Can Such Things Be?

On the day after my second meeting with Dr. Dorrimore I did not see him:  the clerk in the Putnam House explained that a slight illness confined him to his rooms.  That afternoon at the railway station I was surprised and made happy by the unexpected arrival of Miss Margaret Corray and her mother, from Oakland.

This is not a love story.  I am no storyteller, and love as it is cannot be portrayed in a literature dominated and enthralled by the debasing tyranny which “sentences letters” in the name of the Young Girl.  Under the Young Girl’s blighting reign—­or rather under the rule of those false Ministers of the Censure who have appointed themselves to the custody of her welfare—­love

veils her sacred fires, And, unaware, Morality expires,

famished upon the sifted meal and distilled water of a prudish purveyance.

Let it suffice that Miss Corray and I were engaged in marriage.  She and her mother went to the hotel at which I lived, and for two weeks I saw her daily.  That I was happy needs hardly be said; the only bar to my perfect enjoyment of those golden days was the presence of Dr. Dorrimore, whom I had felt compelled to introduce to the ladies.

By them he was evidently held in favor.  What could I say?  I knew absolutely nothing to his discredit.  His manners were those of a cultivated and considerate gentleman; and to women a man’s manner is the man.  On one or two occasions when I saw Miss Corray walking with him I was furious, and once had the indiscretion to protest.  Asked for reasons, I had none to give and fancied I saw in her expression a shade of contempt for the vagaries of a jealous mind.  In time I grew morose and consciously disagreeable, and resolved in my madness to return to San Francisco the next day.  Of this, however, I said nothing.