after supper that night wade called on doctor crimmins. the doctor occupied a small house which had many years before been used as a school. at one side the doctor had built a little office, with an entrance from a short brick walk leading to the street. the ground-glass door held the inscription, "josiah l. crimmins, m.d. office." wade's ring brought the doctor's housekeeper, a bent, near-sighted, mumbling old woman, who informed wade that the doctor was out on a call, but would be back presently. she led the way into the study, turned up the lamp and left him. the study was office and library and living-room in one, a large, untidy room with books lining two sides of it, and a third devoted to shelf on shelf of bottles and jars and boxes. near the bottle end of the apartment the doctor had his desk and his few appliances. at the other end was a big oak table covered with a debris of books, magazines, newspapers, tobacco cans, pipes, and general litter. there was a mingled odor, not unpleasant, of drugs and disinfectants, tobacco and leather. wade made himself comfortable in a big padded armchair, one of those genuinely comfortable chairs which modern furnishers have thrust into oblivion, picked up a magazine at random, slapped the dust off it and filled his pipe. he was disturbed by the sound of brisk footsteps on the bricks outside. then a key was inserted in the lock and the doctor entered from the little lobby, bag in hand.
"ha! who have we here? welcome, my dear herrick, welcome! i hope you come as a friend and not as a patient. quite right, sir. keep out of the doctor's clutches as long as possible. well, well, a warm night this." the doctor wiped his face with his handkerchief, wafting a strong odor of ether about the room. then he took off his black frock-coat, hung it on a hook behind the door, and slipped into a rusty old brown velvet house-coat. after that he filled his pipe, talking the while, and, when it was lighted, said "ha" again very loudly and contentedly, and took down a half-gallon bottle from the medicine shelves. this he placed on the table by the simple expedient of sweeping a pile of newspapers to the floor.
"now where are those glasses, i wonder?" he looked about the room searchingly over the tops of his spectacles. "there we are." he discovered one on his desk and another on the shelf over the little sink. the latter held some liquid which he first smelled, then tasted and finally threw away. "wonder what that was," he muttered. "well, a little rinsing will fix it. here we are now, mr. herrick. pour your drink, sir, and i'll put the water in. don't be afraid of it. it's as mild as milk."
"you're quite sure it isn't laudanum?" asked wade, with a suspicious look at the big bottle.
"bless you, no." the doctor lowered himself into a chair with a sigh of relief and contentment. "now tell me the news, mr. herrick. i haven't seen our good friends at the cedars since yesterday."
wade sipped from his glass, set it down, hesitated.
"the only piece of news i have, doctor," he said, finally, "is that i asked miss walton to marry me this morning."
"bless my soul!" the doctor started to rise. "i do most heartily congratulate you, mr. herrick!"
"hold on, though," said wade. "don't jump to conclusions. she hasn't accepted me, doctor."
"what! but she's going to?"
"i wish i was certain," replied wade, with a smile.
"but—why, i'd have said she was fond of you, mr. herrick. miss mullett and i were talking it over just the other day. old busy-bodies, i suppose you'd call us. but what did she say—if that isn't an impertinent question, sir."
"well, it seems that there's some one else."
"never!"
"yes. i don't know why there shouldn't be."
"miss mullett told me that miss eve had never shown the slightest favor to any one since she'd known her."
"maybe this was before that. it isn't very clear just how the other chap stands with her. but she asked time to think it over."
the doctor chuckled. "who hesitates is lost, mr. herrick. take my word for it,—she'll come around before long. i'm very glad. she's a fine woman, a fine woman. i knew her mother."
"well, i hope you're right, doctor. maybe you'd better not say anything about it just yet."
"not a word, sir. i presume, though, if you do marry her, you'll take her out west with you."
"i don't dare make plans yet. i'm sure, though, we'd come to eden village in the summer."
"i hope so. i wouldn't want to think i wasn't to see her again. i'm very fond of her in an old man's way. how is the house getting along? workmen almost through, i guess."
"they've promised to get out to-morrow. and that reminds me, doctor. i want the ladies and you to take dinner with me saturday night. it's to be a sort of house-warming, you know. mrs. prout is coming over to cook for me and zephania is to serve. i may depend on you?"
"to be sure, sir. i'll just make a note of it. saturday, you said? h'm, yes, saturday. about half-past six, i presume?" the doctor pulled himself from his chair and rummaged about his desk. "well, i can't ... seem to ... find my ... memorandum, but i'll remember without it. you—ah—you might mention it to me again in a day or two. i hope by that time we'll be able to drink a toast, sir, to you and miss eve."
"you don't hope so any more than i do," said wade gravely. "i only wish—" he stopped, frowned at his pipe and went on. "the devil of it is, doctor, i feel so confoundedly cheeky."
"eh?"
"i mean about asking her to marry a fellow like me."
"what's the matter with you? you're of sound body and mind, aren't you?"
"yes, i reckon so. but i'm such a useless sort, in a way. i've never done anything except make some money."
"some women would think you'd done quite enough," replied the doctor, dryly.
"but she's not that sort. i don't believe she cares anything about money. i've been trying to get her to let me do the square thing with ed's property, but she won't listen."
"wanted to parcel some of it out to her, eh? well, i guess eve wouldn't have it."
"no, she wouldn't. she ought to, too. it should have been hers, by rights. if it wasn't for that silly quarrel between her father and ed's—"
"i know, i know. but she's right, according to her lights, mr. herrick. irv walton wouldn't have touched any of that money with a pair of pincers. still, i don't see as you need to have such a poor opinion of yourself. we can't all be great generals or statesmen or financiers. some of us have to wear the drab. and, after all, it doesn't matter tuppence what you are, mr. herrick, if you've got the qualities that appeal to eve. lord love us! where would civilization be if it was only the famous men who found wives? i don't think any the worse of myself, mr. herrick, because i've never made the world sit up and take notice. i've had my battles and victories, and i don't despise them because there was no waving of flags or sounding of trumpets. i've lived clean—as clean as human flesh may, i guess,—i've been true to my friends and honest to my enemies, and here i am, as good as the next man, to my own thinking."
"i dare say you're right," answered wade, "but when you love a woman, you sort of want to have a few trophies handy to throw down at her feet, if you see what i mean. you'd like to say, 'look, i've done this and that! i've conquered here and there! i am somebody!'"
"and if she didn't love you she'd turn up her nose at your trophies, and like as not walk off with the village fool."
"well, but it seems to me that a woman isn't likely to love a man unless he has something to show besides a pocketbook."
"mr. herrick, there's just one reason why a woman loves a man, and that's because she loves him. you can invent all the theories you want, and you can write tons of poetry about it, and when you get through you'll be just where you started. you can find a reason for pretty near everything a woman does, though you may have to rack your brains like the devil to do it, but you can't explain why she falls in love with this man and not with that. perhaps you recall longfellows's lines: 'the men that women marry, and why they marry them, will always be a marvel and a mystery to the world.' personally, i'm a bit of a fatalist regarding love. i think hearts are mated when they're fashioned, and when they get together you can no more keep them apart than you keep two drops of quicksilver from running into each other when they touch. it's as good a theory as any, for it can't be disproved."
"then how account for unhappy marriages?" asked wade.
"i said hearts were mated, not bodies and brains, nor livers, either. half the unhappy marriages are due, i dare say, to bad livers."
"well," laughed wade, rising and finding his hat, "your theory sounds reasonable. as for me, i have no theory—nor data. so i'll go home and go to sleep. don't forget saturday night, doctor."
"saturday night? oh, to be sure, to be sure. i'll not forget, you may depend. good night, mr. herrick, and thank you for looking in on me. and—ah—mr. herrick?"
"yes?"
"ah—i wouldn't be too meek, if i were you. even fate may relish a little assistance. good night. i wouldn't be surprised if we had a thunder storm before morning."
