LONGEST WAY HOME
"You hadn't forgotten?" he inquired, coming up behind me with an
expression of uneasiness as I passed the first two or three cars in
the line.
"No--that is, I forgot for only a moment! I'm so used to going to town
on this trolley-car."
"Then--ah, here we are--"
The limousine to which I was conducted was a gleaming dark-blue
affair, with light tan upholstery, and the door-knobs, clock-case and
mouth-piece of the speaking-tube were of tortoise-shell.
The chauffeur touched something and the big creature began a softened,
throbbing breathing. Isn't it strange how we can not help regarding
automobiles as _creatures_? Sometimes we think of them as gliding
swans--at other times as fiery-eyed dragons. It all depends upon
whether _we're_ the duster, or the dustee.
I gained the idea as I stepped into this present one--which of course
belonged to the gliding swan variety--that its master must be rather
ridiculously well-to-do--for a cave-man. His initials were on the
panels, and the man at the wheel said, "Mr. Tait, sir," after a
fashion that no American-trained servant, white, black, or
almond-eyed, ever said. Evidently the car had come down from
Pittsburgh and the chauffeur had made a longer journey. Together,
however, they spelled perfection--and luxury. Still, strange to say,
the notion of this man's possible wealth did not get on my throat and
suffocate me, as the notion of Guilford's did. I felt that the man
himself really cared very little about it all. The idea of his being a
man who could do hard tasks patiently did not fade in the glamour of
this damask and tortoise-shell.
"Which is--the longest way to town?" he asked in a perfectly grave,
matter-of-fact way as we started.
"Down this lane to the Franklin Pike, then out past Fort Christian to
Belcourt Boulevard--and on to High Street," I replied in a perfectly
grave, matter-of-fact way, as if he were a tubercular patient, bound
to spend a certain number of hours in aimless driving every day.
"Thank you," he answered very seriously, then turned to the chauffeur.
"Collins, can you follow this line? I think we drove out this way the
day the car came?"
"Oh, yes, sir--thank you," the man declared, slipping his way in and
out among the throngs of other vehicles.
Then as we whirled away down the pike I kept thinking of this
man--this young Englishman, who had come to America and elevated
himself into the position of vice-president and general-manager of the
Consolidated Traction Company, but, absurdly enough, no thought of the
limousine nor the traction company came into my musings. I thought of
him as a spirit--a spirit-man, who had lived in the woods. He had
dwelt in a hut--or a cave--and toiled with his hands, hewing down
trees, burning charcoal, eating brown bread at noon. Then, at dusk, he
laid aside his tools, rumbling homeward in a great two-wheeled cart,
whistling as he went, but softly--because he was deep in thought.
The seven _ages_ of man are really nothing to be compared in point of
interest with the different conditions of mind which women demand of
them.
Very young girls seek about--often in vain--for a man who can compel;
then later, they demand one who can feel; afterward their own
expansion clamors for one who can understand--but the final stage of
all is reached when the feminine craving can not be satisfied save by
the man who can _achieve_.
This, of course, indicates that the woman herself is
experienced--sometimes even to the point of being a widow--but it is
decidedly a satisfying state of mind when it is once reached, because
it is permanent.
And your man of achievement is pretty apt to be an uncomplicated
human. His deepest "problem" is how to make the voices of the
nightingale and alarm clock harmonize. For he is a lover between
suns--and a _laborer_ during them.
At Solinski's Japanese tea-room in Union Street, the limousine slowed
up. The band was playing _The Rosary_ as we went in, for it was the
hour of the afternoon for the professional seers and seen of
Oldburgh's medium world to drop in off the sidewalks for half an hour
and dawdle over a tutti-frutti. The ultra-sentimental music always
gets such people as these--and the high excruciating notes of this
love-wail were ringing out with an intense poignancy.
"Each hour a pearl--each pearl a prayer--"
"Which table do you prefer?" my companion asked me, but for a moment I
failed to answer. I was looking up at the clock, and I saw that the
hands were pointing to six. I had met Maitland Tait at four!--Thus I
had two pearls already on my string, I reckoned.
"Oh, which table--well, farther back, perhaps!"
I came down to earth after that, for getting acquainted with the
caprices of a man's appetite is distinctly an earthly joy. Yet it
certainly comes well within the joy class, for nothing else gives you
the comfortable sense of possession that an intimate knowledge of his
likes and dislikes bestows.
Just after the "each-hour-a-pearl" stage you begin to feel that you
have a _right_ to know whether he takes one lump or two! And the
homely, every-day joys are decidedly the best. You don't tremble at
the sounds of a man's rubber heels at the door, perhaps, after you're
so well acquainted with him that you've set him a hasty supper on the
kitchen table, or your fingers have toyed with his over the dear task
of baiting a mouse-trap together--but he gets a dearness in this phase
which a pedestal high as Eiffel Tower couldn't afford.--It is this
dearness which makes you endure to see Prince Charming's coronet
melted down into ducats to buy certified milk!
"And what are--those?" Maitland Tait asked, after the tea-service was
before us, and I had poured his cup. He was looking about the place
with a frank interest, and his gaze had lighted upon a group of
marcelled, manicured manikins at a near-by table. They were chattering
and laughing in an idly nervous fashion.
I dropped in two lumps of sugar and passed him his cup.
"They are wives," I answered.
"What?"
"Just wives."
Being English, it took him half a second to smile--but when he did I
forgave him the delay.
"_Just_ wives? Then that means not mothers, nor helpmeets, nor--"
"Nor housekeepers, nor suffragettes, nor saints, nor sinners, nor
anything else that the Lord intended, nor apprehended," I finished up
with a fierce suddenness, for that was what Guilford wanted me to be.
"They're _just_ wives."
He stirred his tea thoughtfully.
"That's what I find all over America," he said, but not with the air
of making a discovery. "Men must work, and women must _eat_."
"And the sooner it's over the sooner to--the opera," I said.
He looked at me in surprise.
"Then you recognize it?" he asked.
"Recognize it? Of course _I_ recognize it--but I'm not a fair sample.
I work for my living."
He was silent for a moment, looking at the manikins with a sort of
half-hearted pity.
"If they could all be induced to work they'd not be what they are--to
men," he observed.
"To men?"
"I find that an American wife is a tormenting side-issue to a man's
busy life," he said, with a tinge of regret. "And I am sorry, too--for
they are most charming. For my part, I should like a woman who could
do things--who was clever enough to be an inspiration."
I nodded heartily, forgetful of personalities.
"I too like the workers in the world," I coincided. "My ideal man is
one whose name will be made into a verb."
He laughed.
"Like Marconi, eh, and Pasteur--and--"
"And Boycott, and Macadam, and--oh, a host of others!"
It was quite a full minute before he spoke again.
"I don't see how I could make my name into a verb," he said quietly,
"but I must begin to think about it. It is certainly a valuable
suggestion."
It was my turn to laugh, which I did, nervously.
"In Oldburgh, Tait seems to stand for the opposite of dictate," I
hazarded. "That means to _talk_, and you won't--talk."
"But I am talking," he insisted. "I'm asking you questions as fast as
ever I can."
"However, your technique is wrong," I replied. "You shouldn't ask
questions of a newspaper woman. You should let her ask the questions,
and you should furnish the answers."
"But you're not a newspaper woman now, are you?" he demanded in some
alarm. "I hope not--and certainly I must ask you questions before I
begin to tell you things. There are quite a few facts which I wish to
find out now."
"And they are, first--?"
"Where you live?"
I told him, and he took from his pocket a small leather book with his
name, Maitland Tait, and an address in smaller letters which I could
not make out, on the inside lining. In a small, rather cramped hand,
he wrote the address I gave him, "1919 West Clydemont Place," then
looked up at me.
"Next?" I laughed, in a flutter.
"Next I want to know when you will let me come to see you?"
"When?" I repeated, rather blankly.
He drew slightly back.
"I should have said, of course, _if_ you will let me come, but--"
"But I shall be very glad to have you come," I made haste to explain.
"I--I was only thinking!"
I was thinking of my betrothed--for the first time that afternoon.
"The length of time I am to stay in the South is very uncertain," he
went on to explain with a gentle dignity. "At first it appeared that I
might have to make a long stay, but we are settling our affairs so
satisfactorily that I may be able to get back to Pittsburgh at any
time now. That's why I feel that I can't afford to lose a single day
in doing the really important things."
"Then come," I said, with a friendly show, which was in truth a
desperate spirit of abandon. "Come some day--"
"To-morrow?" he asked.
"To-morrow--at four."
But during the rest of the meal grandfather and Uncle Lancelot came
and took their places on either side of me. They were distinctly de
trop, but I could not get rid of them.
"This is--really the wrong thing to do, Grace," grandfather said, so
soberly that when I rose to go and looked in the mirror to see that my
hat was all right, his own sad blue eyes were looking out at me in
perplexed reproach. "--Very wrong."
Then the sad blue eyes took in the lower part of my face. I believe
I've neglected to say that there is a dimple in my chin, and Uncle
Lancelot's spirit is a cliff-dweller living there. He comes out and
taunts the thoughtful eyes above.
"Nonsense, parson!" he expostulated jauntily now. "Look on the lips
while they are red! She's _young_!"
"Youth doesn't excuse folly," said grandfather severely.
"It exudes it, however," the other argued.
I turned away, resolutely, from their bickering. I had enough to
contend with besides them--for suddenly I had begun wondering what on
earth mother _would_ say, after she'd said: "Grace, you amaze me!"