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Page 38
"Although, do you know," she said, "there is nothing in the world which I
should like to find out so much as what it was we went to Dr. Heidenhoff
in order to make me forget. What do you look so sober for? Wouldn't I.
really be glad if I could?"
"It's really nothing of any consequence," he said, pretending to be
momentarily absorbed in opening his penknife.
"Supposing it isn't, it's just as vexatious not to remember it," she
declared.
"How did you like Dr. Heidenhoff?" he asked.
"Oh, I presume he's a good enough doctor, but I thought that joke about
an affair of the heart wasn't at all nice. Men are so coarse."
"Oh, he meant no harm," said Henry, hastily.
"I suppose he just tried to say the absurdest thing he could think of to
put me off the track and make me laugh. I'm sure I felt more like boxing
his ears. I saw you didn't like it either, sir."
"How so?"
"Oh, you needn't think I didn't notice the start you gave when he spoke,
and the angry way you looked at him. You may pretend all you want to, but
you can't cheat me. You'd be the very one to make an absurd fuss if you
thought I had even so much as looked at anybody else." And then she burst
out laughing at the red and pale confusion of his face. "Why, you're the
very picture of jealousy at the very mention of the thing. Dear me, what
a tyrant you are going to be! I was going to confess a lot of my old
flirtations to you, but now I sha'n't dare to. O Henry, how funny my face
feels when I laugh, so stiff, as if the muscles were all rusty! I should
think I hadn't laughed for a year by the feeling."
He scarcely dared leave her when they reached her lodgings, for fear that
she might get to thinking and puzzling over the matter, and, possibly, at
length might hit upon a clue which, followed up, would lead her back to
the grave so recently covered over in her life, and turn her raving mad
with the horror of the discovery. As soon as he possibly could, he almost
ran back to her lodgings in a panic. She had evidently been thinking
matters over.
"How came we here in Boston together, Henry? I don't seem to quite
understand why I came. I remember you came after me?"
"Yes, I came after you."
"What was the matter? Was I sick?"
"Very sick."
"Out of my head?"
"Yes."
"That's the reason you took me to the doctor, I suppose?"
"Yes."
"But why isn't mother here with me?"
"You--you didn't seem to want her," answered Henry, a cold sweat covering
his face under this terrible inquisition.
"Yes," said she, slowly, "I do remember your proposing she should come
and my not wanting her. I can't imagine why. I must have been out of my
head, as you say. Henry," she continued, regarding him with eyes of
sudden softness, "you must have been very good to me. Dr. Heidenhoff
could never make me forget that."
The next day her mother came. Henry met her at the station and explained
everything to her, so that she met Madeline already prepared for the
transformation, that is, as much prepared as the poor woman could be. The
idea was evidently more than she could take in. In the days that followed
she went about with a dazed expression on her face, and said very little.
When she looked at Henry, it was with a piteous mingling of gratitude and
appeal. She appeared to regard Madeline with a bewilderment that
increased rather than decreased from day to day. Instead of becoming
familiar with the transformation, the wonder of it evidently grew on her.
The girl's old, buoyant spirits, which had returned in full flow, seemed
to shock and pain her mother with a sense of incongruity she could not
get over. When Madeline treated her lover to an exhibition of her old
imperious tyrannical ways, which to see again was to him sweeter than the
return of day, her mother appeared frightened, and would try feebly to
check her, and address little deprecating remarks to Henry that were very
sad to hear. One evening, when he came in in the twilight, he saw
Madeline sitting with "her baby," as she had again taken to calling her
mother, in her arms, rocking and soothing her, while the old lady was
drying and sobbing on her daughter's bosom.
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