d the world
in company with a young man called Jimmy. But that was not merely a
coincidence. Her kindly old uncle, with the supposedly damaged heart,
was in his delicate way, offering her, in this trip, a birthday present
to celebrate her coming of age. Then, on the 4th of August, 1900, she
yielded to an action that certainly coloured her whole life--as well
as mine. She had no luck. She was probably offering herself a birthday
present that morning.... On the 4th of August, 1901, she married me, and
set sail for Europe in a great gale of wind--the gale that affected her
heart. And no doubt there, again, she was offering herself a birthday
gift--the birthday gift of my miserable life. It occurs to me that I
have never told you anything about my marriage. That was like this:
I have told you, as I think, that I first met Florence at the
Stuyvesants', in Fourteenth Street. And, from that moment, I determined
with all the obstinacy of a possibly weak nature, if not to make her
mine, at least to marry her. I had no occupation--I had no business
affairs. I simply camped down there in Stamford, in a vile hotel, and
just passed my days in the house, or on the verandah of the Misses
Hurlbird. The Misses Hurlbird, in an odd, obstinate way, did not like
my presence. But they were hampered by the national manners of these
occasions. Florence had her own sitting-room. She could ask to it whom
she liked, and I simply walked into that apartment. I was as timid as
you will, but in that matter I was like a chicken that is determined
to get across the road in front of an automobile. I would walk into
Florence's pretty, little, old-fashioned room, take off my hat, and sit
down.

Florence had, of course, several other fellows, too--strapping young
New Englanders, who worked during the day in New York and spent only the
evenings in the village of their birth. And, in the evenings, they
would march in on Florence with almost as much determination as I myself
showed. And I am bound to say that they were received with as much
disfavour as was my portion--from the Misses Hurlbird....

They were curious old creatures, those two. It was almost as if they
were members of an ancient family under some curse--they were so
gentlewomanly, so proper, and they sighed so. Sometimes I would see
tears in their eyes. I do not know that my courtship of Florence made
much progress at first. Perhaps that was because it took place almost
entirely during the day