fellow; and I know he is no earl’s son.”
The girl’s eyes flashed, and she said:
“I don’t care a snap for that-go on!”
This was so wholly unexpected that it at once obstructed the narrative;
Hawkins was not even sure that he had heard aright. He said:
“I don’t know that I quite understand. Do you mean to say that if he was
all right and proper otherwise you’d be indifferent about the earl part
of the business?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’d be entirely satisfied with him and wouldn’t care for his not being
an earl’s son,–that being an earl’s son wouldn’t add any value to him?”
“Not the least value that I would care for. Why, Mr. Hawkins, I’ve
gotten over all that day-dreaming about earldoms and aristocracies and
all such nonsense and am become just a plain ordinary nobody and content
with it; and it is to him I owe my cure. And as to anything being able
to add a value to him, nothing can do that. He is the whole world to me,
just as he is; he comprehends all the values there are–then how can you
add one?”
“She’s pretty far gone.” He said that to himself. He continued, still
to himself, “I must change my plan again; I can’t seem to strike one that
will stand the requirements of this most variegated emergency five
minutes on a stretch. Without making this fellow a criminal, I believe
I will invent a name and a character for him calculated to disenchant
her. If it fails to do it, then I’ll know that the next rightest thing
to do will be to help her to her fate, poor thing, not hinder her.”
Then he said aloud:
“Well, Gwendolen–”
“I want to be called Sally.”
“I’m glad of it; I like it better, myself. Well, then, I’ll tell you
about this man Snodgrass.”
“Snodgrass! Is that his name?”
“Yes–Snodgrass. The other’s his nom de plume.”
“It’s hideous!”
“I know it is, but we can’t help our names.”
“And that is truly his real name–and not Howard Tracy?”
Hawkins answered, regretfully:
“Yes, it seems a pity.”
The girl sampled the name musingly, once or twice–
“Snodgrass. Snodgrass. No, I could not endure that. I could not get
used to it. No, I should call him by his first name. What is his first
name?”
“His–er–his initials are S. M.”
“His initials? I don’t care anything about his initials. I can’t call
him by his initials. What do they stand for?”
“Well, you see, his father was a physician, and he–he–well he was an
idolater of his profession, and he–well, he was a very eccentric man,
and–”
“What do they stand for! What are you shuffling about?”
“They-well they stand for Spinal Meningitis. His father being a phy–”
“I never heard such an infamous name! Nobody can ever call a person
that–a person they love. I wouldn’t call an enemy by such a name.
It sounds like an epithet.” After a moment, she added with a kind of
consternation, “Why, it would be my name! Letters would come with it
on.”
“Yes–Mrs. Spinal Meningitis Snodgrass.”
“Don’t repeat it–don’t; I can’t bear it. Was the father a lunatic?”
“No, that is not charged.”
“I am glad of that, because that is transmissible. What do you think was
the matter with him, then?”
“Well, I don’t really know. The family used to run a good deal to
idiots, and so, maybe–”
“Oh, there isn’t any maybe about it. This one was an idiot.”
“Well, yes–he could have been. He was suspected.”
“Suspected!” said Sally, with irritation. “Would one suspect there was
going to be a dark time if he saw the constellations fall out of the sky?
But that is enough about the idiot, I don’t take any interest in idiots;
tell me about the son.”
Very well, then, this one was the eldest, but not the favorite. His
brother, Zylobalsamum–”
“Wait–give me a chance to realize that. It is perfectly stupefying.
Zylo–what did you call it?”
“Zylobalsamum.”
“I never heard such a name: It sounds like a disease. Is it a disease?”
“No, I don’t think it’s a disease. It’s either Scriptural or–“