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.