me better.”
“And, her—be hanged!” cried the young physician, with enthusiasm.
“If you were not what you are—a brute.”
“Yes—she’s a Quaker,” sighed John Rem, regretting for the first time his stormy life.
Bell-Bell, as a woman will, veered the moment he had come to her point of view.
“She is a woman, John, dear, and sometimes a woman likes that in a man—if it is honest—as yours is. Now run away. I have been indiscreet. And married six years, too. Go!”