"Kindly allow me to call attention to the fact that in my recent order of the 18th inst., the specifications distinctly stated 'love-letters', andnotany correspondence whatsoever,—no matter how exhilarating from either a 'Gray-Plush Squirrel' or a 'Banda Sea Pirate' as evidenced by enclosed photograph which I am hereby returning. Please refund money at once or forward mewithout delay a consistent photograph of a 'special edition de luxe' girl."Very truly yours."
"Kindly allow me to call attention to the fact that in my recent order of the 18th inst., the specifications distinctly stated 'love-letters', andnotany correspondence whatsoever,—no matter how exhilarating from either a 'Gray-Plush Squirrel' or a 'Banda Sea Pirate' as evidenced by enclosed photograph which I am hereby returning. Please refund money at once or forward mewithout delay a consistent photograph of a 'special edition de luxe' girl.
"Very truly yours."
The letter was mailed by the janitor long before noon. Even as late as eleven o'clock that night Stanton was still hopefully expecting an answer. Nor was he altogether disappointed. Just before midnight a messenger boy appeared with a fair-sized manilla envelope, quite stiff and important looking.
"Oh, please, Sir," said the enclosed letter, "Oh, please, Sir, we cannot refund your subscription money because—we have spent it. But if you will only be patient, we feel quite certain that you will be altogether satisfied in the long run with the material offered you. As for the photograph recently forwarded to you, kindly accept our apologies for a very clumsy mistake made here in the office. Do any of these other types suit you better? Kindly mark selection and return all pictures at your earliest convenience."
"Oh, please, Sir," said the enclosed letter, "Oh, please, Sir, we cannot refund your subscription money because—we have spent it. But if you will only be patient, we feel quite certain that you will be altogether satisfied in the long run with the material offered you. As for the photograph recently forwarded to you, kindly accept our apologies for a very clumsy mistake made here in the office. Do any of these other types suit you better? Kindly mark selection and return all pictures at your earliest convenience."
Before the messenger boy's astonished interest Stanton spread out on the bed all around him a dozen soft sepia-colored photographs of a dozen different girls. Stately in satin, or simple in gingham, or deliciously hoydenish in fishing-clothes, they challenged his surprised attention. Blonde, brunette, tall, short, posing with wistful tenderness in the flickering glow of an open fire, or smiling frankly out of a purely conventional vignette—they one and all defied him to choose between them.
"Oh! Oh!" laughed Stanton to himself. "Am I to try and separate her picture from eleven pictures of her friends! So that's the game, is it? Well, I guess not! Does she think I'm going to risk choosing a tom-boy girl if the gentle little creature with the pansies is really herself? Or suppose she truly is the enchanting little tom-boy, would she probably writeme any more nice funny letters if I solemnly selected her sentimental, moony-looking friend at the heavily draped window?"
Craftily he returned all the pictures unmarked to the envelope, and changing the address hurried the messenger boy off to remail it. Just this little note, hastily scribbled in pencil went with the envelope:
"Dear Serial-Letter Co.:"The pictures are not altogether satisfactory. It isn't a 'type' that I am looking for, but a definite likeness of 'Molly' herself. Kindly rectify the mistake without further delay! or REFUND THE MONEY."
"Dear Serial-Letter Co.:
"The pictures are not altogether satisfactory. It isn't a 'type' that I am looking for, but a definite likeness of 'Molly' herself. Kindly rectify the mistake without further delay! or REFUND THE MONEY."
Almost all the rest of the night he amused himself chuckling to think how the terrible threat about refunding the money would confuse and conquer the extravagant little Art Student.
But it was his own hands that did the nervous trembling when he opened thebig express package that arrived the next evening, just as his tiresome porridge supper was finished.
"Ah, Sweetheart—" said the dainty note tucked inside the package—"Ah, Sweetheart, the little god of love be praised for one true lover—Yourself! So it is a picture ofmethat you want? Thereal me! Thetruly me! No mere pink and white likeness? No actual proof even of 'seared and yellow age'? No curly-haired, coquettish attractiveness that the shampoo-lady and the photograph-man trapped me into for that one single second? No deceptive profile of the best side of my face—and I, perhaps, blind in the other eye? Not even a fair, honest, every-day portrait of my father's and mother's composite features—but a picture ofmyself! Hooray for you! A picture, then, not of my physiognomy, but of mypersonality. Very well, sir. Here is the portrait—true to the life—in this great, clumsy, conglomerate package of articles that represent—perhaps—not even so much the prosy, literal things that I am, as the much more illuminatingand significant things thatI would like to be. It's what we would 'like to be' that really tells most about us, isn't it, Carl Stanton? The brown that I have to wear talks loudly enough, for instance, about the color of my complexion, but the forbidden pink that I most crave whispers infinitely more intimately concerning the color of my spirit. And as to my Face—am I really obliged to have a face? Oh, no—o! 'Songs without words' are surely the only songs in the world that are packed to the last lilting note with utterly limitless meanings. So in these 'letters without faces' I cast myself quite serenely upon the mercy of your imagination."What's that you say? That I've simplygotto have a face? Oh, darn!—well, do your worst. Conjure up for me then, here and now, any sort of features whatsoever that please your fancy. Only, Man of Mine, just remember this in your imaginings: Gift me with Beauty if you like, or gift me with Brains, but do not make the crude masculine mistake of gifting me with both. Thought furrows faces you know, and after Adolescence only Inanity retainsits heavenly smoothness. Beauty even at its worst is a gorgeously perfect, flower-sprinkled lawn over which the most ordinary, every-day errands of life cannot cross without scarring. And brains at their best are only a ploughed field teeming always and forever with the worries of incalculable harvests. Make me a little pretty, if you like, and a little wise, but not too much of either, if you value the verities of your Vision. There! I say: do your worst! Make me that face, and that face only, that youneed the mostin all this big, lonesome world: food for your heart, or fragrance for your nostrils. Only, one face or another—I insist upon havingred hair!"Molly."
"Ah, Sweetheart—" said the dainty note tucked inside the package—"Ah, Sweetheart, the little god of love be praised for one true lover—Yourself! So it is a picture ofmethat you want? Thereal me! Thetruly me! No mere pink and white likeness? No actual proof even of 'seared and yellow age'? No curly-haired, coquettish attractiveness that the shampoo-lady and the photograph-man trapped me into for that one single second? No deceptive profile of the best side of my face—and I, perhaps, blind in the other eye? Not even a fair, honest, every-day portrait of my father's and mother's composite features—but a picture ofmyself! Hooray for you! A picture, then, not of my physiognomy, but of mypersonality. Very well, sir. Here is the portrait—true to the life—in this great, clumsy, conglomerate package of articles that represent—perhaps—not even so much the prosy, literal things that I am, as the much more illuminatingand significant things thatI would like to be. It's what we would 'like to be' that really tells most about us, isn't it, Carl Stanton? The brown that I have to wear talks loudly enough, for instance, about the color of my complexion, but the forbidden pink that I most crave whispers infinitely more intimately concerning the color of my spirit. And as to my Face—am I really obliged to have a face? Oh, no—o! 'Songs without words' are surely the only songs in the world that are packed to the last lilting note with utterly limitless meanings. So in these 'letters without faces' I cast myself quite serenely upon the mercy of your imagination.
"What's that you say? That I've simplygotto have a face? Oh, darn!—well, do your worst. Conjure up for me then, here and now, any sort of features whatsoever that please your fancy. Only, Man of Mine, just remember this in your imaginings: Gift me with Beauty if you like, or gift me with Brains, but do not make the crude masculine mistake of gifting me with both. Thought furrows faces you know, and after Adolescence only Inanity retainsits heavenly smoothness. Beauty even at its worst is a gorgeously perfect, flower-sprinkled lawn over which the most ordinary, every-day errands of life cannot cross without scarring. And brains at their best are only a ploughed field teeming always and forever with the worries of incalculable harvests. Make me a little pretty, if you like, and a little wise, but not too much of either, if you value the verities of your Vision. There! I say: do your worst! Make me that face, and that face only, that youneed the mostin all this big, lonesome world: food for your heart, or fragrance for your nostrils. Only, one face or another—I insist upon havingred hair!
"Molly."
With his lower lip twisted oddly under the bite of his strong white teeth, Stanton began to unwrap the various packages that comprised the large bundle. If it was a "portrait" it certainly represented a puzzle-picture.
First there was a small, flat-footed scarlet slipper with a fluffy gold toe to it.Definitely feminine. Definitely small. So much for that! Then there was a sling-shot, ferociously stubby, and rather confusingly boyish. After that, round and flat and tantalizing as an empty plate, the phonograph disc of a totally unfamiliar song—"The Sea Gull's Cry": a clue surely to neither age nor sex, but indicative possibly of musical preference or mere individual temperament. After that, a tiny geographical globe, with Kipling's phrase—
"For to admire an' for to see,For to be'old this world so wide—It never done no good to me,But I can't drop it if I tried!"—
"For to admire an' for to see,For to be'old this world so wide—It never done no good to me,But I can't drop it if I tried!"—
written slantingly in very black ink across both hemispheres. Then an empty purse—with a hole in it; a silver-embroidered gauntlet such as horsemen wear on the Mexican frontier; a white table-doily partly embroidered with silky blue forget-me-nots—the threaded needle still jabbed in the work—and the small thimble, Stanton could have sworn, still warm from the snuggle of somebody's finger. Last of all, a fat and formidable edition of Robert Browning's poems; a tiny black domino-mask, such as masqueraders wear, and a shimmering gilt picture frame inclosing a pert yet not irreverent handmade adaptation of a certain portion of St. Paul's epistle to the Corinthians:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not a Sense of Humor, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of Prophecy—and all knowledge—so that I could remove Mountains, and have not a Sense of Humor, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my Goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not a Sense of Humor it profiteth me nothing."A sense of Humor suffereth long, and is kind. A Sense of Humor envieth not.A Sense of Humor vaunteth not itself—is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself Unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil—Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. A Sense of Humor never faileth. But whether there be unpleasant prophecies they shall fail, whether there be scolding tongues they shall cease, whether there be unfortunate knowledge it shall vanish away. When I was a fault-finding child I spake as a fault-finding child, I understood as a fault-finding child,—but when I became a woman I put away fault-finding things."And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three.But the greatest of these is a sense of humor!"
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not a Sense of Humor, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of Prophecy—and all knowledge—so that I could remove Mountains, and have not a Sense of Humor, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my Goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not a Sense of Humor it profiteth me nothing.
"A sense of Humor suffereth long, and is kind. A Sense of Humor envieth not.A Sense of Humor vaunteth not itself—is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself Unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil—Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. A Sense of Humor never faileth. But whether there be unpleasant prophecies they shall fail, whether there be scolding tongues they shall cease, whether there be unfortunate knowledge it shall vanish away. When I was a fault-finding child I spake as a fault-finding child, I understood as a fault-finding child,—but when I became a woman I put away fault-finding things.
"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three.But the greatest of these is a sense of humor!"
With a little chuckle of amusement not altogether devoid of a very definite consciousness of beingteased, Stanton spread all the articles out on the bed-spread before him and tried to piece them together like the fragments of any other jig-saw puzzle. Was the young lady as intellectual as the Robert Browning poems suggested, or did she mean simply to imply that shewishedshe were? And did the tom-boyish sling-shot fit by any possible chance with the dainty, feminine scrap of domestic embroidery? And was the empty purse supposed to be especially significant of an inordinate fondness for phonograph music—or what?
Pondering, puzzling, fretting, fussing, he dozed off to sleep at last before he even knew that it was almost morning. And when he finally woke again he found the Doctor laughing at him because he lay holding a scarlet slipper in his hand.
The next night, very, very late, in a furious riot of wind and snow and sleet, a clerk from the drug-store just around the corner appeared with a perfectly huge hot-water bottle fairly sizzling and bubbling with warmth and relief for aching rheumatic backs.
"Well, where in thunder—?" groaned Stanton out of his cold and pain and misery.
"Search me!" said the drug clerk. "The order and the money for it came in the last mail this evening. 'Kindly deliver largest-sized hot-water bottle, boiling hot, to Mr. Carl Stanton,... 11.30 to-night.'"
"OO-w!" gasped Stanton. "O-u-c-h!G-e-e!" then, "Oh, I wish I could purr!" as he settled cautiously back at last to toast his pains against the blessed, scorching heat. "Most girls," he reasoned with surprising interest, "would have sent ice cold violets shrouded in tissue paper. Now, how does this special girl know—Oh, Ouch! O-u-c-h! O-u-c-h—i—t—y!" he crooned himself to sleep.
The next night just at supper-time a much-freckled messenger-boy appeared dragging an exceedingly obstreperous fox-terrier on the end of a dangerously frayed leash. Planting himself firmly on the rug in the middle of the room, with the faintest gleam of saucy pink tongue showing between his teeth, the little beast sat and defied the entire situation. Nothing apparently but the correspondence concerning the situation was actually transferable from the freckled messenger boy to Stanton himself.
"Oh, dear Lad," said the tiny note, "I forgot to tell you my real name, didn't I!—Well, my last name and the dog's first name are just the same. Funny, isn't it? (You'll find it in the back of almost any dictionary.)"With love,"Molly."P. S. Just turn the puppy out in the morning and he'll go home all right of his own accord."
"Oh, dear Lad," said the tiny note, "I forgot to tell you my real name, didn't I!—Well, my last name and the dog's first name are just the same. Funny, isn't it? (You'll find it in the back of almost any dictionary.)
"With love,
"Molly.
"P. S. Just turn the puppy out in the morning and he'll go home all right of his own accord."
A much-freckled messenger-boy appeared dragging an exceedingly obstreperous fox-terrierA much-freckled messenger-boy appeared dragging an exceedingly obstreperous fox-terrier
With his own pink tongue showing just a trifle between his teeth, Stanton lay for a moment and watched the dog on the rug. Cocking his small, keen, white head from one tippy angle to another, the little terrier returned the stare with an expression that was altogether and unmistakably mirthful. "Oh, it's a jolly little beggar, isn't it?" said Stanton. "Come here, sir!" Only a suddenly pointed ear acknowledged the summons. The dog himself did not budge. "Come here, I say!" Stanton repeated with harshperemptoriness. Palpably the little dog winked at him. Then in succession the little dog dodged adroitly a knife, a spoon, a copy of Browning's poems, and several other sizable articles from the table close to Stanton's elbow. Nothing but the dictionary seemed too big to throw. Finally with a grin that could not be disguised even from the dog, Stanton began to rummage with eye and hand through the intricate back pages of the dictionary.
"You silly little fool," he said. "Won't you mind unless you are spoken to by name?"
"Aaron—Abidel—Abel—Abiathar—" he began to read out with petulant curiosity, "Baldwin—Barachias—Bruno (Oh, hang!) Cadwallader—Cæsar—Caleb (What nonsense!) Ephraim—Erasmus (How could a girl be named anything like that!) Gabriel—Gerard—Gershom(Imagine whistling a dog to the name of Gershom!) Hannibal—Hezekiah—Hosea (Oh, Hell!)" Stolidly with unheedful, drooping ears the little fox-terrier resumed his seat on the rug. "Ichabod—Jabez—Joab," Stanton's voice persisted, experimentally. By nine o'clock, in all possible variations of accent and intonation, he had quite completely exhausted the alphabetical list as far as "K." and the little dog was blinking himself to sleep on the far side of the room. Something about the dog's nodding contentment started Stanton's mouth to yawning and for almost an hour he lay in the lovely, restful consciousness of being at least half asleep. But at ten o'clock he roused up sharply and resumed the task at hand, which seemed suddenly to have assumed really vital importance. "Laban—Lorenzo—Marcellus," he began again in a loud, clear, compelling voice. "Meredith—" (Did the little dog stir? Did he sit up?) "Meredith? Meredith?" The little dog barked. Something in Stanton's brain flashed. "It is 'Merry' for the dog?" he quizzed. "Here, MERRY!" In another instant the little creature had leaped upon the foot of his bed, and was talking away at a great rate with all sorts of ecstatic grunts and growls. Stanton's hand went out almost shyly to the dog's head. "So it's 'Molly Meredith'," he mused. But after all there was no reason to be shy about it. It was thedog'shead he was stroking.
Tied to the little dog's collar when he went home the next morning was a tiny, inconspicuous tag that said "That was easy! The pup's name—and yours—is 'Meredith.' Funny name for a dog but nice for a girl."
The Serial-Letter Co.'s answers were always prompt, even though perplexing.
"Dear Lad," came this special answer. "You are quite right about the dog. And I compliment you heartily on your shrewdness. But I must confess,—even though it makes you very angry with me, that I have deceived you absolutely concerning my own name. Will you forgive me utterly if I hereby promise never to deceive you again? Why what could I possibly, possibly do with a great solemn name like 'Meredith'? My truly name, Sir, my really, truly, honest-injun name is 'Molly Make-Believe'. Don't you know the funny little old song about 'Molly Make-Believe'? Oh, surely you do:"'Molly, Molly Make-Believe,Keep to your play if you would not grieve!For Molly-Mine here's a hint for you,Things that are true are apt to be blue!'"Now you remember it, don't you? Then there's something about"'Molly, Molly Make-a-Smile,Wear it, swear it all the while.Long as your lips are framed for a joke,Who can prove that your heart is broke?'"Don't you love that 'is broke'! Then there's the last verse—my favorite:"'Molly, Molly Make-a-Beau,Make him of mist or make him of snow,Long as your DREAM stays fine and fair,Molly, Molly what do you care!'"
"Dear Lad," came this special answer. "You are quite right about the dog. And I compliment you heartily on your shrewdness. But I must confess,—even though it makes you very angry with me, that I have deceived you absolutely concerning my own name. Will you forgive me utterly if I hereby promise never to deceive you again? Why what could I possibly, possibly do with a great solemn name like 'Meredith'? My truly name, Sir, my really, truly, honest-injun name is 'Molly Make-Believe'. Don't you know the funny little old song about 'Molly Make-Believe'? Oh, surely you do:
"'Molly, Molly Make-Believe,Keep to your play if you would not grieve!For Molly-Mine here's a hint for you,Things that are true are apt to be blue!'
"'Molly, Molly Make-Believe,Keep to your play if you would not grieve!For Molly-Mine here's a hint for you,Things that are true are apt to be blue!'
"Now you remember it, don't you? Then there's something about
"'Molly, Molly Make-a-Smile,Wear it, swear it all the while.Long as your lips are framed for a joke,Who can prove that your heart is broke?'
"'Molly, Molly Make-a-Smile,Wear it, swear it all the while.Long as your lips are framed for a joke,Who can prove that your heart is broke?'
"Don't you love that 'is broke'! Then there's the last verse—my favorite:
"'Molly, Molly Make-a-Beau,Make him of mist or make him of snow,Long as your DREAM stays fine and fair,Molly, Molly what do you care!'"
"'Molly, Molly Make-a-Beau,Make him of mist or make him of snow,Long as your DREAM stays fine and fair,Molly, Molly what do you care!'"
"Well, I'll wager that her nameis'Meredith' just the same," vowed Stanton, "and she's probably madder than scat to think that I hit it right."
Whether the daily overtures from the Serial-Letter Co. proved to be dogs or love-letters or hot-water bottles or funny old songs, it was reasonably evident that something unique was practically guaranteed to happen every single, individual night of the six weeks' subscription contract. Like a youngster's joyous dream of chronic Christmas Eves, this realization alone was enough to put an absurdly delicious thrill of expectancy into any invalid's otherwise prosy thoughts.
Yet the next bit of attention from the Serial-Letter Co. did not please Stantonone half as much as it embarrassed him.
Wandering socially into the room from his own apartments below, a young lawyer friend of Stanton's had only just seated himself on the foot of Stanton's bed when an expressman also arrived with two large pasteboard hat-boxes which he straightway dumped on the bed between the two men with the laconic message that he would call for them again in the morning.
"Heaven preserve me!" gasped Stanton. "What is this?"
Fearsomely out of the smaller of the two boxes he lifted with much rustling snarl of tissue paper a woman's brown fur-hat,—very soft, very fluffy, inordinately jaunty with a blush-pink rose nestling deep in the fur. Out of the other box, twice as large, twice as rustly, flaunted a green velvet cavalier's hat, witha green ostrich feather as long as a man's arm drooping languidly off the brim.
"Holy Cat!" said Stanton.
Pinned to the green hat's crown was a tiny note. The handwriting at least was pleasantly familiar by this time.
"Oh, I say!" cried the lawyer delightedly.
With a desperately painful effort at nonchalance, Stanton shoved his right fist into the brown hat and his left fist into the green one, and raised them quizzically from the bed.
"Darned—good-looking—hats," he stammered.
"Oh, I say!" repeated the lawyer with accumulative delight.
Crimson to the tip of his ears, Stanton rolled his eyes frantically towards the little note.
"She sent 'em up just to show 'em to me," he quoted wildly. "Just 'cause I'mlaid up so and can't get out on the streets to see the styles for myself.—And I've got to choose between them for her!" he ejaculated. "She says she can't decide alone which one to keep!"
"Bully for her!" cried the lawyer, surprisingly, slapping his knee. "The cunning little girl!"
Speechless with astonishment, Stanton lay and watched his visitor, then "Well, which one would you choose?" he asked with unmistakable relief.
The lawyer took the hats and scanned them carefully. "Let—me—see" he considered. "Her hair is so blond—"
"No, it's red!" snapped Stanton.
With perfect courtesy the lawyer swallowed his mistake. "Oh, excuse me," he said. "I forgot. But with her height—"
"She hasn't any height," groaned Stanton. "I tell you she's little."
"Choose to suit yourself," said the lawyer coolly. He himself had admired Cornelia from afar off.
The next night, to Stanton's mixed feelings of relief and disappointment the "surprise" seemed to consist in the fact that nothing happened at all. Fully until midnight the sense of relief comforted him utterly. But some time after midnight, his hungry mind, like a house-pet robbed of an accustomed meal, began to wake and fret and stalk around ferociously through all the long, empty, aching, early morning hours, searching for something novel to think about.
By supper-time the next evening he was in an irritable mood that made him fairly clutch the special delivery letter out of the postman's hand. It was rather a thin, tantalizing little letter, too. All it said was,
"To-night, Dearest, until one o'clock, in a cabbage-colored gown all shimmery withgreen and blue and September frost-lights, I'm going to sit up by my white birch-wood fire and read aloud to you. Yes! Honest-Injun! And out of Browning, too. Did you notice your copy was marked? What shall I read to you? Shall it be"'If I could have that little head of hersPainted upon a background of pale gold.'"or'Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?Do I live in a house you would like to see?'"or'I am a Painter who cannot paint,——No end to all I cannot do.Yet do one thing at least I can,Love a man, or hate a man!'"or just'Escape me?Never,Beloved!While I am I, and you are you!'"Oh, Honey! Won't it be fun? Just you and I, perhaps, in all this Big City, sitting up and thinking about each other.Can you smell the white birch smoke in this letter?"
"To-night, Dearest, until one o'clock, in a cabbage-colored gown all shimmery withgreen and blue and September frost-lights, I'm going to sit up by my white birch-wood fire and read aloud to you. Yes! Honest-Injun! And out of Browning, too. Did you notice your copy was marked? What shall I read to you? Shall it be
"'If I could have that little head of hersPainted upon a background of pale gold.'
"'If I could have that little head of hersPainted upon a background of pale gold.'
"or
'Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?Do I live in a house you would like to see?'
'Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?Do I live in a house you would like to see?'
"or
'I am a Painter who cannot paint,——No end to all I cannot do.Yet do one thing at least I can,Love a man, or hate a man!'
'I am a Painter who cannot paint,——No end to all I cannot do.Yet do one thing at least I can,Love a man, or hate a man!'
"or just
'Escape me?Never,Beloved!While I am I, and you are you!'
'Escape me?Never,Beloved!While I am I, and you are you!'
"Oh, Honey! Won't it be fun? Just you and I, perhaps, in all this Big City, sitting up and thinking about each other.Can you smell the white birch smoke in this letter?"
"Well I'll be hanged," growled Stanton, "if I'm going to be strung by any boy!""Well I'll be hanged," growled Stanton, "if I'm going to be strung by any boy!"
Almost unconsciously Stanton raised the page to his face. Unmistakably, up from the paper rose the strong, vivid scent—of a briar-wood pipe.
"Well I'll be hanged," growled Stanton, "if I'm going to be strung by any boy!" Out of all proportion the incident irritated him.
But when, the next evening, a perfectly tremendous bunch of yellow jonquils arrived with a penciled line suggesting, "If you'll put these solid gold posies in your window to-morrow morning at eight o'clock, so I'll surely know just which window is yours, I'll look up—when I go past," Stanton most peremptorily ordered the janitor to display the bouquet as ornately as possible along the narrow window-sill of the biggest window that faced the street. Then all through thenight he lay dozing and waking intermittently, with a lovely, scared feeling in the pit of his stomach that something really rather exciting was about to happen. By surely half-past seven he rose laboriously from his bed, huddled himself into his black-sheep wrapper and settled himself down as warmly as could be expected, close to the draughty edge of the window.
"Little and lame and red-haired and brown-eyed," he kept repeating to himself.
Old people and young people, cab-drivers and jaunty young girls, and fat blue policeman, looked up, one and all with quick-brightening faces at the really gorgeous Spring-like flame of jonquils, but in a whole chilly, wearisome hour the only red-haired person that passed was an Irish setter puppy, and the only lame person was a wooden-legged beggar.
Cold and disgusted as he was, Stanton could not altogether help laughing at his own discomfiture.
"Why—hang that little girl! She ought to be s-p-a-n-k-e-d," he chuckled as he climbed back into his tiresome bed.
Then as though to reward his ultimate good-nature the very next mail brought him a letter from Cornelia, and rather a remarkable letter too, as in addition to the usual impersonal comments on the weather and the tennis and the annual orange crop, there was actually one whole, individual, intimate sentence that distinguished the letter as having been intended solely for him rather than for Cornelia's dressmaker or her coachman's invalid daughter, or her own youngest brother. This was the sentence:
"Really, Carl, you don't know how glad I am that in spite of all your foolish objections, I kept to my original purpose of not announcing my engagement until after my Southern trip. You've no idea what a big difference it makes in a girl's good time at a great hotel like this."
"Really, Carl, you don't know how glad I am that in spite of all your foolish objections, I kept to my original purpose of not announcing my engagement until after my Southern trip. You've no idea what a big difference it makes in a girl's good time at a great hotel like this."
This sentence surely gave Stanton a good deal of food for his day's thoughts,but the mental indigestion that ensued was not altogether pleasant.
Not until evening did his mood brighten again. Then—
"Lad of Mine," whispered Molly's gentler letter. "Lad of Mine,how blond your hair is!—Even across the chin-tickling tops of those yellow jonquils this morning, I almost laughed to see the blond, blond shine of you.—Some day I'm going to stroke that hair." (Yes!)"P. S. The Little Dog came home all right."
"Lad of Mine," whispered Molly's gentler letter. "Lad of Mine,how blond your hair is!—Even across the chin-tickling tops of those yellow jonquils this morning, I almost laughed to see the blond, blond shine of you.—Some day I'm going to stroke that hair." (Yes!)
"P. S. The Little Dog came home all right."
With a gasp of dismay Stanton sat up abruptly in bed and tried to revisualize every single, individual pedestrian who had passed his window in the vicinity of eight o'clock that morning. "She evidently isn't lame at all," he argued, "or little, or red-haired, or anything. Probably her name isn't Molly, and presumably it isn't even 'Meredith.' But at least she did go by: And is my hair so veryblond?" he asked himself suddenly. Against all intention his mouth began to prance a little at the corners.
As soon as he could possibly summon the janitor, he despatched his third note to the Serial-Letter Co., but this one bore a distinctly sealed inner envelope, directed, "For Molly. Personal." And the message in it, though brief was utterly to the point. "Couldn't youpleasetell a fellow who you are?"
But by the conventional bed-time hour the next night he wished most heartily that he had not been so inquisitive, for the only entertainment that came to him at all was a jonquil-colored telegram warning him—
"Where the apple reddens do not pry,Lest we lose our Eden—you and I."
"Where the apple reddens do not pry,Lest we lose our Eden—you and I."
The couplet was quite unfamiliar to Stanton, but it rhymed sickeningly through his brain all night long like theconsciousness of an over-drawn bank account.
It was the very next morning after this that all the Boston papers flaunted Cornelia's aristocratic young portrait on their front pages with the striking, large-type announcement that "One of Boston's Fairest Debutantes Makes a Daring Rescue in Florida waters. Hotel Cook Capsized from Row Boat Owes His Life to the Pluck and Endurance—etc., etc."
With a great sob in his throat and every pulse pounding, Stanton lay and read the infinite details of the really splendid story; a group of young girls dallying on the Pier; a shrill cry from the bay; the sudden panic-stricken helplessness of the spectators, and then with equal suddenness the plunge of a single, feminine figure into the water; the long hard swim; the furious struggle; the final victory. Stingingly, as though it had been fairlybranded into his eyes, he saw the vision of Cornelia's heroic young face battling above the horrible, dragging-down depths of the bay. The bravery, the risk, the ghastly chances of a less fortunate ending, sent shiver after shiver through his already tortured senses. All the loving thoughts in his nature fairly leaped to do tribute to Cornelia. "Yes!" he reasoned, "Cornelia was made like that! No matter what the cost to herself—no matter what was the price—Cornelia would never, never fail to do herduty!" When he thought of the weary, lagging, riskful weeks that were still to ensue before he should actually see Cornelia again, he felt as though he should go utterly mad. The letter that he wrote to Cornelia that night was like a letter written in a man's own heart-blood. His hand trembled so that he could scarcely hold the pen.
Cornelia did not like the letter. Shesaid so frankly. The letter did not seem to her quite "nice." "Certainly," she attested, "it was not exactly the sort of letter that one would like to show one's mother." Then, in a palpably conscientious effort to be kind as well as just, she began to prattle inkily again about the pleasant, warm, sunny weather. Her only comment on saving the drowning man was the mere phrase that she was very glad that she had learned to be a good swimmer. Never indeed since her absence had she spoken of missing Stanton. Not even now, after what was inevitably a heart-racking adventure, did she yield her lover one single iota of the information which he had a lover's right to claim. Had she been frightened, for instance—way down in the bottom of that serene heart of hers had she been frightened? In the ensuing desperate struggle for life had she struggled just one little tiny bitharder because Stanton was in that life? Now, in the dreadful, unstrung reaction of the adventure, did her whole nature waken and yearn and cry out for that one heart in all the world that belonged to her? Plainly, by her silence in the matter, she did not intend to share anything as intimate even as her fear of death with the man whom she claimed to love.
It was just this last touch of deliberate, selfish aloofness that startled Stanton's thoughts with the one persistent, brutally nagging question: After all, was a woman's undeniably glorious ability to save a drowning man the supreme, requisite of a happy marriage?
Day by day, night by night, hour by hour, minute by minute, the question began to dig into Stanton's brain, throwing much dust and confusion into brain-corners otherwise perfectly orderly and sweet and clean.
Week by week, grown suddenly and morbidly analytical, he watched for Cornelia's letters with increasingly passionate hopefulness, and met each fresh disappointment with increasingly passionate resentment. Except for the Serial-Letter Co.'s ingeniously varied attentions there was practically nothing to help him make either day or night bearable. More and more Cornelia's infrequent letters suggested exquisitely painted empty dishes offered to a starving person. More and more "Molly's" whimsical messages fed him and nourished him and joyously pleased him like some nonsensically fashioned candy-box that yet proved brimming full of real food for a real man. Fight as he would against it, he began to cherish a sense of furious annoyance that Cornelia's failure to provide for him had so thrust him out, as it were, to feed among strangers. With frowning perplexity and real worry he felt the tingling, vivid consciousness of Molly's personality begin to permeate and impregnate his whole nature. Yet when he tried to acknowledge and thereby cancel his personal sense of obligation to this "Molly" by writing an exceptionally civil note of appreciation to the Serial-Letter Co., the Serial-Letter Co. answered him tersely—
"Pray do not thank us for the jonquils,—blanket-wrapper, etc., etc. Surely they are merely presents from yourself to yourself. It is your money that bought them."
And when he had replied briefly, "Well, thank you for your brains, then!" the "company" had persisted with undue sharpness, "Don't thank us for our brains. Brains are our business."
It was one day just about the end of the fifth week that poor Stanton's long-accumulated, long-suppressed perplexity blew up noisily just like any other kind of steam.
It was the first day, too, throughout all his illness that he had made even the slightest pretext of being up and about. Slippered if not booted, blanket-wrappered if not coated, shaven at least, if not shorn, he had established himself fairly comfortably, late in the afternoon, at his big study-table close to the fire, where, in his low Morris chair, with his books and his papers and his lamp close at hand, he had started out once more to try and solve theabsurd little problem that confronted him. Only an occasional twitch of pain in his shoulder-blade, or an intermittent shudder of nerves along his spine had interrupted in any possible way his almost frenzied absorption in his subject.
Here at the desk very soon after supper-time the Doctor had joined him, and with an unusual expression of leisure and friendliness had settled down lollingly on the other side of the fireplace with his great square-toed shoes nudging the bright, brassy edge of the fender, and his big meerschaum pipe puffing the whole bleak room most deliciously, tantalizingly full of forbidden tobacco smoke. It was a comfortable, warm place to chat. The talk had begun with politics, drifted a little way toward the architecture of several new city buildings, hovered a moment over the marriage of some mutual friend, and then languished utterly.
With a sudden narrowing-eyed shrewdness the Doctor turned and watched an unwonted flicker of worry on Stanton's forehead.
"What's bothering you, Stanton?" he asked, quickly. "Surely you're not worrying any more about your rheumatism?"
"No," said Stanton. "It—isn't—rheumatism."
For an instant the two men's eyes held each other, and then Stanton began to laugh a trifle uneasily.
"Doctor," he asked quite abruptly, "Doctor, do you believe that any possible conditions could exist—that would make it justifiable for a man to show a woman's love-letter to another man?"
"Why—y-e-s," said the Doctor cautiously, "I think so. There might be—circumstances—"
Still without any perceptible cause,Stanton laughed again, and reaching out, picked up a folded sheet of paper from the table and handed it to the Doctor.
"Read that, will you?" he asked. "And read it out loud."
With a slight protest of diffidence, the Doctor unfolded the paper, scanned the page for an instant, and began slowly.
"Carl of Mine."There's one thing I forgot to tell you. When you go to buy my engagement ring—I don't want any! No! I'd rather have two wedding-rings instead—two perfectly plain gold wedding-rings. And the ring for my passive left hand I want inscribed, 'To Be a Sweetness More Desired than Spring!' and the ring for my active right hand I want inscribed, 'His Soul to Keep!' Just that."And you needn't bother to write me that you don't understand, because you are not expected to understand. It is not Man's prerogative to understand. But you are perfectly welcome if you want, to call me crazy, because I am—utterly crazy on justone subject, andthat's you. Why, Beloved, if—"
"Carl of Mine.
"There's one thing I forgot to tell you. When you go to buy my engagement ring—I don't want any! No! I'd rather have two wedding-rings instead—two perfectly plain gold wedding-rings. And the ring for my passive left hand I want inscribed, 'To Be a Sweetness More Desired than Spring!' and the ring for my active right hand I want inscribed, 'His Soul to Keep!' Just that.
"And you needn't bother to write me that you don't understand, because you are not expected to understand. It is not Man's prerogative to understand. But you are perfectly welcome if you want, to call me crazy, because I am—utterly crazy on justone subject, andthat's you. Why, Beloved, if—"
"Here!" cried Stanton suddenly reaching out and grabbing the letter. "Here! You needn't read any more!" His cheeks were crimson.
The Doctor's eyes focused sharply on his face. "That girl loves you," said the Doctor tersely. For a moment then the Doctor's lips puffed silently at his pipe, until at last with an almost bashful gesture, he cried out abruptly: "Stanton, somehow I feel as though I owed you an apology, or rather, owed your fiancée one. Somehow when you told me that day that your young lady had gone gadding off to Florida and—left you alone with your sickness, why I thought—well, most evidently I have misjudged her."
Stanton's throat gave a little gasp, then silenced again. He bit his lips furiously as though to hold back an exclamation.Then suddenly the whole perplexing truth burst forth from him.
"That isn't from my fiancée!" he cried out. "That's just a professional love-letter. I buy them by the dozen,—so much a week." Reaching back under his pillow he extricated another letter. "Thisis from my fiancée," he said. "Read it. Yes, do."
"Aloud?" gasped the Doctor.
Stanton nodded. His forehead was wet with sweat.
"Dear Carl,"The weather is still very warm. I am riding horseback almost every morning, however, and playing tennis almost every afternoon. There seem to be an exceptionally large number of interesting people here this winter. In regard to the list of names you sent me for the wedding, really, Carl, I do not see how I can possibly accommodate so many of your friends without seriously curtailing my own list. After all you must remember that it is the bride'sday, not the groom's. And in regard to your question as to whether we expect to be home for Christmas and could I possibly arrange to spend Christmas Day with you—why, Carl, you are perfectly preposterous! Of course it is very kind of you to invite me and all that, but how could mother and I possibly come to your rooms when our engagement is not even announced? And besides there is going to be a very smart dance here Christmas Eve that I particularly wish to attend. And there are plenty of Christmases coming for you and me."Cordially yours,"Cornelia."P. S. Mother and I hope that your rheumatism is much better."
"Dear Carl,
"The weather is still very warm. I am riding horseback almost every morning, however, and playing tennis almost every afternoon. There seem to be an exceptionally large number of interesting people here this winter. In regard to the list of names you sent me for the wedding, really, Carl, I do not see how I can possibly accommodate so many of your friends without seriously curtailing my own list. After all you must remember that it is the bride'sday, not the groom's. And in regard to your question as to whether we expect to be home for Christmas and could I possibly arrange to spend Christmas Day with you—why, Carl, you are perfectly preposterous! Of course it is very kind of you to invite me and all that, but how could mother and I possibly come to your rooms when our engagement is not even announced? And besides there is going to be a very smart dance here Christmas Eve that I particularly wish to attend. And there are plenty of Christmases coming for you and me.
"Cordially yours,
"Cornelia.
"P. S. Mother and I hope that your rheumatism is much better."
"That's the girl who loves me," said Stanton not unhumorously. Then suddenly all the muscles around his mouth tightened like the facial muscles of a man who is hammering something. "I mean it!" he insisted. "I mean it—absolutely. That's the—girl—who—loves—me!"
Silently the two men looked at eachother for a second. Then they both burst out laughing.
"Oh, yes," said Stanton at last, "I know it's funny. That's just the trouble with it. It's altogether too funny."
Out of a book on the table beside him he drew the thin gray and crimson circular of The Serial-Letter Co. and handed it to the Doctor. Then after a moment's rummaging around on the floor beside him, he produced with some difficulty a long, pasteboard box fairly bulging with papers and things.
"These are the—communications from my make-believe girl," he confessed grinningly. "Oh, of course they're not all letters," he hurried to explain. "Here's a book on South America.—I'm a rubber broker, you know, and of course I've always been keen enough about the New England end of my job, but I've never thought anything so very special about theSouth American end of it. But that girl—that make-believe girl, I mean—insists that I ought to know all about South America, so she sent me this book; and it's corking reading, too—all about funny things like eating monkeys and parrots and toasted guinea-pigs—and sleeping outdoors in black jungle-nights under mosquito netting, mind you, as a protection against prowling panthers.—And here's a queer little newspaper cutting that she sent me one blizzardy Sunday telling all about some big violin maker who always went out into the forests himself and chose his violin woods from thenorthside of the trees. Casual little item. You don't think anything about it at the moment. It probably isn't true. And to save your soul you couldn't tell what kind of trees violins are made out of, anyway. But I'll wager that never again will you wake in the night to listen to thewind without thinking of the great storm-tossed, moaning, groaning, slow-toughening forest trees—learning to be violins!... And here's a funny little old silver porringer that she gave me, she says, to make my 'old gray gruel taste shinier.' And down at the bottom of the bowl—the ruthless little pirate—she's taken a knife or a pin or something and scratched the words, 'Excellent Child!'—But you know I never noticed that part of it at all till last week. You see I've only been eating down to the bottom of the bowl just about a week.—And here's a catalogue of a boy's school, four or five catalogues in fact that she sent me one evening and asked me if I please wouldn't look them over right away and help her decide where to send her little brother. Why, man, it took me almost all night! If you get the athletics you want in one school, then likelier than not you slip upon the manual training, and if they're going to schedule eight hours a week for Latin, why where in Creation—?"
Shrugging his shoulders as though to shrug aside absolutely any possible further responsibility concerning, "little brother," Stanton began to dig down deeper into the box. Then suddenly all the grin came back to his face.
"And here are some sample wall papers that she sent me for 'our house'," he confided, flushing. "What do you think of that bronze one there with the peacock feathers?—say, old man, think of a library—and a cannel coal fire—and a big mahogany desk—and a red-haired girl sitting against that paper! And this sun-shiny tint for a breakfast-room isn't half bad, is it?—Oh yes, and here are the time-tables, and all the pink and blue maps about Colorado and Arizona and the 'Painted Desert'. If we can 'afford it,'she writes, she 'wishes we could go to the Painted Desert on our wedding trip.'—But really, old man, you know it isn't such a frightfully expensive journey. Why if you leave New York on Wednesday—Oh, hang it all! What's the use of showing you any more of this nonsense?" he finished abruptly.
With brutal haste he started cramming everything back into place. "It is nothing but nonsense!" he acknowledged conscientiously; "nothing in the world except a boxful of make-believe thoughts from a make-believe girl. And here," he finished resolutely, "are my own fiancée's thoughts—concerning me."
Out of his blanket-wrapper pocket he produced and spread out before the Doctor's eyes five thin letters and a postal-card.
"Not exactly thoughts concerningyou, even so, are they?" quizzed the Doctor.
Stanton began to grin again. "Well, thoughts concerning the weather, then—if that suits you any better."
Twice the Doctor swallowed audibly. Then, "But it's hardly fair—is it—to weigh a boxful of even the prettiest lies against five of even the slimmest real, true letters?" he asked drily.
"But they're not lies!" snapped Stanton. "Surely you don't call anything a lie unless not only the fact is false, but the fancy, also, is maliciously distorted! Now take this case right before us. Suppose there isn't any 'little brother' at all; suppose there isn't any 'Painted Desert', suppose there isn't any 'black sheep up on a grandfather's farm', suppose there isn'tanything; suppose, I say, that every single, individual fact stated isfalse—what earthly difference does it make so long as thefancystill remains the truest, realest,dearest, funniest thing that ever happened to a fellow in his life?"
"Oh, ho!" said the Doctor. "So that's the trouble is it! It isn't just rheumatism that's keeping you thin and worried looking, eh? It's only that you find yourself suddenly in the embarrassing predicament of being engaged to one girl and—in love with another?"