Hughes did not desire or intend to fall in love, ever, with anybody. And
when he realized that he was doing so, and that the girl was Mimi, he
rebelled vigorously against this injustice on the part of fate.
She was such an absolutely unsuitable person. She was so much too young,
and too pretty, and too lively. Even her name was almost an insult to
his intelligence. Mimi! That he should be devoted to a Mimi! He would
have struggled gallantly against this outrage, if he had had a chance.
But he did not see it coming. It fell upon him like a bolt from the
blue, like a sandbag upon the head in an apparently peaceful street.
He met this Mimi on the ship coming over from England, where she had
been amusing herself, and he had been attending to some business for his
company. He never saw her dancing, or flirting, or promenading the deck,
as so many other girls did; on the contrary, he saw her always in a deck
chair at her mother’s side, reading books, or looking out over the sea,
with a grave and thoughtful expression. So he had thought that she was
different from other girls--and did not know that that thought is almost
always fatal to a young man’s peace of mind.
Nor had he suspected that her grave and quiet air came, not from a
meditative spirit, but was due entirely to the malaise she always felt
on shipboard. And by the time she had overcome this, had her sea legs,
and was her true self again, it was too late. Five days only were needed
to deprive him of all freedom. That fifth evening the blow fell.
There was no moonlight, no music, none of those things which might have
put him on his guard. It was four o’clock in the afternoon--one of the
most unromantic hours in the day--and he met her outside the purser’s
office--surely not a romantic spot. What is more, he had been changing
money and thinking about money. Then she came. She said she wanted to
send a wireless message to her Uncle Tommy in London.
“I do love Uncle Tommy so!” she said.
In justice, Hughes was obliged to admit that she did not realize what
she was doing. She was thinking solely of her Uncle Tommy at the moment;
that misty look in her eyes was all for him. But when he saw that look,
and when he heard her speak, Hughes was done for. He knew it.
A strange sort of confusion came over him, so that he saw her in a haze,
her little, pointed face, her shining hair, her dark eyes, the striped
scarf about her shoulders, all swimming before him in a sort of rainbow.
He thought: “Good Lord! What a tender, sweet, lovely little thing! What
a darling little thing! I can’t help it! I love her!”
It was a mercy that this confusion robbed him, temporarily, of all power
to speak, otherwise he would have said this aloud. But all he could do
was to stand there, staring at her; and her own preoccupation with Uncle
Tommy prevented her from noticing the look on his face.
“You see,” she went on, “he said I’d probably never see him again. Of
course he always does say that. Every year mother says we’ll probably
never be able to go to England again, and every year they say good-by to
each other like that. ‘Good-by, Thomas, my dear brother!’ ‘Good-by,
Mary! It is not likely that we shall meet again in this world.’ I know
they enjoy it, but it does make me feel miserable for the first month.
And just suppose we couldn’t ever afford to go over again!”
“‘Afford’?” thought Hughes. “Is she poor? Good Heaven! Is she
poor--worried--not able to get what she ought to have?”
He studied both Mimi and her mother very critically after that. They
didn’t look poor; indeed, they seemed to him better dressed than any
other ladies in the world. But what did he know of such matters? All
those charming costumes might be pathetically cheap, for all he could
tell. Perhaps they made everything themselves.
And, when you looked at them carefully, you saw that both mother and
child were very slender and little. They certainly were not the sort of
persons who could be poor with impunity.
They asked him to call, and he did so without delay, the very day after
they landed. And his fears were confirmed. They were poor. They had a
flat over on the West Side, in the Chelsea district--the most pathetic
flat!
In the sitting room there were two of the strangest bookcases, which
Mrs. Dexter said she had herself made, out of packing cases. Enameled
white, they were, with blue butterflies painted upon them by Mimi. And
there was a couch, covered in gay cretonne, which, directly he had sat
upon it, Hughes felt sure had also been made by Mrs. Dexter, perhaps out
of barrel staves.
And everything was so dainty, and so neat, and so fragile. He could
scarcely open his mouth all the evening, for the distress and compassion
that filled him.
Now, Hughes did not know it, but he was really a young man. He had lived
for twenty-six years, and he believed that those years had aged him and
completely disillusioned him. But Mrs. Dexter knew better. She knew how
young he was. She was sorry for him. She said so, to her daughter. She
said:
“Poor Mr. Hughes! He’s such a nice boy!”
She had seen other nice boys come into that pathetic flat, and she knew
what happened to them. She knew, better than any one else, what a
dangerous creature her child was. She expected Mimi to smile at her
words as if they were, somehow, a compliment, but, to her surprise, the
girl turned away, and pretended to look out of the window.
“He--he is awfully nice, isn’t he?” Mimi remarked.
Mrs. Dexter could scarcely believe her senses. She looked and looked at
her child, saw that dangerous head bent, heard that note of uncertainty
in her voice. Mrs. Dexter no longer felt sorry for Mr. Hughes; on the
contrary, she was suddenly inspired with an amazing insight into his
character. She saw grave faults in him.
It might have been wiser if she had kept these revelations to herself,
but where her child was concerned she was perhaps a little prejudiced.
She had been a widow for many years, and had had nobody but this child
to think about; and although she had long ago made up her mind that she
must lose her some day, although she really wanted Mimi to marry some
day, she did wish to have a voice in electing the husband when the time
came.
She wished to make no unreasonable demands; this husband need not be
extraordinarily handsome, or particularly famous; no, all she required
was a man of ancient lineage, considerable wealth, lofty character,
great intelligence, courtly manners, and a humble if not abject devotion
to Mimi.
Mr. Hughes did not possess these qualifications. He was nothing more
than the branch office manager of a large typewriter company. His income
was pretty good, and the president of the company thought him a very
intelligent young man, but it was not the sort of intelligence Mrs.
Dexter valued. It was too businesslike.
He did not scintillate. As for his character, that seemed to be good
enough, in a matter-of-fact way, and his manners were civil enough. But
it was in humility and abjectness that he was so deficient. She had
noticed that at once.
“Of course, he’s a very _ordinary_ sort of young man,” she observed.
“I don’t think so!” said Mimi. “I think--”
She couldn’t explain exactly what it was she thought. Only that the very
first time she had set eyes on Mr. Hughes, she had realized that there
was something about him. Even before she had spoken a word to him, she
had watched him promenading the deck, had observed his long, vigorous
stride, his keen and somewhat severe profile, and she had _liked_ him.
Impossible to explain just why; perhaps it was that very lack of
abjectness that most entertained her.
Other young men had been so terribly eager and anxious to please; and
Mr. Hughes was the only one who had ever sat beside her and not even
smiled when she smiled. Anyhow, whatever the cause, she _liked_ him, and
when Mrs. Dexter called him “ordinary,” it hurt her.
Never before had Mrs. Dexter seen her daughter look hurt about any young
man, and it frightened her. When she was alone in her room that night,
she cried, and when that necessary prelude was done with, she began to
think, and presently she made up her mind.
It was obvious to her that Mr. Hughes did not appreciate Mimi. Probably
he was not capable of so doing, but, in the circumstances, it was her
duty to do what she could. So she very cordially invited him to call on
a Saturday afternoon; and just before he was due to arrive, she told
Mimi that she had forgotten to buy tea, and sent her out to buy half a
pound of a sort which could only be bought at a shop some distance away.
When Hughes arrived, he found Mrs. Dexter alone. He was not at all
alarmed by this, or by her extra-friendly manner; indeed, he was rather
touched by her welcome. They sat down, and she began to talk, and he was
not surprised that she should talk about Mimi. Such was his condition
that he couldn’t imagine how anybody could wish to talk of anything
else.
She told him anecdotes of Mimi’s childhood and school days, all designed
to show him what a gifted, brilliant, remarkable child she had been.
Hughes listened with serious attention; he was impressed; he thought to
himself, what a wonderful girl Mimi was. What a wonderful girl!
And then Mrs. Dexter ruined everything. If she had but stopped there,
content to demonstrate her child’s rare qualities by her own evidence,
all would have been well. But, instead, she tried to strengthen her case
by bringing in Professor MacAndrews as a witness.
She began with a fervent eulogy of Professor MacAndrews, his vast
learning, his wonderful achievements, his noble character. And Hughes,
although still politely attentive, grew secretly restive, and wished to
hear no more of this paragon. Then she fetched a photograph of the
professor, and the young man was in no mood to admire.
A small man, the professor had been, physically, that is; with a
pugnacious little white beard and fierce little eyes, and an upturned
nose. Hughes looked at the photograph with what might be called a
noncommittal expression, and said, “Yes, I see!”
“A wonderful intellect!” Mrs. Dexter declared. “And you can’t imagine
how devoted he was to Mimi! He always predicted a remarkable future for
her. He said she was too young, then, for him to tell just how her
talents would develop, but he knew she would be _something_.”
“I see!” said Hughes.
His tone should have warned Mrs. Dexter, but it did not. She was too
intent upon making her point.
“It really was beautiful,” she went on, “the devotion of that lonely old
scholar for little Mimi! Every one spoke of it. He used to come to the
house, you know, and as soon as he got inside the door, he’d say, ‘And
where’s the bonnie wee thing?’ That’s what he used to call her. From one
of Burns’s poems. See, it’s written here, in this book he gave her.
“‘Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,
Lovely wee thing, was thou mine
I wad wear thee in my bosom
Lest my jewel I should tine.’
“Of course it sounded quite different with his quaint Scotch accent.”
“I see!” said Hughes.
He hoped it had sounded different, because, as Mrs. Dexter read it, he
thought he had never heard anything so idiotic. The whole thing annoyed
him. He had no objection to Mrs. Dexter’s talking about Mimi; in fact,
he liked to hear her, and thought it natural and agreeable. But
otherwise, apart from Mrs. Dexter, who was Mimi’s mother, he had wished
to believe himself the sole true appreciator of Mimi.
It was a pity that there was nobody at hand to tell Mrs. Dexter
anecdotes about Hughes’s childhood. If there had been any one--his
sister, for instance--she would have learned what a pig-headed fellow he
was; how, if you wanted to convince him, you must never, never argue
with him; how he simply could not be driven, but must be humored. Any
such person could have told her what a disastrous mistake she made in
thus bringing Professor MacAndrews into the situation.
When Mimi came back with the tea, she saw at once that something had
gone amiss. At first she was worried, but presently the young man’s
silence and his very serious expression became annoying to her. It
seemed to her important to show him that she didn’t care in the least,
and in order so to do, she became more frivolous than he had ever before
seen her. For the first time she treated him as she had treated those
other nice boys; she laughed at him, and teased him, and dazzled him.
Hughes was no more proof against this than any of the others had been,
but, unlike those others, he stubbornly resisted the enchantment. He was
ready to admit that she was dazzling, but the gayer she was, the more he
thought of Professor MacAndrews. He thought to himself that she must
know only too well how pretty she was, and how great was her power.
“It’s a pity!” he thought, sternly. “It’s very bad for a girl to have a
silly old cuckoo like that making such a fuss over her. Calling her a
‘bonnie wee thing’! Of course I won’t deny that she is, but--”
But no one should have told her so before Hughes had a chance. Certainly
he wasn’t going to tell her those things all over again, and he wasn’t
going to accept any bearded professor’s opinion of her, either. No; he
intended to study her gravely and dispassionately, and judge for
himself.
Three times he came to the flat for that purpose, and each time that he
came, with his grave and dispassionate expression, the girl was more
frivolous than ever. And on the third evening she was outrageous.
She said that evening that she would make him a Welsh rarebit. It
appeared to him no more than his duty as a guest, or a gentleman, or
something of the sort, to go into the kitchen with her, and there he
watched her make a most horrible concoction, the most leathery,
nightmare-provoking rarebit. And he saw that she knew nothing about
cooking, in its true and serious meaning, and she wore a silly little
apron, and she burned her silly little finger.
As he walked home that evening, he told himself, almost violently, that
he had not kissed Mimi, and had not said a single word to her of any
significance. But that gave him precious little comfort. He had wanted
to, and he knew that she knew it. He remembered an unsteady little smile
of hers.
“I won’t be a fool!” cried Hughes to himself. “I know she’s--well--a
very nice girl. I’ll admit that I--I like her. But she’s--well--she’s
not my sort. She’s--Look at the way they live! I couldn’t stand that.
All those little frilly curtains and covers and doodabs, and those
antique plates--with nothing real to eat on ’em. I know it’s all very
dainty and so on--but it’s--it’s too damn’ fancy!”
He was honestly frightened, now. He didn’t see how he could ever escape
from that atmosphere of doodabs and fanciness. That moment in the
kitchen, that one glance they had exchanged, had shown him that being in
love was a malady which grew worse with time.
He would inevitably ask Mimi to marry him, and if she refused him, life
would be intolerable; and if she accepted him, they would have to have a
home which would be filled with little lace doilies and antique plates,
and his existence would be made dainty--and fancy.
Hughes had been brought up with Spartan simplicity by his very poor and
very proud family in New Hampshire, and their ways were the ways he
admired. He was not quite so fond of being poor, though, and had cured
himself of that, but he still lived in Spartan style.
He had a furnished room, from which he had obliged the landlady to
remove all those things she most admired; he ate his meals in a shining
white restaurant where there were no tablecloths, and in his office he
would permit no trace of luxury. He wouldn’t even have a private office;
he sat out in plain view of his staff, upon a severely efficient chair,
before a desk which was a model of neatness and order. That was how he
liked things. And now, here he was, in love with Mimi!
What to do?
He thought of a plan.