After a decorous interval, Mr. Petersen began discreetly to woo. He had considered the matter very thoroughly, and he was sure that his happiness lay in marrying Minnie. He did not deceive himself, he realised that she had faults, but they were faults he didn’t mind, lovable feminine faults. And her virtues were sublime. He knew that she would make his home an earthly paradise, with her contented, thoroughly domestic disposition and her good-temper. It never occurred to him that the lack of accuracy and method she had shown in the office might be transported to this other realm; he felt sure she would be a marvellous housekeeper. He considered her practical, perhaps because she confined her attention solely to petty things, never bothered with the ideal, the theoretical....
He also admired her dowdiness, thought it showed that she made no unworthy effort to attract his sex. He didn’t know that Minnie was far beyond that, that she had weapons infinitely more deadly. She didn’t need to look charming; she was instinct with an allurement irresistible and fatal. She was all woman, nothing but woman. She had no ambition; her mission was simply to exist. Her power lay in the fact that no man would ever be able to understand her.
Mr. Petersen knew that she wouldn’t be the comrade and equal he had longed for in his younger days; she would never comprehend his ideas and theories, he was sure. She would never become a Socialist—although she might become a parrot—or know what a Socialist was. She would remain unalterably Minnie. And that was what he wanted now.
Not even the shyest man could have dreaded proposing to Minnie. She was certain not to laugh or to be capricious. One might have said that her nature presupposed proposals. What is more, he felt sure that she knew his intention, and he had seen no hint of discouragement in her manner toward him. That counted for much with Mr. Petersen, the proud, who couldn’t bear to be laughed at.
It came about easily and naturally, in the office one Saturday afternoon; of course when they were alone. So easily and naturally that one might have imagined—
Minnie said something about the future, how black it looked for a lonely woman with a dependent child.
“I can’t go on like this,” she said, “and be separated from Sandra most of the time. You’re awfully good and kind—I’ll never forget it—but of course I can’t stay here forever. I know I’m not very useful to you. You could find plenty of others who would do as well, or better.”
He was silent, a portentous sort of silence, marshalling his forces, bringing his somewhat slow mind to bear on this subject.
“Do you think I could get a place as a housekeeper?” she asked earnestly, “where I could have Sandra with me?”
A broad smile overspread his face.
“I think so,” he said.
“Oh! Do you know of anyone?”
“Yes, if it will suit you.”
“Please tell me!”
Never in life had he so enjoyed a joke.
“It’s a nice place,” he went on slowly, “in this town.”
“With a good salary, do you think?”
“Well, yes, over ten thousand a year, I should say.”
“Oh, you’re joking, Mr. Petersen,” she cried, in such a disappointed voice that he stopped smiling and took her warm little hand.
“Minnie!” he said. “It’s I ... I want you. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy and your child too. I’ve got on well; you’ll be comfortable. If you—if you would care to marry me?”
For one instant a terrible look crossed her face—a sort of horror. She grew so white that he thought she would faint.
“You’re so kind” she faltered.
“You mean you will?”
“I’ll have to think,” she answered. That was the answer he liked, modest, and prudent.
She altered strangely after that talk. Before his eyes she grew thinner and paler, looked really ill. A shadow lay over her, a trouble she could scarcely support. It distressed the good man very much in more ways than one, for he imagined she was struggling against her loyalty to her dead husband, and he was not only sorry for her, but jealous as well. She avoided him noticeably, and he was too proud and too kind to trouble her. In the office she was formal, almost hostile. All this hurt him and puzzled him; it was not until long, long after that he realised what a terrible thing was taking place in her queer little soul.
She didn’t want her child out of her sight. In the evening, when he came now and then to see her, she would sit with the little creature on her lap, pressed against her heart, sleepy and patient.
He began to fancy that he was in some way offensive to her, and little by little tried to resume his old manner, to be kind but quite impersonal. A faint resentment aided him; he called her Mrs. Naylor, and ceased to call on her at the hotel.
And, directly he began to draw back, she advanced. He permitted it. He wouldn’t see her hints; he waited until she actually asked him to call. She had tried to dress up a little, with a lace collar on her rusty old black blouse, and she had left Sandra upstairs, with a bag of candy and some new paper dolls. She was waiting in the Ladies’ Sitting Room, with the naked light illuming her sallow, anxious face; not pretty, not very young, not fresh, and in a decidedly disadvantageous situation. But fully able to cope with it.
“Mr. Petersen,” she said, very, very gravely, “some time ago you made me an offer. I have reason to believe that you regret it now. I want to tell you that you are quite free.”
“I don’t regret it. If it were of any use, I should be only too glad to repeat it.”
“You’d better not,” she said.
He enquired why.
“Because,” she said, with her charming smile, “I should accept it.”
Thus were they betrothed.
And now she was still more surprising. She wanted to be married without delay.
“We don’t want any fuss or bother,” she said. “There aren’t any preparations to make.”
“It can’t be too soon for me,” he said.
“Why not next week?” she suggested.
He professed himself delighted.
“And—Chris” she added, with a blush, “I’d like ever so much to get a new dress for Sandra and a few little things”
He gave her a cheque for five hundred dollars, which he thought would be ample. So that he was surprised, on the wedding day, to find her wearing a grey suit he was sure he had seen on her before. She was waiting in the “Ladies’ Sitting Room,” with little Sandra beside her, dressed in a lace frock trimmed with ribbon and a flopping beflowered hat which almost hid her grave little face. He complimented Minnie upon her appearance, although he was deeply disappointed, and then began to praise Sandra, when Minnie burst into tears.
“Oh, my poor, poor baby!” she sobbed. “My poor innocent little lamb! She doesn’t realise one bit Oh, you will be nice to her, won’t you?”
“Come, come! You know I will. She loves me already, don’t you, pet?”
To his chagrin and surprise, the child answered clearly:
“I don’t love you. I like you. I only love my daddy.”
He knew quite well that she had been taught to say that. It wasn’t a child’s thought. He turned redder than ever, but held his peace.
“I’m doing wrong!” cried Minnie. “You see!”
“But surely.... Little Sandra, you like old Uncle Chris a lot, don’t you?”
Sandra looked at her weeping mother, then at Mr. Petersen’s distressed face, and herself began to cry. Minnie caught her in her arms and tried to comfort her.
“Don’t cry, dear. Mother wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”
“Minnie!” he protested.
“Oh, do stop!” she cried. “You don’t know anything about children. Don’t cry, sweetheart! You’re going to live right in the house with dear old Michael! Isn’t that nice!”
Mr. Petersen suspected at this time and at future times, that Minnie didn’t do all she might to make the child fond of him. In the course of time she dried her eyes, her mother, red-eyed and pale, straightened her hat, and the festive wedding party set off for the church.
It was evidently a terrible ordeal for Minnie. And for poor Mr. Petersen. He looked at her haggard and tormented face, and suffered from many new doubts. Was she marrying him for money, for a home for her child, for safety?
“She doesn’t love me,” he said to himself, and added, with deeper unhappiness, “She doesn’t even like me.”
They went out, man and wife, back to Mr. Petersen’s house, where Mrs. Hansen waited to salute them. She knew her days there were numbered, but the occasion called for a smile and a cheerful demeanour, and she complied.
“Shall we put it in the papers?” asked Mr. Petersen.
“No!” cried Minnie, “I hate that!”
They were at supper, their first meal together. And how different from what he had imagined! There was still daylight in the room, even a last gleam of sun striking across the table. It looked so charming and so peaceful that Mr. Petersen couldn’t help expecting some comment. Surely she would notice his linen and the fine old silver? Or at least Mrs. Hansen’s cooking? How could she not be delighted at finding such a home for herself and her child? He had proudly led her from room to room, each one so exquisitely clean and neat, furnished so well and substantially, and she hadn’t made a single remark about the comfort or the beauty of any of them. Just followed him and asked, idiotically, “And this is the sitting-room?” and so on. He was too even-tempered and too fond of Minnie to be angry, but he was deeply disappointed. Without showing it in any way.
Quite in his usual way, he resumed:
“Would you like to send out a few announcements? To your sister, perhaps?”
She sprang to her feet to answer him.
“No, no, no!” she cried, in an odd, hysterical voice. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you let things be as they are? Can’t you let me alone? I hate that vulgar, nasty display. I won’t have it! I’ll deny it! I’ll deny it!”
She stamped her foot and began to cry furiously, so that in the end he had to call in Mrs. Hansen, and between them they did their best to soothe her, and persuade her to go directly to bed, where a tray was brought her, so that she could finish her supper in peace. They arranged a good light, and found a cheerful book for her.
Mr. Petersen lingered a minute after Mrs. Hansen had gone downstairs. He looked down at the worn and wretched Minnie.
“My dear,” he said gently, “don’t worry, please—about anything. I don’t want you even to shake hands with me, if you don’t wish. I should be very glad if I could make you understand—that I am not that sort of man. I hope you will never have cause to regret”
“Chris,” she answered soberly, “I’m sorry, very sorry I’ve acted like this. But I’m overwrought, not myself. After all, it’s a terribly important step for a woman. Especially when there’s a child to be considered.”