The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton Part 18

"A good looking man," said Mr. Middleton.

"Smart man, too," said the matrimonial agent. "He graduated from the university in Evanston and was a lawyer and a good one, until a friend fired off one of those big duck guns in his ear for a joke."

Taking the odalisque with him in a cab, Mr. Middleton was off for the residence of Mr. Crayburn.

"Will she have me?" asked Mr. Crayburn, when he had read Mr.

Middleton's hastily penciled account of the main facts of his connection with the fair Moslem, wherein for brevity's sake he had omitted any mention of the fifteen hundred dollars the emir had given him for a.s.suming charge of her.

"Of course," wrote Mr. Middleton.

"I never saw a more beautiful woman," exclaimed Mr. Crayburn. "By the way, have you noticed any predilections, habits, wants, it would be well for me to know about?"

"She smokes," wrote Mr. Middleton, not knowing why he wrote it, and wis.h.i.+ng like the devil that he hadn't the moment he had.

"All Oriental women smoke. I will ask her not to as soon as she learns English."

Mr. Middleton was amazed to think that such a simple solution had not occurred to him. But he was glad it was so, for he had not been unscathed by Cupid's darts there last night and he might not now be about to visit the young lady of Englewood.

"Your fee," said Mr. Crayburn.

Mr. Middleton had not thought of this. He looked about at the handsomely furnished room. He thought of the five thousand dollars a year and the very much smaller income he could offer the young lady of Englewood. He thought of these things and other things. He thought of the young lady of Englewood; of the odalisque, toward whom he occupied the position of what is known in law as next friend. She sat behind him, out of his sight, but he saw her, saw her as he saw her for the first time, when, ripping the bag away, she lay there in her piteous, appealing helplessness.

"There is no fee. The maiden even has a dowry of fifteen hundred dollars. Please invest it in her name. Oh, sir, treat her kindly."

"Treat her kindly!" exclaimed the deaf man with emotion. "He would be a hound who could ill treat one so helpless and friendless, a stranger in a strange land, whose very beauty would be her undoing, were she without a protector."

Much relieved, Mr. Middleton prepared to depart and the odalisque saw she was not to be included in his departure. She noted the luxurious appointments of the house, so different from the threadbare and seedy furnis.h.i.+ngs of Mr. Middleton's one lone room, but rather a thousand times would she have been there. A tumult of yearning and love filled her heart, but beyond the slow tears in her eyes and the trembling lips, no one could have guessed it. Once more she was a Moslem slave, sold by the man whom last night she had thought----She bowed to kismet and strangled her feelings as she had so many times before. And so after a shake of the hand, Mr. Middleton left her, left her to learn as the idol of Mr. Crayburn's life, with every whim gratified, that the first American she had known was but one of millions.

Away toward Englewood hastened Mr. Middleton, reasoning with himself in a somewhat casuistical manner. His conscience smote him as he thought of the previous night. But what else could anybody have done?

Deprived of the power of communicating by the means of words, he had by caresses a.s.suaged her grief and stilled her fears and now it was too plain he had made her love him and he had left her in desolation.

But heigho! what was the use of repining over spilled milk and nicotined fingers that another man and good would care for, and he himself had not been unscathed by Cupid's darts there the night before.

The young lady of Englewood was just putting on her hat to go out and was standing before the mirror in the hallway. Mr. Middleton had never called at that hour of the day. For months he had not called at all and she never expected that he would again. So without any apprehension at all, she was wearing one of the green silk s.h.i.+rt waists she had made from the Turkish trousers he had given her, and had just got her hat placed to suit her, when there he was!

She turned, blus.h.i.+ng furiously. Whether it was the confusion caused her by being discovered in this s.h.i.+rt waist, or the joy of seeing him again and the complete surrender, she made in this joy, so delectable and unexpected and which was not unmixed with a little fear that if he went away this time, he would never come back again, never! whether it was these things or what not, she made no struggle at all as Mr.

Middleton threw his arms about her, threw them about her as if she were to rescue him from some fate, and though he said nothing intelligible for some time, but kissed her lips, cheeks, and nose, which latter she had been at pains to powder against the hot sun then prevailing, she made no resistance at all and breathed an audible "yes," when he uttered a few incoherent remarks which might be interpreted as a proposal of marriage.

Here let us leave him, for all else would be anti-climax to this supreme moment of his life. Here let us leave him where I wish every deserving bachelor may some day be: in the arms of an honest and loving woman who is his affianced wife.