In accordance with the substantial customs of his fellow-citizens, Mr. Port always returned to Philadelphia sharp on the 1st of September—calmly ignoring the heat and the mosquitoes, which are the dominant characteristics of Philadelphia during that month, and resting secure in the knowledge that the course which he pursued was that which his father and his grandfather had pursued before him. It was on the eve of his departure from Narragansett that his doubts and perplexities occasioned by Dorothy’s surprising conduct were resolved.
Being seated in a snug corner of the veranda in company with Mr. Pennington Brown, Mr. Port was smoking a comforting cigar. Mr. Brown, who also was smoking, did not seem to find his cigar comforting. He smoked it in so fitful a fashion that it repeatedly went out; and his nervousness seemed to be increased each time that he lighted it. Further, his comment upon Mr. Port’s discourse—which was a more than ordinarily thoughtful and accurate weighing of the relative merits of thin and thick soups—obviously were delivered quite at random. At first Mr. Port was disposed to resent this inattention to his soulful utterances; but as the subject was one in which, as he well knew, his friend was profoundly interested, he presently became uneasy.
“What’s the matter, Brown?” he asked, in a tone of kindly concern. “Is your rheumatism bothering you? I’ve been afraid that your absurd sitting around on rocks with my niece would bring it on again. You’re not as young as you once were, Pen, and you’ve got to take care of yourself.”
“I am not aware, Port,” Mr. Brown answered rather stiffly, “that I am as yet conspicuously superannuated. Indeed, I never felt younger in my life than I have felt during the past fortnight. I have a little touch of rheumatism to-night,” he added, frankly, and at the same time gave unintentional emphasis to his admission by catching his breath and almost groaning as he slightly moved his legs, “but it has nothing to do with sitting on the rocks with Dor—with your charming niece. You forget that my rheumatism is hereditary, Port. Why, I had an attack of it when I was only five-and-twenty.”
“All the same, you wouldn’t have it now if you had spent your afternoons sensibly with me here on a dry veranda, or properly wrapped up in a dry carriage, instead of on damp rocks, with that baggage. What on earth has got into you I can’t imagine. If you were twenty years younger, Brown, I should think, yes, positively, I should think that you were in love with her.”
“Port,” said Mr. Brown, with a tone of resentment in his voice, “I shall be very much obliged if you will not use such language when you are speaking of Miss Lee. She is the best and kindest and noblest woman I ever have met. You have most cruelly misunderstood her. Had you given her half a chance she would have been to you only a source of constant joy.”
Mr. Port replied to this emphatic assertion by a low, but most pointedly incredulous, whistle.
“You have not the slightest conception, as such a comment shows,” Mr. Brown continued, with increasing asperity, “of the depths of sweetness and tenderness which are in her nature; of her perfect unselfishness; of the gentleness and trustfulness of her heart. She is all that a woman can be, and more. She is—she is an angel!” Mr. Brown’s elderly voice trembled as he made this avowal.
As for Mr. Port, his astonishment was almost too deep for words. But he managed to say: “Yes, I suppose she is—at least she has said so often enough herself.”
For some seconds there was silence; and then, with a deprecating manner and in a voice from which all trace of resentment had disappeared, Mr. Brown resumed: “Hutch, old man, you and I have been friends these many years together, and you won’t fail me in your friendship now, will you? You are right, I am in love with this sweet young creature, and she—think of it, Hutch!—she has admitted that she is in love with me; not romantically in love, for that would be, not absurd, of course, but a little unreasonable—for while I’m not at all old, yet I know, of course, that I am not exactly what can be called young—but in love sensibly and rationally. She wants to take care of me, she says, the dear child!” (Mr. Port grunted.) “And she has such clever notions in regard to my health. When we are married—how strange and how delightful it sounds, Hutch!—she says that we will go immediately to Carlsbad, where the waters will do my rheumatism a world of good; and from there, when I am better, we will go on to Vienna, where the dry climate and the white wines, she thinks, still further will benefit me; and from Vienna, in order to set me on my feet completely, we are to go on to the North and spend a winter in Russia—for there is nothing that cures rheumatism so quickly and so thoroughly, she says (though I never should have imagined it) as steady and long-continued cold. Just think of her planning it all out for me so well!
“Yes, Hutch, I love her with all my heart; and what has made me so nervous to-night is the great happiness that has come to me—it only came positively this afternoon—and the dread that perhaps, as her guardian, you know, you might not approve of what we have decided to do. But you do approve, don’t you, Hutch? Of course, in a few months she will be her own mistress, and your consent to our marriage, as she very truly says, then will be unnecessary. But ............