The Register Part 5

GRINNIDGE: "Yes. I'm glad _I_ mustn't."

MISS REED, stifling a laugh on Miss Spaulding's shoulder: "They're actually AFRAID of us, Nettie!"

RANSOM: "See her, and go down in the dust."

MISS REED: "My very words!"

RANSOM: "I have been trying to think what was the very humblest pie I could eat, by way of penance; and it appears to me that I had better begin by saying that I have come to ask her for the money I refused."

MISS REED, enraptured: "Oh! doesn't it seem just like--like-- inspiration, Nettie?"

MISS SPAULDING: "'s.h.!.+ Be quiet, do! You'll frighten them away!"

GRINNIDGE: "And then what?"

RANSOM: "What then? I don't know what then. But it appears to me that, as a gentleman, I've got nothing to do with the result. All that I've got to do is to submit to my fate, whatever it is."

MISS REED, breathlessly: "What princely courage! What delicate magnanimity! Oh, he needn't have the LEAST fear! If I could only tell him that!"

GRINNIDGE, after an interval of meditative smoking: "Yes, I guess that's the best thing you can do. It will strike her fancy, if she's an imaginative girl, and she'll think you a fine fellow."

MISS REED: "Oh, the horrid thing!"

GRINNIDGE: "If you humble yourself to a woman at all, do it thoroughly. If you go halfway down she'll be tempted to push you the rest of the way. If you flatten out at her feet to begin with, ten to one but she will pick you up."

RANSOM: "Yes, that was my idea."

MISS REED: "Oh, was it, indeed! Well!"

RANSOM: "But I've nothing to do with her picking me up or pus.h.i.+ng me down. All that I've got to do is to go and surrender myself."

GRINNIDGE: "Yes. Well; I guess you can't go too soon. I like your company; but I advise you as a friend not to lose time. Where does she live?"

RANSOM: "That's the remarkable part of it: she lives in this house."

MISS REED and Miss Spaulding, in subdued chorus: "Oh!"

GRINNIDGE, taking his pipe out of his mouth in astonishment: "No!"

RANSOM: "I just came in here to give my good resolutions a rest while I was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g my courage up to ask for her."

MISS REED: "Don't you think he's VERY humorous? Give his good resolutions a rest! That's the way he ALWAYS talks."

MISS SPAULDING: "'s.h.!.+"

GRINNIDGE: "You said you came for my advice."

RANSOM: "So I did. But I didn't promise to act upon it. Well!" He goes toward the door.

GRINNIDGE, without troubling himself to rise: "Well, good luck to you!"

MISS REED: "How droll they are with each other! Don't you LIKE to hear them talk? Oh, I could listen all day."

GRINNIDGE, calling after Ransom: "You haven't told me your duck's name."

MISS REED: "Is THAT what they call us? Duck! Do you think it's very respectful, Nettie? I don't believe I like it. Or, yes, why not? It's no harm--if I AM his duck!"

RANSOM, coming back: "Well, I don't propose to go shouting it round.

Her name is Miss Reed--Ethel Reed."

MISS REED: "How CAN he?"

GRINNIDGE: "Slender, willowy party, with a lot of blond hair that looks as if it might be indigenous? Rather pensive-looking?"

MISS REED: "Indigenous! I should hope so!"

RANSOM: "Yes. But she isn't pensive. She's awfully deep. It makes me shudder to think how deep that girl is. And when I think of my courage in daring to be in love with her--a stupid, straightforward idiot like me--I begin to respect myself in spite of being such an a.s.s. Well, I'm off. If I stay any longer I shall never go." He closes the door after him, and Miss Reed instantly springs to her feet.

MISS REED: "Now he'll have to go down to the parlor and send up his name, and that just gives me time to do the necessary prinking. You stay here and receive him, Nettie."

MISS SPAULDING: "Never! After what's happened I can never look him in the face again. Oh, how low, and mean, and guilty I feel!"

MISS REED, with surprise: "Why, how droll! Now _I_ don't feel the least so."

MISS SPAULDING: "Oh, it's very different with YOU. YOU'RE in love with him."

MISS REED: "For shame, Nettie! I'm NOT in love with him."

MISS SPAULDING: "And you can explain and justify it. But I never can justify it to myself, much less to him. Let me go, Ethel! I shall tell Mrs. McKnight that we must change this room instantly.

And just after I'd got it so nearly in order! Go down and receive him in the parlor, Ethel. I CAN'T see him."

MISS REED: "Receive him in the parlor! Why, Nettie, dear, you're crazy! I'm going to ACCEPT him: and how can I accept him--with all the consequences--in a public parlor? No, indeed! If you won't meet him here for a moment, just to oblige me, you can go into the other room. Or, no--you'd be listening to every word through the key-hole, you're so demoralized!"

MISS SPAULDING: "Yes, yes, I deserve your contempt, Ethel."

MISS REED, laughing: "You will have to go out for a walk, you poor thing; and I'm not going to have you coming back in five or ten minutes. You have got to stay out a good hour."

MISS SPAULDING, running to get her things from the next room: "Oh, I'll stay out till midnight!"

MISS REED, responding to a tap at the door: "Ye-e-s! Come in!-- You're caught, Nettie."

A MAID-SERVANT, appearing with a card: "This gentleman is asking for you in the parlor, Miss Reed."

MISS REED: "Oh! Ask him to come up here, please.--Nettie! Nettie!"

She calls to her friend in the next room. "He's coming right up, and if you don't run you're trapped."

MISS SPAULDING, re-appearing, cloaked and bonneted: "I don't blame YOU, Ethel, comparatively speaking. You can say that everything is fair in love. He will like it, and laugh at it in you, because he'll like everything you've done. Besides, you've no principles, and I HAVE."

MISS REED: "Oh, I've lots of principles, Nettie, but I've no practice!"