Free Theophilus North by Thornton Wilder

going to tell you. . . . It’s not nasty or vulgar, but it’s undignified.”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œI beg your pardon, but I’m not going to be part of cheap journalists’ chatter.”
    I was lying. It was maybe half-true. Besides, I wasn’t breaking any bones.
    â€œHilary, I didn’t come here to be insulted!”
    She rose from her chair. She walked about the room. She clutched her throat as though she were strangling. But she got the point. Again she cried, “Why can’t I live as other people live?” Finally, she returned to the table and said scornfully, “Well, what have you got to suggest, Doctor Nosey Commonsense?”
    â€œI suggest that when we reach Narragansett Pier we return to Newport by the same ferries. You return to your home as though you’d merely been out for an evening ride. Later, I shall have some suggestions as to how you may marry Mr. Jones in simplicity and dignity. Your father will give you away and your mother will sit duly weeping in the front pew. As many as possible of the children you have befriended will be brought to the church. Dozens of Mr. Jones’s young athletic teams will also be there. The newspapers will say, ‘Newport’s most beloved friend of children has married Newport’s most popular teacher.’ ”
    There was no doubt that she was dazzled by this picture, but she had had a hard life. “How could that be done?”
    â€œYou fight bad publicity with good publicity. I have some newspaper friends there, and in Providence and in New Bedford. The world we live in swims in publicity. Articles will appear about the remarkable Mr. Jones. He will be proposed for ‘ TEACHER OF THE YEAR IN RHODE ISLAND .’ The Mayor will have to take notice of it. ‘ WHO IS DOING MOST TO BUILD THE NEWPORT OF THE FUTURE ?’ There’ll be a medal. Who would be most suitable to present the medal? Why, Mr. Augustus Bell, Chairman of the Board of the Newport Casino. Bellevue Avenue loves to think that it’s democratic, patriotic, philanthropic, big-hearted. That’ll break the ice.”
    I knew this was just folderol, but I had a job to do for Bill Wentworth, and I knew that a marriage between these two would be disastrous. My low strategy worked.
    They looked at one another.
    â€œI don’t want my name in the papers,” said Hilary Jones.
    I looked Diana straight in the eye and said, “Mr. Jones doesn’t want his name in the papers.” She got it. She looked me straight in the eye and murmured, “You devil!”
    Hilary had gained assurance. “Diana,” he said, “don’t you think it’s best that we go back?”
    â€œJust as you wish, Hilary,” she answered and burst into tears.
    Arriving at the ferry slip we learned that the boat tied up there for the night. If we wished to return to Newport, we must drive the forty miles to Providence and then the thirty miles to Newport. It was Hilary’s suggestion and mine that we drive in one car and that we send for the other in the morning. Diana was still weeping profusely—she saw her life as one spiteful frustration after another—and mumbled that she couldn’t drive, she didn’t want to drive. So they transferred their luggage into mine. I took my place at the wheel. She pointed at me saying, “I don’t want to sit by that man .” She sat by the window and fell asleep, or seemed to.
    Hilary was not only field-games director of the High School, but supervisor in all the public schools. I asked him about the prospects of the teams as we approached the crucial games of the year. He picked up animation.
    â€œPlease call me Hill.”
    â€œAll right. You call me Ted.”
    I heard about the teams’ hopes and fears—about promising pitchers who got strained tendons and great runners who got charley horses. About the possibility of winning the pennant from