it all seemed so bewildering—so utterly incredible. they went to the matinée. they strolled in golden gate park and watched the swans and laughed a great deal over hot tamales on the beach. he became a frequent caller—and sometimes it seemed to the delighted girl that the florist’s box was even more frequent. he seemed to know so expertly how everything should be done: such intoxicating manners, such style! he seemed to have dropped right from the skies into her dazzled heart. from this time forward her little romance moved swiftly indeed.
before she had half time to realize—yes, even begin to[56] realize—what was really taking place, he had asked her to become his wife. “you’re the first girl i’ve cared enough for,” was the way he phrased it; though it goes without saying that a man of mr. king’s temperament must more or less have cared for a good many girls in his day. “i guess i can manage to make you happy, little girl,” he assured her, with a certain splendid imperiousness, “though perhaps you might come to long for a more settled life....” he had just arrived from a secret conference with captain utterbourne under the shadow of an august map of the world. but of course stella was up in arms at once: “i never want to stop! i want to go on and on, out in the world, seeing new things, meeting new people...!” and, in his graceful way, he allowed her to carry the point.
oh, life! oh the forces of life—and the world—and human destiny!
“i just have to blush right to his face every time he looks at me, he is so handsome!” was one of aunt alice’s voluble confidences shared by maud out in the kitchen. “i’ve got a psychic feeling he’s just the one for our little stella, and yet don’t it beat all! my gracious, maud, you’d think he’d never look at any one less than a countess! and his side view makes me think of a picture i saw once in the paper of a man who was going to marry a duchess!”
oh, life! oh the forces of life—and the world—and human destiny!
the afternoon was idyllic. mr. king and stella were sitting together before a tiny fire, and there was tea. it was very cosy and romantic. she had been doing some mending before he came, and had hurriedly laid her basket aside. breaking off in the midst of a very glowing description of the riviera when at its gayest, however, he suddenly begged her to go on with her sewing. she demurred, naturally: “it’s such awfully plain and uninteresting work!” but he insisted that it completed the “domestic picture,” and added: “you don’t know how charming it is to see a woman sitting before[57] the fire busy with needlework.” at length she complied; but it vaguely alarmed the girl. “all i want to do is to get away!” she cried throwing her arms wide, though she still grasped the garment she was mending, bringing it thus a little whimsically into the gesture. “what you’ve told me of your life sounds so wonderful!” she sighed happily.
“well, it’s adventurous,” he conceded. and then he asked her: “what does your father think about it?”
“why, what could he think but what every one thinks?”
king might have asked, not perhaps egregiously or unreasonably, what every one did think; but he merely amplified: “i had in mind my immediate prospects.”
“with captain utterbourne?”
“yes—and its having to be handled in so hushed and confidential a way.”
“oh, but to me the mystery—that is the most wonderful part!” she cried. “i love having everything mysterious!”
he gave her hand a little squeeze, and she looked up at him, happily thrilled. she pictured herself going through life with him like this, thrilled, always thrilled, each day full of delicious mystery and romance.
he began murmuring a bit of nursery jingle, which sounded in her charmed ears like the rarest music:
“‘curly locks, curly locks, wilt thou be mine?
thou shalt not wash dishes nor feed the swine,
but sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,
and feast upon strawberries, sugar, and cream!’”
“oh, i wonder,” she laughed softly, “—will it really be like that? how did this wonderful thing ever happen to me?”
