Читать книгу Out Of The Question - William Dean Howells - Страница 9

VI. Mrs. Bellingham and Leslie; then Mrs. Murray.

Mrs. Bellingham: "Well, Leslie. Are you quite ready? We went to look at Maggie's room before going down to tea. It's small, but we shall manage somehow. Come, dear. She's waiting for us at the head of the stairs. Why, Leslie!"

Leslie, touching her handkerchief to her eyes: * I was a little overwrought, mamma. I'm tired." After a moment: "Mamma, Mr. Blake" —

Mrs. Bellingham, with a look at her daughter: "I met him in the hall."

Leslie: "Yes, he has been here; and I thought I had lost one of my ear-rings; and of course he found it on the floor the instant he came in; and" —

Mrs. Murray, surging into the room, and going up to the table: "Well, Marion, the tea — What key is this? What in the world is Leslie crying about?"

Leslie, with supreme disregard of her aunt, and adamantine self-control: "Mr. Blake had come" — she hands the key to Mrs. Bellingham — "to offer you the key of his room. He asked me to give it.

Mrs. Bellingham: "The key of his room?"

Leslie: "He offers you his room; he had always meant to offer it."

Mrs. Bellingham, gravely: "Mr. Blake had no right to know that we had no room. It is too great k kindness. We can't accept it, Leslie. I hope you told him so, my dear."

Leslie: "Yes, mamma. But he said he was going to lodge at one of the farm-houses in the neighborhood, and the room would be vacant if you didn't take it. I couldn't prevent his leaving the key."

Mrs. Bellingham: "That is all very well. But it doesn't alter the case, as far as we are concerned, zt is very good of Mr. Blake, but after what has occurred, it's simply impossible. We can't take it."

Mrs. Murray: "Occurred? Not take it? Of course we will take it, Marion! I certainly am astonished. The man will get a much better bed at the farmer's than he's accustomed to. You talk as if it were some act of self-sacrifice. I've no doubt he's made the most of it. I've no doubt he's given it an effect of heroism — or tried to. But that you should fall in with his vulgar conception of the affair, Marion, and Leslie should be affected to tears by his magnanimity, is a little too comical. One would think, really, that he had imperiled life and limb on our account. All this sentiment about a room on the third floor! Give the key to me, Marion." She possesses herself of it from Mrs. Bellingham's passive hand. "Leslie will wish to stay with you, so as to be near her young friends. Iwill occupy this vacant room."