"Such presumption," said Aunt Laura, meaning for a Dix to aspire to a Murray.
"It wasn't because of his presumption I packed him off," said Emily. "It was because of the way he made love. He made a thing ugly that should have been beautiful."
"I suppose you wouldn't have him because he didn't propose romantically," said Aunt Elizabeth contemptuously.
"No. I think my real reason was that I felt sure he was the kind of man who would give his wife a vacuum cleaner for a Christmas present," vowed Emily.
"She will not take anything seriously," said Aunt Elizabeth in despair.
"I think she is bewitched," said Uncle Wallace. "She hasn't had one decent beau this summer. She's so temperamental decent fellows are scared of her."
"She's getting a terrible reputation as a flirt," mourned Aunt Ruth. "It's no wonder nobody worth while will have anything to do with her.
"Always with some fantastic love-affair on hand," snapped Uncle Wallace. The clan felt that Uncle Wallace had, with unusual felicity, hit on the very word. Emily's "love-affairs" were never the conventional, decorous things Murray love-affairs should be. They were indeed fantastic.
II
But Emily always blessed her stars that none of the clan except Aunt Elizabeth ever knew anything about the most fantastic of them all. If they had they would have thought her temperamental with a vengeance.
It all came about in a simple, silly way. The editor of the Charlottetown Argus, a daily paper with some pretensions to literature, had selected from an old U. S. newspaper a certain uncopyrighted story of several chapters... A Royal Betrothal, by some unknown author, Mark Greaves, for reprinting in the special edition of The Argus, devoted to "boosting" the claims of Prince Edward Island as a summer resort. His staff was small and the compositors had been setting up the type for the special edition at odd moments for a month and had it all ready except the concluding chapter of A Royal Betrothal. This chapter had disappeared and could not be found. The editor was furious, but that did not help matters any. He could not at that late hour find another story which would exactly fill the space, nor was there time to set it up if he could. The special edition must go to press in an hour. What was to be done?
At this moment Emily wandered in. She and Mr. Wilson were good friends and she always called when in town.
"You're a godsend," said Mr. Wilson. "Will you do me a favour?" He tossed the torn and dirty chapters of A Royal Betrothal over to her. "For heaven's sake, get to work and write a concluding chapter to that yarn. I'll give you half an hour. They can set it up in another half-hour. And we'll have the darn thing out on time."
Emily glanced hastily over the story. As far as it went there was no hint of what "Mark Greaves" intended as a denouement.
"Have you any idea how it ended?" she asked.
"No, never read it," groaned Mr. Wilson. "Just picked it for its length."
"Well, I'll do my best, though I'm not accustomed to write with flippant levity of kings and queens," agreed Emily. "This Mark Greaves, whoever he is, seems to be very much at home with royalty."
"I'll bet he never even saw one," snorted Mr. Wilson.
In the half-hour allotted to her Emily produced a quite respectable concluding chapter with a solution of the mystery which was really ingenious. Mr. Wilson snatched it with an air of relief handed it to a compositor, and bowed Emily out with thanks.
"I wonder if any of the readers will notice where the seam comes in," reflected Emily amusedly. "And I wonder if Mark Greaves will ever see it and if so what he will think."
It did not seem in the least likely she would ever know and she dismissed the matter from her mind. Consequently when, one afternoon two weeks later, Cousin Jimmy ushered a stranger into the sitting-room where Emily was arranging roses in Aunt Elizabeth's rock-crystal goblet with its ruby base... a treasured heirloom of New Moon... Emily did not connect him with A Royal Betrothal, though she had a distinct impression that the caller was an exceedingly irate man.
Cousin Jimmy discreetly withdrew and Aunt Laura, who had come in to place a glass dish full of strawberry preserves on the table to cool, withdrew also, wondering a little who Emily's odd-looking caller could be. Emily herself wondered. She remained standing by the table, a slim, gracious thing in her pale-green gown, shining like a star in the shadowy, old-fashioned room.
"Won't you sit down?" she questioned with all the aloof courtesy of New Moon. But the newcomer did not move. He simply stood before her staring at her. And again Emily felt that, while he had been quite furious when he came in, he was not in the least angry now.
He must have been born, of course, because he was there... but it was incredible, she thought, he could ever have been a baby. He wore audacious clothes and a monocle, screwed into one of his eyes... eyes that seemed absurdly like little black currants with black eyebrows that made right-angled triangles above them. He had a mane of black hair reaching to his shoulders, an immensely long chin and a marble-white face. In a picture Emily thought he would have looked rather handsome and romantic. But here in the New Moon sitting- room he looked merely weird.
"Lyrical creature," he said, gazing at her.
Emily wondered if he were by any chance an escaped lunatic.
"You do not commit the crime of ugliness," he continued fervently. "This is a wonderful moment... very wonderful. 'Tis a pity we must spoil it by talking. Eyes of purple-grey, sprinkled with gold. Eyes that I have looked for all my life. Sweet eyes, in which I drowned myself eons ago."
"Who are you?" said Emily crisply, now entirely convinced that he was quite mad. He laid his hand on his heart and bowed.
"Mark Greaves... Mark D. Greaves... Mark Delage Greaves."
Mark Greaves! Emily had a confused idea that she ought to know the name. It sounded curiously familiar.
"Is it possible you do not recognize my name! Verily this is fame. Even in this remote corner of the world I should have supposed... "
"Oh," cried Emily, light suddenly breaking on her. "I... I remember now. You wrote A Royal Betrothal."
"The story you so unfeelingly murdered... yes."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Emily interrupted. "Of course you would think it unpardonable. It was this way... you see... "
He stopped her by a wave of a very long, very white hand.
"No matter. No matter. It does not interest me at all now. I admit I was very angry when I came here. I am stopping at the Derry Pond Hotel of The Dunes... ah, what a name... poetry... mystery... romance... and I saw the special edition of The Argus this morning. I was angry... had I not a right to be?... and yet more sad than angry. My story was barbarously mutilated. A happy ending. Horrible. MY ending was sorrowful and artistic. A happy ending can never be artistic. I hastened to the den of The Argus. I dissembled my anger... I discovered who was responsible. I came here... to denounce... to upbraid. I remain to worship."
Emily simply did not know what to say. New Moon traditions held no precedent for this.
"You do not understand me. You are puzzled... your bewilderment becomes you. Again I say a wonderful moment. To come enraged... and behold divinity. To realize as soon as I saw you that you were meant for me and me alone."
Emily wished somebody would come in. This was getting nightmarish.
"It is absurd to talk so," she said shortly. "We are strangers... "
"We are NOT strangers," he interrupted. "We have loved in some other life, of course. And our love was a violent, gorgeous thing... a love of eternity. I recognized you as soon as I entered. As soon as you have recovered from your sweet surprise you will realize this, too. When can you marry me?"
To be asked by a man to marry him five minutes after the first moment you have laid eyes on him is an experience more stimulating than pleasant. Emily was annoyed.