When Quimby rushed out into the street, it was with some wild and indefinite intention of flying to the ends of the earth, but recalled to his senses by the stares of the passers-by, he concluded he had better first return and get his hat. When he reached his own room, where Clem was thoughtfully pacing the floor, he flung himself face downwards upon the bed, groaning and kicking his feet spasmodically.
"What is the matter?" Clem inquired.
"I've done it now! I've done it now!" was all the answer Quimby gave him.
"Has she rejected you?" asked Clem, his mind going back to their morning's conversation.
"No! no! she has accepted me!" wailed Quimby, with a prodigious kick.
"What!" shouted Clem, stopping short in his promenade.
"She has! Oh, she has!" moaned the wretched victim of mistakes. "I am engaged! Oh, heavens! engaged!"
"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Rogers has accepted you?" inquired
Clem harshly.
This name completely unmanned poor Quimby, and he began to cry like a school-boy.
"Miss Rogers!—No! never—never! but she—Celeste!"
"Celeste!" echoed Clem; "Celeste!"
"Yes! I—oh!—I made a mistake, you know!" explained Quimby, wiping his eyes on the bedspread.
An irresistible smile, but quickly suppressed, curved Clem's lips as he asked,
"But how could you possibly make such a mistake as that? Come, cheer up, my boy, tell me, and let me help you out!"
Quimby looked at him mournfully.
"It—it was dark," he answered dejectedly, "she sat in the chair—the lost Nattie I mean, it was she, for she spoke to me! Why did I not seize the chance then? But no! I left her to—to rehearse a little first, and when I returned—Oh!—it was still dark, and I did not know a transformation had been effected—I burst forth in eloquence, and—oh!—it was Celeste, you know! I fled—she followed,—caught and hugged me in the hall! Her father saw—roared 'Marry her' and I—there was no escape, you know!"
"But, my dear fellow," remonstrated Clem, "you can explain the mistake! you are not obliged to marry Celeste because you accidentally proposed to her!"
Quimby shook his head hopelessly.
"She—she—would sue me for breach of promise you know, and take all—all my little property! And her terrific father—I don't know what he would not do to me! Only one thing could make me brave all!—If Miss Rogers—Nattie, would say it might have been, had not this fearful mistake occurred, I would face even old Fishblate and break all bonds."
"Dear old fellow, I am afraid she—Nattie would have rejected you, in any case. She is—a flirt!" said Clem, somewhat savagely. "She leads people on, for the sake of dropping them, when it suits her convenience!"
"I—now really, I—I cannot think that; even though she had rejected me, I could not think that!" said Quimby, loyally; then with sudden decision, "I will settle it now! If I had not put it off before, as I did, I might not have blundered into this awful fix, you know! I hear them in Cyn's room now; Cyn and Nattie; come with me! I—I will have witnesses, and no mistakes this time, you know!"
"What are you going to do?" asked Clem, following his excited friend, rather reluctantly.
"I am going to find out if she—Nattie—likes me, you know! if she does, I will brave Celeste—her fierce father—the law! if not—why then, I must be a martyr anyway, you know, and I don't care how big a one I am!"
So saying, Quimby went across to Cyn's room, Clem, not exactly liking the position thrust upon him, but unwilling to refuse, accompanying him.
Meanwhile, Nattie had pounced upon Cyn, the moment she returned, exclaiming,
"Oh! Cyn! such a dreadful thing has happened!"
"What? how? when?" asked Cyn, while, from the effects of the melodrama she had just been witnessing, visions of Clem, with a dozen bullets in his head, danced before her eyes.
"Quimby! poor Quimby! I have ruined him!" was Nattie's remorseful and unintelligible answer.
"Well, my dear, if you could possibly be a trifle lucid, perhaps I could understand the plot of the piece," said Cyn, decidedly relieved of her first surmise.
Upon which Nattie, half laughing and half crying, explained. But the ludicrous side was too much for Cyn, and she could only laugh.
"What a farce it would make!" she said, as soon as she could speak.
"Oh, Cyn!" Nattie said, reproachfully. "Think how dreadful it is for
Quimby, and for me, the un-meaning instrument of it all!"
"Nonsense, my dear," said Cyn, more seriously, and bringing her philosophy to bear on the subject, "It was not your fault! she was determined to have him in any case! Had it been you, as he supposed, you would of course have declined the proffered honor, and she would have caught him in the rebound! If he has spirit enough, he can get out of marrying her in some way. If not—she will make him a good wife enough. Men, you know, as she says, prefer to marry women who don't know too much; so it is all right!"
And with this Nattie was fain to be content. But she felt great pity for the poor fellow; perhaps because of the unhappiness in her own heart.
It is only from the depths of our own sorrows that we learn to feel for that of others.
As Quimby and Clem entered, both Nattie and Cyn looked surprised and curious, but Quimby, so excited now that his usual nervous bashfulness was forgotten, said immediately,
"I—I beg pardon, I am sure, for calling so late, but my business will not wait, and I wanted Clem as witness—he and Cyn—so as to make no mistake now!" then turning to the astonished Nattie, he went on,
"Nattie, I—I—my feelings for you have long been of—of adoration—no, please, hear me—" as she made a gesture to interrupt him. "To-night, in this room, I addressed another—Celeste—" here he groaned, but recovered himself and went on, "in the dark, you know, with words intended for you. I want to know now, what, had I not been so deceived, you would have said?"
"But what difference can it make now?" asked Nattie, hesitating, and wishing to spare him, as he paused for a reply.
"Every difference!" said Quimby, wildly. "I beg you to—to answer me truly, in order that I may know what course to take!"
"Then since you wish," replied Nattie, with a pitying glance, "I will tell you that as a friend I think very highly of you, and always shall. But, that is all."
"Then come on, Celeste!" exclaimed Quimby, in a burst of despair. "She—she says, she loves me, and I—I may get used to it in time! all but her teeth," he added, in his strict honesty, "to those I never can!"
Cyn felt a mischievous desire to hint that time might relieve him of his objection, but restrained herself and said,
"But you can explain the matter to her, you know!"
"Just what I have been telling him," said Clem. "No woman would force herself on a man under such circumstances!"
"She would, I feel it!" answered the unconvinced Quimby. "Miss Rogers—Nattie, I—I thank you, I—I shall always remember you as something unattainable and dear, and hope somebody more worthy may be to you what I would have been if I could. But I—I was born to make mistakes, you know, and I—I am used to it—and ought to be thankful it was not Miss Kling!"
"I am very, very sorry!" murmured Nattie, and Clem saw there were tears in her eyes.
"Moral—never make love in the dark!" said Cyn, looking with solemn warning at Clem.
"Be sure that all—all the gas in the room is lighted if ever you propose!" added Quimby, miserably, to his friend.
"I will remember," said Clem, glancing at Nattie. "There are worse mistakes made in the dark than on the wire, it seems!"
"Far—far worse!" groaned Quimby, as Nattie hastily turned her head aside.
"But now, really, Quimby!" urged Cyn, seriously, "do be sensible. Do not be foolish enough to marry a woman you do not want, because you cannot have the one you do!"
But Quimby, with the fear of old Fishblate, and a breach of promise suit, and a dread of explanations in his mind—moreover, having firmly decided that a little more or less of misery did not matter, could not be persuaded to take any steps himself, or allow them to be taken, to free himself from the result of his latest mistake.
Therefore, it came about, to the surprise of those not in the secret, and the unconcealed exultation of one of the parties immediately concerned, that the engagement of Quimby and Celeste was announced.