Man and Maid

"What lovely flowers!" she said. They were the first words she had

spoken to me directly.

"I wondered what would be your favorites. You must tell me for the

future. I just had roses because they happen to be mine."

"I like roses best too."

I was silent for quite two minutes. She tried to keep still, then I

spoke, and I could hear a tone of authority in my voice.

"Alathea, again I ask you please to remove your glasses, as I told you

before, I know that you wear them only so that I may not see your eyes,

not for sight or light or anything. To keep them on is a little

undignified and ridiculous now, and irritates me very much."

She colored and straightened herself.

"To remove my glasses was not part of the bargain. You should have made

it a condition if you had wanted to impose it. I do not admit that you

have the least right to ask me to take them off, and I prefer to wear

them."

"For what possible reason?"

"I will not tell you."

I felt my temper rising. If I had not been a cripple I could not have

resisted the temptation to rise and seize her in my arms, tear the d----

d things off! and punish her with a thousand kisses. As it was, I felt

an inward rage. What a fool I had been not to have actually made the

removal of them a sine qua non before I signed the contract!

"It is very ungenerous of you, and shows a spirit of hostility which I

think we agreed that you would drop."

Silence.

The desire to punish her physically, beat her, make her obey me, was the

only thing I felt. A nice emotion for a wedding day!

"Do you mean to wear them all the time, even when we go out in the

world?" I asked when I could control my voice.

"Probably."

"Very well then, I consider you are breaking the bargain in spirit, if

not in the letter. You, yourself, said you were going to be my permanent

secretary--no secretary in the world would insist upon doing something

she knew to be a great irritation to her employer."

Silence.

"You are only lowering yourself in my estimation by showing this

obstinacy. Since we have now to live together, I would rather not have

to grow to despise you for childishness."

She started to her feet, and with violence threw the glasses on to the

table. Her beautiful eyes flashed at me; the lashes are that peculiar

curly kind, not black, but soft and dusky, a little lighter near the

skin. It is the first time I have ever seen such eyelashes on a woman's

lids. One sees them quite often on little boys, especially little

vagabonds in the street. The eyes themselves are intensely blue, and

with everything of passion and magnetism, and attraction, in them. It is

no wonder she wore glasses while having to face the world by herself! A

woman with eyes like that would not be safe alone in any avocation where

men could observe her. I have never seen such expressive, fascinating

eyes in my life. I thrilled in every fibre of my being, and with triumph

also to think that our first battle should be won!