A Pair of Patient Lovers

A Pair of Patient Lovers

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Dean Howells
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Title: A Pair of Patient Lovers
Author: William Dean Howells

Release Date: June 16, 2006 [eBook #18605]
Language: English
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A PAIR OF PATIENT LOVERS
by
W. D. Howells
Author of "The Landlord at Lion's Head" "Ragged Lady" etc.

New York and London Harper & Brothers Publishers 1901

CONTENTS
A Pair of Patient Lovers
The Pursuit of the Piano
A Difficult Case
The Magic of a Voice
A Circle in the Water

A PAIR OF PATIENT LOVERS

I.
We first met Glendenning on the Canadian boat which carries you
down the rapids of the St. Lawrence from Kingston and leaves you at

Montreal. When we saw a handsome young clergyman across the
promenade-deck looking up from his guide-book toward us, now and
again, as if in default of knowing any one else he would be very willing
to know us, we decided that I must make his acquaintance. He was
instantly and cordially responsive to my question whether he had ever
made the trip before, and he was amiably grateful when in my quality
of old habitué of the route I pointed out some characteristic features of
the scenery. I showed him just where we were on the long map of the
river hanging over his knee, and I added, with no great relevancy, that
my wife and I were renewing the fond emotion of our first trip down
the St. Lawrence in the character of bridal pair which we had spurned
when it was really ours. I explained that we had left the children with
my wife's aunt, so as to render the travesty more lifelike; and when he
said, "I suppose you miss them, though," I gave him my card. He tried
to find one of his own to give me in return, but he could only find a lot
of other people's cards. He wrote his name on the back of one, and
handed it to me with a smile. "It won't do for me to put 'reverend'
before it, in my own chirography, but that's the way I have it
engraved."
"Oh," I said, "the cut of your coat bewrayed you," and we had some
laughing talk. But I felt the eye of Mrs. March dwelling upon me with
growing impatience, till I suggested, "I should like to make you
acquainted with my wife, Mr. Glendenning."
He said, Oh, he should be so happy; and he gathered his dangling map
into the book and came over with me to where Mrs. March sat; and,
like the good young American husband I was in those days, I stood
aside and left the whole talk to her. She interested him so much more
than I could that I presently wandered away and amused myself
elsewhere. When I came back, she clutched my arm and bade me not
speak a word; it was the most romantic thing in the world, and she
would tell me about it when we were alone, but now I must go off
again; he had just gone to get a book for her which he had been
speaking of, and would be back the next instant, and it would not do to
let him suppose we had been discussing him.

II.
I was sometimes disappointed in Mrs. March's mysteries when I came
up close to them; but I was always willing to take them on trust; and I
submitted to the postponement of a solution in this case with more than
my usual faith. She found time, before Mr. Glendenning reappeared, to
ask me if I had noticed a mother and daughter on the boat, the mother
evidently an invalid, and the daughter very devoted, and both decidedly
ladies; and when I said, "No. Why?" she answered, "Oh, nothing," and
that she would tell me. Then she drove me away, and we did not meet
till I found her in our state-room just before the terrible mid-day meal
they used to give you on the Corinthian, and called dinner.
She began at once,