The interior of the room of Miss Spaulding and Miss Reed remains in view, while the scene discloses, on the other side of the partition wall in the same house, the bachelor apartment of Mr.Samuel Grinnidge.Mr.Grinnidge in his dressing-gown and slippers, with his pipe in his mouth, has the effect of having just come in; his friend Mr.Oliver Ransom stands at the window, staring out into the November weather.
GRINNIDGE: "How long have you been waiting here?"RANSOM: "Ten minutes--ten years.How should I know?"GRINNIDGE: "Well, I don't know who else should.Get back to-day?"RANSOM: "Last night."
GRINNIDGE: "Well, take off your coat, and pull up to the register, and warm your poor feet." He puts his hand out over the register.
"Confound it! somebody's got the register open in the next room! You see, one pipe comes up from the furnace and branches into a V just under the floor, and professes to heat both rooms.But it don't.
There was a fellow in there last winter who used to get all my heat.
Used to go out and leave his register open, and I'd come in here just before dinner and find this place as cold as a barn.We had a running fight of it all winter.The man who got his register open first in the morning got all the heat for the day, for it never turned the other way when it started in one direction.Used to almost suffocate--warm, muggy days--maintaining my rights.Some piano-pounder in there this winter, it seems.Hear? And she hasn't lost any time in learning the trick of the register.What kept you so late in the country?"RANSOM, after an absent-minded pause: "Grinnidge, I wish you would give me some advice."GRINNIDGE: "You can have all you want of it at the market price."RANSOM: "I don't mean your legal advice."GRINNIDGE: "I'm sorry.What have you been doing?"RANSOM: "I've been making an ass of myself."GRINNIDGE: "Wasn't that rather superfluous?"RANSOM: "If you please, yes.But now, it you're capable of listening to me without any further display of your cross-examination wit, I should like to tell you how it happened."GRINNIDGE: "I will do my best to veil my brilliancy.Go on."RANSOM: "I went up to Ponkwasset early in September for the foliage."GRINNIDGE: "And staid till late in October.There must have been a reason for that.What was her name? Foliage?"RANSOM, coming up to the corner of the chimney-piece, near which his friend sits, and talking to him directly over the register: "I think you'll have to get along without the name for the present.I'll tell you by and by." As Mr.Ransom pronounces these words, Miss Reed, on her side of the partition, lifts her head with a startled air, and, after a moment of vague circumspection, listens keenly."But she was beautiful.She was a blonde, and she had the loveliest eyes--eyes, you know, that could be funny or tender, just as she chose--the kind of eyes I always liked." Miss Reed leads forward over the register.
"She had one of those faces that always leave you in doubt whether they're laughing at you, and so keep you in wholesome subjection; but you feel certain that they're GOOD, and that if they did hurt you by laughing at you, they'd look sorry for you afterward.When she walked you saw what an exquisite creature she was.It always made me mad to think I couldn't PAINT her walk."GRINNIDGE: "I suppose you saw a good deal of her walk."RANSOM: "Yes; we were off in the woods and fields half the time together." He takes a turn towards the window.
MISS REED, suddenly shutting the register on her side: "Oh!"MISS SPAULDING, looking up from her music: "What is it, Ethel?"MISS REED: "Nothing, nothing; I--I--thought it was getting too warm.
Go on, dear; don't let me interrupt you." After a moment of heroic self-denial she softly presses the register open with her foot.
RANSOM, coming back to the register: "It all began in that way.Ihad the good fortune one day to rescue her from a--cow."MISS REED: "Oh, for shame!"
MISS SPAULDING, desisting from her piano: "What IS the matter?"MISS REED, clapping the register to: "This ridiculous book! But don't--don't mind me, Nettie." Breathlessly: "Go--go--on!" Miss Spaulding resumes, and again Miss Reed softly presses the register open.
RANSOM, after a pause: "The cow was grazing, and had no more thought of hooking Miss--"MISS REED: "Oh, I didn't suppose he WOULD!--Go on, Nettie, go on!
The hero--SUCH a goose!"
RANSOM: "I drove her away with my camp-stool, and Miss--the young lady--was as grateful as if I had rescued her from a menagerie of wild animals.I walked home with her to the farm house, and the trouble began at once." Pantomime of indignant protest and burlesque menace on the part of Miss Reed."There wasn't another well woman in the house, except her friend Miss Spaulding, who was rather old and rather plain." He takes another turn to the window.
MISS REED: "Oh!" She shuts the register, but instantly opens it again."Louder, Nettie."MISS SPAULDING, in astonishment: "What?"MISS REED: "Did I speak? I didn't know it.I" -MISS SPAULDING, desisting from practice: "What is that strange, hollow, rumbling, mumbling kind of noise?"MISS REED, softly closing the register with her foot: "I don't hear any strange, hollow, rumbling, mumbling kind of noise.Do you hear it NOW?"MISS SPAULDING: "No.It was the Brighton whistle, probably."MISS REED: "Oh, very likely." As Miss Spaulding turns again to her practice Miss Reed re-opens the register and listens again.A little interval of silence ensues, while Ransom lights a cigarette.
