“When the time came for me to get off and take the train back, Frankie implored me togo on with her, urging how strange it would look to people, who all thought we were married, to see me disappear and have her go on alone. I railed at the idea, but she was in earnest, and when I told her positively that I couldn’t—thinking more, I must admit, of the state of my affairs than of hers—she began to cry under her veil. That settled it. Of course I couldn’t stand it to see the girl I loved cry, so I went home with her, fell deeper in love every minute I was there, and came away feeling like a cur because I had not spoken to her father. Her people met me in the cordial, honest manner of those who have faith in mankind, but I couldn’t look them in the face without flinching.
“Since I came back, of course, I’ve been visiting Louise as usual. I told her all about the rice and flowers, thinking that if she quarrelled with me about the affair she would break off the engagement. But she only laughed and said it served me right for flirting with every girl that came along, and didn’t even reproach me. She has absolute faith in me. She doesn’t believe I could sink so low as I have, anymore than she could. She has idealized me until I don’t dare to breathe for fear of destroying the illusion. She thinks that I love her in the way she loves me, but I couldn’t. It isn’t in me, Ruth. I don’t even love Frankie that way. To tell the truth, Louise is too good for me. She is magnificent, but I am rather afraid of her. She has so many ideals and is so intense. Her faith in me makes me shiver. I am not a bit comfortable with her. I do not even understand how she can love me so much. I am nothing extraordinary, but if you knew the way she treats me, you would think I was Achilles or some of those Greek fellows. She has refused better and richer men than I. Norris Whitehouse has loved her all her life, and you know what a splendid man he is, but Louise ridicules the idea of ever caring for anybody but me. She is so perfect that there is absolutely no flaw in her for me to recognize and feel friendly with. She reads me like a book, but I am less acquainted with her than I was before we were engaged. She says such beautiful things to me sometimes, things that arefar beyond my comprehension, and she can get so uplifted that I feel as if I never had met her. There’s no use in talking; after a girl falls in love with a man she often ceases to be the girl he courted.”
I recalled what I had said to Percival—“Often a woman denies herself the expression of the best part of her love, for fear that it will be either a puzzle or a terror to her lover.” Such a saying belonged to Percival. I shouldn’t think of repeating it to Charlie, for he could not comprehend it. I should puzzle him as much as Louise did. It made me heartsick. How could even Charlie Hardy so persistently misunderstand the grandeur of Louise King? Yet how could such a glorious girl imagine herself in love with nice, weak, agreeable Charlie Hardy?
Louise is a younger, handsomer, more impetuous, less clever edition of Rachel Percival; but she is of that order. She is less concentrated and more emotional than Rachel. I did not quite know how a great sorrow would affect Louise. Rachel would use it as a stepping-stone towards heaven.
I have seen a young, untried race-horsewith small, pointed, restless ears; with delicate nostrils where the red blood showed; with full, soft eyes where fire flashed; with a satin skin so thin and glossy that even the lightest hand would cause it to quiver to the touch; where pride and fire and royal blood seemed to urge a trial of their powers; and I have thought: “You are capable of passing anything on the track and coming under the wire triumphant and victorious; or you might fulfil your prophecy equally well by falling dead in your first heat, with the red blood gushing from those thin nostrils. We can be sure of nothing until you are tried, but it is a quivering delight to look at you and to share your impatience and to wonder what you will do.”
Occasionally I see women who affect me in the same way—idealists, capable of being wounded through their sensitiveness by things which we ordinary mortals accept philosophically; capable also of greater heights of happiness and lower depths of misery, but of suffering most through being misunderstood. To this class Rachel and Louise belong. Rachel, in Percival, hasreached a haven where she rides at anchor, sheltered from such storms as had hitherto almost engulfed her, and growing more heroically beautiful in character day by day. Poor Louise is still at sea, with a great storm brewing. How hard, how terribly hard, to talk to Charlie Hardy about her, when, after the solemnity of an engagement tie between them, he was capable of misunderstanding, not only her, but the whole situation so blindly! But what a calamity it would be if Louise should marry him!
“Go on, Ruth. Say something, do. I imagine all sorts of things while you just sit there looking at me so solemnly. I realize that I am in a tight place. I did hope that you could see some way out of it for me; but I know, by the way you act, that you think I ought to give up Frankie—dear little girl!—and marry Louise, and by Jove! if you say it’s the handsome thing to do, I’ll do it.”
This still more effectually closed my lips. He so evidently thought that he was being heroic. He added rather reluctantly, “I must say that I suppose Frankie Taliaferrowould get over it much more easily than Louise could.”
“Charlie,” I said slowly, “you don’t mean to be, but you are too conceited to live. I wonder that you haven’t died of conceit before this.”
Charlie’s blond face flushed and he looked deeply offended.
“Conceited!” he burst out. “Why, Ruth, there isn’t a fellow going who has a worse opinion of himself than I have. I don’t see what either of those girls sees in me to love, I tell you. I am not proud of it. I wish to Heaven they didn’t love me.Ihaven’t made them.”
“‘Haven’t made them’! Yes, you have. You are just the kind of man who does. You say pretty things even to old women, and bring them shawls and put footstools under their feet with the air of a lover. And if you only hand a woman an ice you look unutterable things. You have a dozen girls at a time in that indefinite state when three words to any one of them would engage you to her, and she would think you had deliberately led up to it; whereas all thepast had been idle admiration on your part, and it was a rose in her hair or a moment in the conservatory that upset you, and there you are. Oh, these girls, these girls, who believe every time a man at a ball says he loves them that he means it! Why can’t you be satisfied to have some of them friends, and not all sweethearts?”
“It can’t be done. I’ve tried and I know. Sallie tried it and it married her off—a thing not one of her flirtations could have accomplished. This is the way it goes. You arrange with a girl not to have any nonsense, but just to be good friends. You take her to the theatre, drive with her, dance with her. Soon her chaperon begins to eye you over. Fellows at the club drop a remark now and then. You explain that you are only friends, and they wink at you and you feel foolish. Next time they see you with her, they look knowing, and you see, to your horror, that the girl is blushing. Evidently she is under fire too. Still, you keep it up. She makes a better comrade than any of the men. You feel that you are out of mischief when you are with her. She keeps you alert.You never are bored, but really you are not as fond of her as you were of your college chum even. She treats you a trifle, just a trifle, differently from all the other men. This goes to your head. You begin to make a little difference yourself. You take her hand when you say good-night, just as you would one of the men. But it is not the same. The girl has needles or electricity in her hand. You can’t let go. You begin to feel that friendship, too, can be dangerous. Next day you send her flowers, with some lines about the delights of friendship. She accepts both beautifully, but you have a guilty feeling that you did it to remind her. She does not seem to understand that there had been any necessity. Still, you feel rather mean, and to make up for it you try to atone by your manner. She is looking perfectly lovely. She wears white. You particularly like white. She knows it. You think perhaps she wore it to please you.Howpretty she is! You lose your head a little and say something. She looks innocent and surprised. She ‘thought we were just friends. Surely,’ she says, ‘you havesaid so often enough. Why change? Friends are so much more comfortable.’ She wants to ‘stay a friend.’ You are miserable at the idea, although that morning it was just what you wanted. You were even afraid she would think differently. What an ass a man can be! You fling discretion to the winds and tell her—you tell her—well, you go home engaged to her. That’s how a friendship ends. Bah!”
“A realistic recital. From hearsay, of course! The next day the man wishes he were well out of it, I suppose?”
“Not quite so soon as that, but soon enough.”
“Ah, I wish you knew, Charlie Hardy, how all this sounds even to such a good friend of yours as I am. It is such men as you who lower the standard of love and of men in general. Do you suppose a girl who has had an encounter with you, and seen how trifling you are, can have her first beautiful faith to give to the truly grand hero when he comes? No; it has been bruised and beaten down by what you call ‘a little flirtation,’ and possibly her unwillingnessto trust a second time may force her true lover into withdrawing his suit. How dare men and women trifle with the Shekinah of their lives? And when it has been dulled by abuse, what a pitiful Shekinah it appears to the one who approaches it reverently, confidently expecting it to be the uncontaminated holy of holies! It is this sort of thing which makes infidels about love.”
Charlie began to look sulky, feeling, I suppose, that I was piling the sins of the universe on to his already burdened shoulders.
“I dare say you are right, but what am I to do?”
“There is only one thing for you to do, but I know you won’t do it.”
“Yes, I will. Only try me,” he said, brightening up.
“You must go and tell Louise that you are in love with Frankie Taliaferro.”
“Tell Louise? Why, Ruth, it would kill her. You don’t know her. She wouldn’t let me off. You don’t know how a girl in love feels. Ruth, were you ever in love?”
“That is not a pertinent question,” I said.“It comes quite near being the other thing. But let me tell you, Charlie Hardy, I know Louise King, and it won’t kill her. You know ‘men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’ That might be said of women.” (I didn’t know, Tabby, whether it might or might not. I couldn’t afford to let him see my doubts, if I had any.) “We don’t die as easily as you men seem to think.”
“But is this your view of what is right?” he asked. “I was sure you would counsel the other. I’ve been fortifying myself to give Frankie up and marry Louise, and, with all due respect to you, I must say that I think you are wrong here. You must remember that my honor is involved.”
“Bother your honor!” I cried explosively. Charlie seemed rather pleased than otherwise at my inelegance. “I am tired to death of hearing men fall back on nonsense about their honor. I notice they seldom feel called upon to refer to it unless they are involved in something disreputable.”
Charlie straightened up at this and settled his coat with an indignant jerk.
“I hardly think,” he began stiffly, “that I am involved in anything disreputable in being engaged to Miss King.”
“What are a man’s debts of honor?” I went on with growing excitement. “Gaming debts and things he would scarcely care to explain to the public at large. Your honor is involved in this, is it? And you must save your honor at all hazards, no matter who goes to the wall in the process! I suppose if you made the rash vow that, if your horse won the race, you would cut your mother’s head off, while you were still in the flush of victory, you would seize your bowie-knife and go to work! No? Oh, yes, Charlie. Your honor, as you call it, is involved. I insist upon it. You must do it. Oh, I am going too far, am I? Not one step further than men go in the mire whither their honor leads them. Debts of honor, indeed! Debts of dishonor I call them. So do most women.”
“Yes, but, Ruth,” interrupted Charlie uneasily, “an engagement is different. I don’t dispute what you say in regard to gambling debts—”
“You can’t,” I murmured rebelliously.
“—but a man can’t, with any decency, ask a girl to release him when he has sought her out and asked her to marry him.”
“Perhaps not with decency. But it is a place where this precious honor of yours might come into play. It would at least be honorable.”
“There isn’t a man who would agree with you,” he cried.
“Nor is there a woman who would agree with you,” I retorted. But both of us stretched things a little at this point.
He thought over the situation for a few minutes, then said,
“You understand that, in my opinion, Louise loves me the best.”
“The best—yes. For that very reason you must not marry her. O Charlie! try to understand,” I pleaded. “She must love the best when she loves at all. She has loved the best in you, until she has put it out of your reach ever to attain to it. It would not be fair to the girl, it would be robbing her, to accept all this beautiful love for you, and give her in return—your lovefor another girl. Do you suppose for an instant that you could continue to deceive her after you were married? Supposing she found out afterwards, then what? She might die of that. I cannot say. It would be enough to kill her. But not if you are honest and manly enough to tell her in time to save her self-respect. You are powerless to touch it now. You could kill it if you were married.”
“Honest and manly enough to confess myself a rascal? I don’t see where it would come in,” he replied gloomily.
“It is the nearest approach to it which lies in your power.”
“If the girls’ places were only reversed now! I could tell Frankie that I had been false to our engagement and had fallen in love with Louise. She would know how it was herself. But Louise couldn’t comprehend such things. I believe she has been as true to me, even in thought, as if she had been my wife. How can I tell her?”
“The more you say, the plainer you make it your duty. I say, how can you not tell her?”
“I might go away for a year and not lether know and not write to her. Then she would know without my having to tell her.”
“You wouldn’t stand it if a man called you a coward. Don’t try my woman’s friendship for you too far. You insult me by offering such a suggestion.”
“Gently, gently, Ruth. I beg your pardon.” (Rachel was right in saying he would not quarrel. I wished he would. I never wanted to quarrel so much in my life.)
“I am a coward,” he broke down at last. “I’ll spare you the trouble of saying so. But oh, Ruth, you don’t know how I dread a scene! You go and tell her. I can’t. I couldn’t even write it.”
“How unselfish you are! Spare yourself at all hazards, Charlie, for of course it was not your fault that things got into such a state.”
“Oh, Ruth, don’t!”
“Well, I won’t. But do you realize how I should insult her if I went to her? It’s bad enough for you, the man she loves, to tell her. From any one else it would be unforgivable. Do as you like. You promised to follow my advice. Take it and doas you will with it. But I will guarantee the result if you will do as I say. Come, Charlie. One hour, and it will all be over, and you can marry Frankie.”
It was like getting him into a dentist’s chair. I felt a wholesome self-contempt as I thus sugar-coated his pill, but he was so abject in his misery.
Charlie brightened up perceptibly at the alluring prospect. He shut his eyes to the dark path which led to happiness, and was revelling in its glory.
“Ruth, you dear thing! I don’t see how I ever can thank you enough,” he said, taking both my hands in his. “I ought to have stuck to you, that’s what I ought to have done. You would have kept me straight. Do you know, I used to be awfully in love with you. You really were my first love. I was about eighteen then. You don’t look a day older, and you are just as sweet as ever.”
I laughed outright.
“What did I tell you?” I cried. “You can’t help making love to save your life. Your gratitude is getting you into deeper water every minute. Go home, do. Runfor your life, or you’ll be engaged to me too.Thenwho’ll help you out?”
He acted upon my suggestion and went hastily.
Tabby, did you ever? He never was in love with me, never on this earth. Whatever possessed him to say such a thing? He loses his head, that’s what he does. I hope he won’t meet any woman younger than his grandmother before he gets home, or he might propose to her.
My heart stands still when I think of Louise King.
THE MADONNA OF THE QUIET MIND
“It is not true that love makes all things easy, but it makes us choose what is difficult.”
Across the street, in plain view from my window, has come to dwell a little brown wren of a woman with her five babies. The house, hitherto inconspicuous among its finer neighbors, at the advent of the Mayo family suddenly bloomed into a home. The lawn blossomed with living flowers and the windows framed faces which shamed, in their dimpling loveliness, the painted cherubs on the wall.
It was a delight to see Nellie Mayo in the midst of her children. Hers were all babies, such dear, amiable, kissable babies, each of whom seemed personally anxious to prove to every one how much sweetness one small morsel of humanity could hold. But withfive of them, bless me! the house was one glowing radiance of sunshine, in which the little mother lived and loved, until they absorbed each other’s personality, and it was difficult to think of one without the others.
Sometimes in a street-car or on the elevated train I have seen women who I felt convinced had little babies at home. It is because of the peculiar look they wear, the rapturous mother-look, which has its home in the eyes during the most helpless period of babyhood—an indescribable look, in which dreams and prophecy and heaven are mingled. It is the sweetest look which can come to a woman’s face, saying plainly, “Oh, I have such a secret in my heart! Would that every one knew its rapture with me!” It wears off sooner or later, but with Nellie Mayo, whether because there always was a baby, or because each was welcomed with such a world of love, the look remained until it seemed a part of her face.
Long ago we knew her as an unworldly girl, whose peachblow coloring gave to her face its chief beauty, although her plaintive blue eyes and smooth brown hair called fortha certain protective faith in her simplicity and goodness. Sometimes girlhood is a mysterious chaos of traits, out of which no one can foretell what sort of cosmos will follow, or whether there will be a cosmos at all or only intelligent chaos to the end. But this girl seemed to carry her future in her face. She was a little mother to us all. It was a tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her unostentatious help. She was everybody’s understudy. Flossy Carleton, as she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie’s capacity for aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie’s swifter brain and willing feet; for to see any one’s unspoken need was to her like a thrilling cry for help, and was the only thing which could completely draw her from her shy reserve. The chief reason she was popular was that she had a faculty of keeping herself in the shadow. You never knew where she was until you wanted her, when shewould seem to rise out of the earth to your side. But, in spite of your intense gratitude at the moment, you really found yourself taking her as a matter of course. She was one of those who are fully appreciated only when they are dead, and who then call forth the bitterest remorse that we have not made them know in life how dear they were and how painfully necessary to our happiness.
It is rather a sad commentary upon those same girls, who accepted Nellie’s assistance most readily, to record that, when they were launched into society and were deep in the mysteries of full-fledged young-ladyhood, little Nellie Maddox was seldom invited to their most fashionable gatherings, but came in, at first, before their memory grew too rusty, for the simpler luncheons and teas.
This is not a history of intentional or systematic neglect, but a mere statement of the way things drifted along. Not one of the girls would wilfully have omitted her, if she had been in the habit of being asked; but it was easy to let her name slip when all the rest did it, and so gradually it came to pass that we seldom saw her. Then shemarried Frank Mayo, who would not be offended if he heard a newsboy refer to him as “a gent,” or a maid-servant describe him as “a pretty man.” Of such a one it is scarcely necessary to add that he was selfish, inordinately conceited, and, to complete the description, a trifle vulgar. He never suspected his wife’s cleverness nor appreciated her worship. It almost made me doubt her cleverness to see how she idolized him, but this instance went far towards proving that love, with some women, is entirely an affair of the heart. It irritates Rachel to hear any one say so. She says it argues ignorance of a nice distinction in terms, and that when the brain is not concerned it should be called by a baser name.
I doubt if she could have brought herself to say so if she had been looking into Nellie Mayo’s blue eyes, which looked tired and a little less blue than as I remembered them. They had pathetic purple shadows under them, which told of sleepless nights with the babies, and there were fine lines around her mouth; but her light-brown hairwas as smooth and her dress as plain and neat as ever.
It was like watching a nest of birds. I felt my own love expand to see the wealth of affection Nellie had for her precious family. Her unselfish zeal never flagged. She flitted from one want to another as naturally as she breathed and with as little consciousness of the process. Her household machinery ran no more smoothly than many another’s, but Nellie met and surmounted all obstacles with an unruffled brow. Her outward calm was the result of some great inward peace. She simply had developed naturally from the girl we had known before we grew up and went away to be “finished by travel.”
Nothing could go so wrongly, no nerves throb so pitilessly, that they prevented her meeting her husband with the smile reserved for him alone. None of the babies could call it forth. When he came home tired, Nellie fluttered around him making him comfortable, as if life held for her no sweeter task.
Being a woman myself, and having nohusband to wait upon until it became natural, I used to feel somewhat vexed that he never served her, instead of receiving the best of everything so complacently. He never seemed to realize that she might be tired or needed a change of routine. That household revolved around him. Of course it was partly Nellie’s fault that he had fallen into the habit of receiving everything and making no return. Fallen into it? No. With that kind of a man, an only son, and considered by the undiscriminating to be good-looking, his wife had only to take up his mother’s unfinished work of spoiling him. It is true that these unselfish women inculcate a system of selfishness in their families which often works their ruin. They rob the children of their rightful virtue of self-sacrifice.
So Nellie idolized her husband. He was her king, and the king could do no wrong. She taught the babies a sweet system of idolatry, which so far had been harmless. He cared very little for children; so, when yearning to express their love for the hero of all their mother’s stories, with their littlehearts almost bursting with affection, their love was most frequently tested by being obliged to keep away from their idol in order “not to bother him” with their kisses. Fortunately these same withheld kisses were dear to Nellie, and she never was too busy to accept and return them. Thus they never knew how busy she was. She was sure to be about some sweet task for others. If she ever rested, it was with the cosiest corner occupied by somebody else.
I wonder what will happen when, in heaven, one of these selfless mothers is led in triumph to a solid gold throne, all lined with eider-down cushions, where she can take the rest she never had on earth. Won’t she stagger back against the glittering walls of the New Jerusalem and say, “Not for me. Not for me. Surely it must be for my husband?” But there, where places are appointed, she will not be allowed to give it up—which may make her miserable even in heaven. Ah me, these mothers! It brings tears to my eyes to think of their unending love, which wraps around and shelters and broods over every one, whose helplessnessclings to their help, whose need depends upon their exhaustless supply. Theirs it is to bear the invisible but princely crest, “Ich dien.”
Nellie had no time for literary classes. Her music, of which we used to predict great things, had resolved itself into lullabies and kindergarten ditties for the children. She seldom found an opportunity to visit even me. So it was I who went there and saw how her life was literally bound by the four walls of that little brown house; yet I never felt any inclination to pity her, because she was so contented. I knew of others who seemed happier—that is, the word seemed to describe them better—but none of them possessed Nellie Mayo’s placid content.
Still, I did not like her husband. He was not of Nellie’s fine fibre. He was dull, while she was delightfully clever. His eyes were rather good, but he had a way of throwing expressive glances at me, as he talked upon trifling subjects, which disgusted me. I reluctantly made up my mind that he considered himself a “lady-killer,” but I feltoutraged that he should waste his ammunition upon me. I tried to be amused by it, when I found indignation was useless with him. I used to call him “Simon Tappertit” to myself, until I once forgot and referred to him as “Simon” before Nellie, when I gave up being amused and let it bore me naturally. I always had treated him with unusual consideration for Nellie’s sake, and even had tried genuinely to admire him because it gave her such pleasure; but when I discovered that the jackanapes took it as an evidence that he was progressing in my esteem, I did not know whether to laugh or cry with vexation.
All at once, without any explanation or preface, Sallie began calling upon Mrs. Mayo and sending her flowers from her conservatories. Often when Sallie came to see me her coachman had orders to be at Mrs. Mayo’s disposal, to take the children for a drive, while Sallie and I sat and talked about everything except why she had embarked upon this venture. I was sure there was something in it which must be kept out of sight, because Sallie never would talk about them.
I noticed that whenever Frank was away from home—which grew more and more frequent—an invitation was sure to come for the Mayos from Sallie. But Nellie never accepted without him, whether from pride or timidity I could not then determine, and all Sallie’s efforts to persuade her were unavailing.
It was such an unusual proceeding in Mrs. Payson Osborne to seek out any one that it excited my wonder. But she was not to be balked by anything; moreover, I had great faith in her motives, which were sound and good, even if her plans of carrying them out inclined to the frivolous.
But all at once her frivolity seemed to reach a climax. She issued invitations for a lawn fête, to be followed by a very private, very select dinner, after which came the cotillon. She had decorators from New York, and otherwise ordered the most extravagant setting for her entertainment. This might not seem unusual to every one, but with us, who are accustomed to extracting our enjoyment from one party at a time, this seemed rather a superb affair. Pet Winterbotham was almost wild with delight.
“Only think,” she cried, “she has asked Jack and me to lead the cotillon! Isn’t that sweet of her? Oh, I do think she is the dearest thing! Though I must say I’d rather have been asked to the dinner. That’s going to be perfectly elegant. I heard it was to be given for somebody, but I don’t know who it could be. It might be for Frankie Taliaferro. Mrs. Osborne has asked her to come up for it.”
Pet’s remarks rushed on until I soon found myself carried along the tide of her enthusiasm, which she assured me was shared by every girl in town.
I shall not attempt to describe Sallie’s success. The weather, the people, fortune itself, was in her favor, and the whole afternoon was admirable. I confess, however, that it was with some slight curiosity that I awaited the dinner.
Sallie’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone with an unusual brilliancy as she greeted us, but the proverbial feather would have felled any one of her guests when Payson offered his arm to Mrs. Frank Mayo, who rose out of a shadowy corner in ahigh-throated gown and led us to the dining-room. I caught Sallie’s eye as she laid her hand on Frank Mayo’s arm, and she gave me a comical look, half imploring, half defiant.
I was guilty of wondering if Sallie had been demented when she planned that dinner-table, for this is the way we found ourselves:
Next to Frank Mayo came Alice Asbury, encased in freezing dignity. Brian Beck, at his worst, supported her on the other hand. After Brian were Louise King and Charlie Hardy, both looking to my practised eyes exceedingly stiff and uncomfortable. I had no time to wonder if the blow had fallen, in casting a glance at the other guests. Nellie Mayo was admirably situated between Charlie Hardy and Payson Osborne, both of whom were deference itself to her. The difference in her simple attire from the full dress all around her in no wise disturbed her unworldly spirit. She looked with quiet admiration at the handsome shoulders of Louise and Rachel, evidently never dreaming that the babies’mother might be expected to follow their example in dress.
Seating plan.
Grace Beck, sitting by Norris Whitehouse, would have an excellent opportunity of cementing or breaking off the prospective match, which as yet was unannounced, between her sister and his nephew. Rachel would be polite, but not wildly entertaining, to Asbury; but he could count on me to bedecent to him, while I snatched crumbs of intellectual comfort from Percival on my other hand. But Sallie had placed the funereal Clinton Frost between that rattle-pated Frankie Taliaferro and her lively self, probably with the laudable intention of seeing whether his face would be permanently disfigured by a smile. Nor was the poor wretch out of Brian Beck’s reach, but was made the objective point of Brian’s liveliest sallies, the hero of his most piquant and impossible stories, which convulsed us until I felt sure that the irritated Mr. Frost must cherish a secret but lively desire to punch his head. Possibly Brian was the only one who thoroughly enjoyed himself at that ill-starred dinner, for he is keen on the scent of a precarious situation which is liable to involve everybody in total collapse. In this instance he seemed to snuff the battle from afar and stirred up all the slumbering elements of discord with unctuous satisfaction; and if it had not been for the wicked twinkle in his Irish blue eyes, which none of his victims could withstand, it might have resulted seriously. He gayly rallied CharlieHardy on his flirtations; predicted seeing him yet brought up with a round turn in a breach-of-promise case; seemed highly edified by Frankie Taliaferro’s efforts to appear unconcerned at these pleasantries; railed openly at Clinton Frost’s being so unresponsive to the general mirth around him; shivered visibly at that gentleman’s icy retorts; playfully called attention to his wife’s endeavors to frown him into silence; and, in spite of Sallie’s angry glances, really saved her dinner from proving a dismal failure. Indeed, the cases were too real, and too much genuine misery was concealed behind impassive faces, not to prove a dangerous situation, the tension of which was relieved by Brian’s extravagant nonsense. Percival and Norris Whitehouse were sincerely amused by the wit in which Brian clothed his droll remarks. But the greatest misfortune of the dinner-giver was realized in Frank Mayo, the man who thinks he can tell a good story. The Mayos were so new to all of us that this peculiarity was not suspected until Brian discovered it and dragged it forth. He persuaded Frank to talk,listened with absorbing interest to the flattest tales, encouraged him if he flagged, and laughed until the tears came if he by chance forgot or slurred a point.
However, no one seemed to think that there was anything seriously amiss except Sallie, who is a human barometer when she has guests. She knows by instinct when they are or are not being entertained. Nor was her tact at fault in seating the people, for I was the only one laden with almost unbearable knowledge, and I fell asleep that night thinking that possibly the situation was not so unusual as it appeared to me. I dare say plenty of dinners are given with just as many unsuspected trap-doors to sensationalism.
THE PATHOS OF FAITH
“To him who is shod the whole world is covered with leather.”
The next afternoon I was resting and thinking over the brilliancy of the Payson Osborne entertainment, when Sallie came in, dressed from head to foot in black. There was not a suspicion of white at wrist or throat. I was too startled to ask a question until her burst of laughter relieved me.
“You poor thing!” she cried, “did I frighten you? But Iamin mourning; yes, truly, for my dinner-party. Ruth, Ruth, what was the matter with it?”
“Why, nothing. It was exquisitely served, and oh, Sallie, your lawn fête and the cotillon were beautiful. They were perfect. Truly, you do give the most successful entertainments in town.”
“Certainly—why shouldn’t I,” said Sallie sharply, “when I have never done anything,anythingall my life but go to parties and study how to give them? Oh, Ruth, dear, I do get so tired of it all. But,” taking on a brisker tone, “all the more reason why I should never give such a sad affair as that dinner. That dinner, Ruth, was what Brian Beck calls a howling failure. Payson never criticises anything that I do, but even he came to me quite gingerly this morning, after I had read what the papers had to say about it, and said, ‘My dear child, what was the matter with your tea-party?’ Now, let us admit the success of the other two, and weep a little in a friendly way over the ‘tea-party.’”
“I had a lovely time—” I began, but Sallie interrupted me.
“Hypocrite!” she cried vehemently. “You know you didn’t. Your eyes were as big as turkey platters with apprehension.”
“My dear Sallie,” I expostulated.
“Don’t you dare put on airs with me, then,” she said mutinously. “Now, what ailed them all? It couldn’t have been theadvent of the Mayos. I’ve launched more ticklish craft than they. Nor could it have been that abominable Brian Beck, who would spoil Paradise and be the utter ruin of a respectable funeral. Every one seemed to conspire to make my dinner a failure.”
“Oh, Sallie, I think Percival especially exerted himself. He was in his most exquisite mood.”
“Oh, Percival, of course. He must have suspected that something was going wrong. Did you ever notice, when he talks, how Rachel turns her head away? But you can see the color creep up into her face. She is too proud and shy to let people see how much she cares for him. But whenshespeaks Percival looks at her with all his eyes, and positively leans forward so that he shall not miss a word. I love to watch those two. Sometimes when I have been with them I feel as if I had been to church.”
“Then, too, Payson’s manner to Nellie Mayo was the most chivalric thing I ever saw. He treated her as if the best in the land were not too good for her.”
“Nor is it,” said Sallie warmly.
“I’m glad you think so. What a sweet, unworldly spirit she has! Almost any woman would have been distressed because of her gown; but she was so superior to her dress, with that uplifted face of hers, that I felt ashamed to think of it myself. You gave her a rare pleasure last night, for she never meets clever men and women. The Percivals and Mr. Whitehouse delighted her, and you saw how well she sustained her part of the conversation. You see she thinks, if she doesn’t have time to study. She was particularly fortunate in having Payson to take her out, for he has a faculty of putting people at their ease. Do you know, Sallie, Payson Osborne has come out wonderfully since you married him. He is more thoughtful, more considerate, and his manners always have beensogood. I declare, last night I caught him looking at you in a way which made me quite fond of him.”
“I’m fond of him myself,” said Sallie candidly. “He undoubtedly is a dear old thing, and he is tremendously good to me. By the way, did you notice how red FrankieTaliaferro’s eyes were last night? She had the toothache, poor girl. It came on quite suddenly just before dinner, and it alarmed me for fear she couldn’t appear. Just before dinner I was naming over the way the people were to go in, and I said that I had to put engaged people together and separate husbands and wives, after the manner of real life, and Payson asked if I was sure Louise King and Charlie Hardy were engaged, and I said yes, although it never had been announced, and just then Frankie burst into tears. It was a suspicious time for crying, especially as that egregious flirt had paid her a great deal of attention; but Frankie would tellme, I am sure, and then she really had been to the dentist’s that morning. So I gave her something for it which she said cured it. I was so vexed at her for making her eyes red, for her blue dress brought it out. If she had been crying over the other, she might have spared her tears, for I don’t believe Charlie and Louise are engaged. I think they have quarrelled, for when Charlie offered his arm to Louise, she looked up with that wayshe has of throwing her head back, and I declare to you, Ruth, I saw, I positively saw, forked lightnings shoot from her eyes. They blazed so I was afraid they would set his tie on fire. As for Charlie, he turned first green, then magenta, then a rich and lively purple. I give you my word they did not speak to each other during that dinner, nor would Louise stay to the cotillon. Charlie danced it with Frankie. Nice state of affairs, isn’t it?”
I felt myself grow weak. But Sallie proceeded gayly: “Then you know how hard I have tried to propitiate those miserable Asburys. I declare, I think Alice might meet me half way. Perhaps she didn’t like being seated between Frank Mayo and Brian Beck, but both she and that awful Frost man sat as stiff and unsmiling as if they had swallowed curtain-poles by the dozen.” Sallie does not mind an extra word or two to strengthen a simile. I tried to imagine Alice and Mr. Frost gulping down the articles Sallie mentioned, but mine was no match for Sallie’s nimble fancy and I gave it up. “I do hope that PetWinterbotham will not marry that man. I should as soon see her led to the altar by a satin-lined casket. I had to invite him when I found that Frankie could come. Wasn’t Brian Beck dreadful, and didn’t you think you would go to sleep under Frank Mayo’s stories? And didn’t Grace Beck’s airs with Mr. Whitehouse amuse you? Oh, she will hold that head of hers so high if Pet marries Jack. How bored Asbury looked, didn’t he? So selfish of him not to pretend to be pleased. Even Rachel vexed me by not being nicer to Asbury. I declare, Ruth, I was so irritated at the queer way every one acted, I felt as if it would be a relief to make faces at them, instead of beaming on them the hospitable beam of a hostess. I wonder how they would have liked it.”
“They might have considered it rather unconventional perhaps.”
Sallie smiled absent-mindedly, pressed her hand to her flushed cheek, looked over towards the Mayo house, and then, meeting my inquiring glance, dropped her eyes in confusion.
“Well,” I said tentatively.
Sallie leaned back in her chair, put her hands behind her head, and closed her eyes.
“I wonder,” she said dreamily, “why I ever attempt to do things. Why can’t people let me alone, and why don’t I let them alone? Most of all, why do I ever try to keep a secret?”
I knew then that she had been rattling on because her mind was full of something else. I don’t believe she knew half that she had said. Presently to my surprise I saw a tear steal down her cheek.
“O Sallie!” I exclaimed, now really worried, “what is it?”
“I’ll tell you, Ruth, for you are the only one who seems really to know and love that dear little Nellie Mayo and those blessed babies. Ruth, there is a Damocles sword hanging over that nest of birds, and it is liable to fall at any moment. Oh, it has weighed on my heart like lead ever since I discovered the secret. I know you don’t like Frank Mayo, but you will despise him when I tell you the mischief he is up to, and that poor little wife of his trusting him as if he were an archangel. Oh, he iscommon, Ruth, and horrid, and if it is ever found out it will kill Nellie. But he is carrying on dreadfully with a soubrette in New York. He is wasting his money on her—and you know he has none to spare—and seems to be infatuated with her; while she, of course, is only using him to advertise herself. In fact, that is how I found it out. Payson is in a syndicate which is trying to buy one of those up-town theatres in New York and turn it into something else; I forget just what they want to do with it, but any way, he came in contact with the manager of the theatre where this woman was playing. He gave them a dinner and afterwards they occupied his box, and while this woman was on the stage her manager told how some man was causing nightly sensations by the flowers he sent her, and he said that he—her manager—thought he would have it written up for the papers to advertise her before she started out on her tour. He said the man was making a fool of himself, but the actress didn’t care, and when he pointed out the fellow to them, Payson saw to his horror that it was Frank Mayo. He didn’tsay a word before the other gentlemen, but the next day he went to the manager and begged him to advertise the woman in some other way. He told him who Frank was and all about his poor little wife and the children, and the manager, who seems to be a good hearted man, said it was a shame and promised not to allow it. He even went so far as to offer to speak to the actress herself and request her to refuse to be interviewed on the subject. So Payson came home quite relieved. But the next time he saw the manager Payson asked him how things were going, and he said worse than ever as far as Frank himself was concerned, and he added that when he mentioned the subject to the actress she tossed her head and said Mayo must take care of himself.
“Then I thought I would do what I could to introduce him into society here, for you know he is ambitious in that line, and perhaps I might get him away from the creature. So I gave that whole thing yesterday for the Mayo family, with what result you know, except that I haven’t told you that the presumptuous dolt made love mawkishlyto me all the evening. Yes, actually! Did you ever hear of such impertinence? Oh, the man is simply insufferable, Ruth.
“Now, what I am constantly afraid of is that it will get into the papers after all. I read them, I fairly study them, so that it shall not escape me; but, if it does come out, what shall we do for Nellie? It will break her heart.”
I looked at Sallie with gnawing conscience that I had ever called her lawn fête the climax of frivolity. The dear little soul! who would have suspected that she had such a worthy motive for her ball? But, do you know, sometimes in fashionable life we catch a glimpse of the simple-minded, homely kindliness which we are taught to believe exists only among horny-handed farmers, rough miners, and hardy mountaineers.
“Sallie, dear child,” I said, “I beg your pardon for not knowing how noble you are.”
“Noble? I? Sallie Cox? Now, nobody except Payson ever hinted at such a thing, and I hushed him up instantly. No, Ruth, it was nothing. I dare say Rachel or you would have thought of some grand projectwhich would have been effectual, butIcouldn’t think of anything to do but to tickle his vanity by making him the guest of honor at the best affair of the season.”
“Indeed, I think neither Rachel nor I could have thought of anything so sure to captivate a shallow mortal like Frank Mayo.”
“Set a thief to catch a thief,” said Sallie merrily. “I’m shallow myself,Iknew how it would feel to have such a fine thing given for me. My dear, if the ball were only fine enough it would cure a broken heart.”
“Not if the heart were really broken, Sallie.”
“Well, you must admit that it would helpsome,” she said whimsically.
And so she went away and left the burden upon me. Then I, too, fell to devouring the papers, as I knew Sallie was doing with me. I went more than ever to the little brown house which lay in such peril, and I never saw Nellie with a paper in her hand that I did not shudder.
At last the thing we so dreaded came to pass. In the evening paper there was quite a sensational account of it. ThankHeaven, no name was given; but alas, the description of him, of his wife and five little children, was unmistakable. I felt as though I had sat still and watched a cat kill a bird. It was raining, not hard, but drearily, and the dead leaves fluttered against the windows as the chill wind blew them from where they clung. I was lonesome, and the autumn evening intensified my feelings. I glanced over to where a red glow came from Nellie’s windows. I fancied her sitting there with the paper in her hand, as she always did in the one spare moment of her busy day, with her heart crushed by the news. She would be alone, too, for Frank was out of town. Poor child! Poor child! I started up and decided to go and see her. If she didn’t want me I could come back, but what if she did want me and I was not there?
I found her sitting, as I had expected, alone. The paper, with the fatal page uppermost, lay in her lap, as if she had read it and laid it down. There was only the firelight in the room.
“Come in, dear,” she said gladly. “I was just thinking of you and wondering ifsuch weather did not make you blue. Sit down here by the fire. It was sweet of you to come in the rain.”
She searched my distressed face anxiously as she spoke. I made no reply. My heart was too full at being comforted when I had come to comfort. As I sat on a low stool at her side she seemed to divine my mood, for she drew my head against her knee with a mother touch, and threaded my hair with a mother hand, and pressed down my eyelids as I have seen her do when she puts her baby to sleep. And though she must have felt the tears come, she did not appear to know.
“Dear Ruth,” she said, “I have been sitting here thinking about you, and wondering if you were satisfied, such a loving heart as you have, to face the rest of your life without the love you deserve. You won’t be vexed with me for speaking of it to you, for you know I am so old-fashioned that I think love is the only thing in this world worth having. It is all that I live for. Of course my children love me, but, until they grow older, theirs is only aninstinctive love. It isn’t like the love of a husband, which singles you out of all the other countless women in the world to be his and only his forever. There is power enough in that thought to nerve the weakest woman to do a giant’s task. The mere fact that you are all in all, theonlywoman, to the man you so dearly love, the one person who can make his world; when you think that your being away from one meal or out of the house when he comes in will make him miss you till his heart aches—this will keep down a moan of pain when it is almost beyond bearing, for fear it might cause him to suffer with you; it will nerve you to stand up and smile into his eyes when you are ready to drop with exhaustion. Love, such as a husband’s love for his wife, is the most precious, the most supporting thing a woman can have. You never hear me talk much about my husband, but he is all this and more to me. I cannot begin to tell you about it. I read about unhappy marriages—why, I read a dreadful thing to-night in the paper, which set me to thinking how safe and happy I am, and how thankful I oughtto be that I can trust my husband so. It was about a man who was unfaithful to his wife, and they had five children just as we have. I know such things do occur, but how or why is a mystery to me. I hope I am not too hard when I say that in such a case it must be the wife’s fault. Surely if she had been a good wife, an unselfish and loving wife, he could not have been enticed away. Poor thing! I wonder how she felt when she heard it. Probably she wouldn’t believe it. Probably she had too much faith in him. You shake your head. Why, Ruth, you dear thing, you don’t know anything about it. A wifecouldn’tbelieve such a thing. Why, I wouldn’t believe it if told by an angel from heaven. But then my husband is so dear to me. I do sometimes wonder if all women care as much for their husbands as I do for mine. Do you know, dear, I think about you so much. I know that there have been several hearts in which you have reigned, and yet you have not cared. But the true love, the right lover, has not come, or you could not have passed him by. He is waiting for you; somewhere, somehow,he will come to you, I am sure, and you will know then that you have belonged to each other all this time; that this love has been coming down the ages from eternity for just you two. You will not refuse it then. Why, I could never have refused to marry Frank when I found that I was as much to him as he was to me! He is so handsome, so good. I shall never cease to thank God that He made him turn aside into the quiet places to find me. But, in spite of all this, you know I don’t think he is perfect. He doesn’t care for books as much as I wish he did. He has no ear for music, and he cannot tell a story straight to save his life, the dear boy! Love does not blind my eyes, but this is what it does do. It makes me overlook in him what would annoy me in others. When, at that beautiful dinner of Mrs. Osborne’s, Frank told those stories of his that I’ve heard for years, I don’t think any one cared to hear them except Mr. Beck and me. I knew they were not well told, but it was my husband who was telling them, and I could listen to his voice, even if I couldn’t sit next him.
“How the wind blows. Don’t you think it has a lonesome sound to-night? There isn’t a glimmer of light from any of your windows yet, and see what a lovely glow this fire casts all through the room. It makes the cold walls look warm, and if it makes shadows, it chases them away when it blazes its brightest. It is your fault that there is no light in your windows, and your fault that you have closed your heart against love. You could have the glow that lights my house and my heart if you only would. You know, dear, I am not talking to you as a neighbor now or even as a friend, but as a woman talks to a woman out of her inmost heart. It is only because I love you so and because I have seen you with my babies that I know what a home-maker you are. You seem so sad sometimes, and I know your heart is wistful if your eyes are not. How can you have the courage to shut out love? How can you see the happiness of all your friends and not want a share of it yourself? Why do you cry so, my dear? Is there some one you love? Has any trouble come betweenyou? No? No? Well, there, there! It was selfish of me to show you the way I look at things and to try to make you dissatisfied. Never mind. You are stronger than I. I could not live without love; I should die. But if you can, it may be that you are fulfilling your destiny more nobly than many another who has more of what I should choose.
“Oh, must you go? Forgive me if I have said what I should not. Good-night, and God bless you, my dear.”
THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE
“The tallest trees are most in the power of the wind.”
Last night at the theatre there were theatricals all over the house. My eyes followed the play on the stage, but my mind was filled with the farce in the next box and with the tragedy in the one opposite.
I was with the Ford-Burkes, and, hearing familiar voices, I pulled aside the curtain, and in the next box were the Payson Osbornes, Pet Winterbotham, and Jack Whitehouse. Pet thrust her hand over the railing and whispered,
“I’m engaged. Put your hand here and feel the size of my ring. You can get an idea of it through my glove. I’d take it off and show it to you, only I think it would look rather pronounced, don’t you?”
“Rather,” I assented faintly.
I glanced beyond her into the fresh blue eyes of young Jack Whitehouse, and I wondered if the alert, manly young fellow, with his untried but inherited capabilities, knew that he had been accepted as a husband because his hair curled and he looked “chappie.”
“I suppose you have heard the news, haven’t you?” she went on.
“Nothing in particular. What news?”
“Look across the house and you will see.”
Just entering their box opposite were Louise King and Norris Whitehouse, Jack’s uncle.
“What do you mean?” I asked, with a wrench at Pet’s little hand which made her wince.
“It’s an engagement. Uncle and nephew engaged the same season. Isn’t it rich? Think of Louise King being my aunt. She is only twenty-three.”
Then they saw us and bowed. I felt faint as my mind adjusted itself to this new arrangement. I levelled my glass at them.
Louise, magnificently tall and handsome,looked quite self-contained. She is one of the best-bred girls I know, but it required a stronger imagination than mine to fathom what mysterious change had transformed her from the impulsive, loving creature of Charlie Hardy’s story to this serene-eyed woman, who had deliberately elected to marry at the funeral of her own heart.
As I looked across at her during that long evening, I felt that it was impertinent to probe her heart with my wonderings and surmises. I knew instinctively just how carefully she was hiding her hurt from all human eyes. I knew how her fierce pride was bearing up under the cruelty of it. I felt how she had rushed from the humiliation one man had brought her to the waiting love of the one who should have been her first choice by the divine right of natural selection. This strong man had loved her for years, but he would never allow her to imperil either his dignity or her own. He was just the man her impulsive, high-strung nature could accept as a refuge, beat against and buffet if need be, then learn to appreciate and cling to.
I had an impression that he was not totally ignorant of the state of affairs. He was older and wiser than she, and capable of the bravery of this venture. No, he was not being deceived. I was sure of it. Louise was too high minded to attempt it. She would be scornfully honest with him. Her scorn would be for herself, not for him, and he had accepted her joyfully on these terms. His daring was tempered with prudence, and his clear vision doubtless forecast the end. His insight must have shown him that, with a girl like Louise, the rebound from the self-disdain to which Charlie Hardy’s confession must have reduced her would be as intense as her humiliation had been, and that her passionate gratitude to the man who restored her self-respect would be boundless. Not every man—not even every man who loved her—could do this. He must possess strong nerves who descends into a volcano. He must have a more unbending will who tames any wild thing; but what an intoxicating thrill of pride must come to him who, having confidence in his own powers, makes the attempt and succeeds.
Perhaps if Louise had been strong enough to fight this cruel battle out with herself as Rachel would have done, and win as Rachel would have won, she might have been able to choose differently. She might then, strong in her own strength, marry a man of lesser personality, a younger man, and they two could have adjusted their lives to each other gradually. Now it must be Louise who would be adjusted, and Norris Whitehouse was just the man to know the curious fact that the more fiery and impetuous a woman is, the more easily, if she is in love, will she mould herself to circumstances. The more untamed and unbending she seems, the more helpless will she be under the strong excitement of love or grief.
A strong-minded woman is easier to persuade than a weak one. The grander the nature the greater its pliability towards truth. The longer I sat and gazed into the opposite box the clearer it grew in my mind that the suddenness of this venture did not imply rashness, but serene-eyed faith only, and such faith would captivate Louise King more than would love. The only impossiblething about it to a sceptical Old Maid was that it was the man who was proving himself such a hero, and who was upsetting my favorite theory that men never understand emotional women. Still, it was not difficult to except as unusual a man like Norris Whitehouse, and yet have my theory hold good. In imagination I leaped forward to the peaceful outcome of this turbulent beginning, and overlooked the way which led to it. I found myself hoping, with painful intensity, that this venture in which Norris Whitehouse and I had embarked would prove successful. I had known and loved Louise King all her life. I had loved her dear mother before her, and the beautiful daughterhood of this girl had always touched me as the highest and sweetest type I ever had known. I did not want to be the one to bring her face to face with her first great sorrow, although I dared not interfere to less purpose. For