Parker could not solve the problem, but it pleased him to believe that
something over which he had no control had gone wrong that morning, and
that this had disturbed her equanimity, and that he was merely the victim
of circumstances; and somehow or other it pleased him also to think that
he could be the victim of her circumstances, so he stood his ground.
“It is a beautiful day,” he began, after a pause.
“Is it?” she asked, indifferently.
(“Frightfully snubbish,” said I, appalled at the lengths to which Miss
Andrews was going.
“Dreadfully,” sighed Harley. “And so unlike her, too.”)
“Yes,” said Parker, “so very beautiful that it seemed a pity that you and
I should stay indoors, with plenty of walks to be taken and—”
Marguerite interrupted him with a sarcastic laugh.
“With so much pity and so many walks, Mr. Parker, why don’t you take a
few of them!” she said.
(“Good Lord!” said I. “This is the worst act of rebellion yet. She
seems beside herself.”
“Read on!” said Harley, in sepulchral tones.)
This was Parker’s opportunity. “I am not fond of walking, Miss Andrews,”
he said; and then he added, quickly, “that is, alone—I don’t like
anything alone. Living alone, like walking alone, is—”
“Let’s go walking,” said Marguerite, shortly, as she rose up from her
chair. “I’ll be down in two minutes. I only need to put my hat on.”
Parker acquiesced, and Miss Andrews walked majestically out of the parlor
and went up-stairs.
“Confound it!” muttered Parker, as she left him. “A minute more, and I’d
have known my fate.”
(“You see,” said Harley, “I’d made up my mind that that proposal should
take place in that chapter, and I thought I’d worked right up to it, in
spite of all Miss Andrews’s disagreeable remarks when, pop—off she goes
to put on her hat.”
“Oh—as for that—that’s all right,” said I. “Parker had suggested the
walk, and a girl really does like to stave off a proposal as long as she
can when she knows it is sure to come. Furthermore, it gives you a
chance to describe the hat, and so make up for a few of the words you
lost when she refused to discuss ball-dresses with Mrs. Willard.”
“I never thought of that; but don’t you think I worked up to the proposal
skilfully?” asked Harley.
“Very,” said I. “But you’re dreadfully hard on Parker. It would have
been better to have had the butler fire him out, head over heels. He
could have thrashed the butler for doing that, but with your heroine his
hands were tied.”
“Go on and read,” said Harley.)
“She must have known what I was driving at,” Parker reflected, as he
awaited her return. “Possibly she loves me in spite of this frigid
behavior. This may be her method of concealing it; but if it is, I must
confess it’s a case of
‘Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But—why did you kick me down-stairs?’
Certainly, knowing, as she now must, what my feelings are, her being
willing to go for a walk on the cliffs, or anywhere, is a favorable sign.
(“Parker merely echoed my own hope in that remark,” said Harley. “If I
could get them engaged, I was satisfied to do it in any way that might be
pleasing to her.”)
A moment later Marguerite appeared, arrayed for the walk. Parker rose as
she entered and picked up his gloves.
“You are a perfect picture this morning,” said he.
“I’m ready,” she said, shortly, ignoring the compliment. “Where are we
scheduled to walk?—or are we to have something to say about it
ourselves?”
Parker looked at her with a wondering smile. The aptness of the remark
did not strike him. However, he was equal to the occasion.
“You don’t believe in free will, then?” he asked.
(“It was the only intelligent remark he could make, under the
circumstances, you see,” explained Harley.
“He was a clever fellow,” said I, and resumed reading.)
“I believe in a great many things we are supposed to do without,” said
Marguerite, sharply.
They had reached the street, and in silence walked along Bellevue Avenue.
[Picture: The walk on the cliff]
“There are a great many things,” vouchsafed Parker, as they turned out of
the avenue to the cliffs, “that men are supposed not to do without—”
“Yes,” said Marguerite, sharply—“vices.”
“I did not refer to them,” laughed Parker. “In fact, Miss Andrews, the
heart of man is supposed to be incomplete until he has lost it, and has
succeeded in getting another for his very—”
“Are you an admirer of Max Nordau?” interposed Marguerite, quickly.
(“Whatever led you to put that in?” I asked.
“Go on, and you’ll see,” said Harley. “I didn’t put it in. It’s what
she said. I’m not responsible.”)
“I don’t know anything about Max Nordau,” said Parker, somewhat surprised
at this sudden turn of the conversation.
“Are you familiar with Schopenhauer?” she asked.
(“It was awfully rough on the poor fellow,” said Harley, “but I couldn’t
help him. I’d forced him in so far that I couldn’t get him out. His
answer floored me as completely as anything that Miss Andrews ever did.”)
“Schopenhauer?” said Parker, nonplussed. “Oh yes,” he added, an idea
dawning on his mind. “That is to say, moderately familiar—though, as a
matter of fact, I’m not at all musical.”
Miss Andrews laughed immoderately, in which Parker, thinking that he had
possibly said something witty, although he did not know what it was,
joined. In a moment the laughter subsided, and for a few minutes the two
walked on in silence. Finally Parker spoke, resignedly.
“Miss Andrews,” he said, “perhaps you have noticed—perhaps not—that you
have strongly interested me.”
“Yes,” she said, turning upon him desperately. “I have noticed it, and
that is why I have on two separate occasions tried to keep you from
saying so.”
“And why should I not tell you that I love—” began Parker.
“Because it is hopeless,” retorted Marguerite. “I am perfectly well
aware, Mr. Parker, what we are down for, and I suppose I cannot blame you
for your persistence. Perhaps you don’t know any better; perhaps you do
know better, but are willing to give yourself over unreservedly into the
hands of another; perhaps you are being forced and cannot help yourself.
It is just possible that you are a professional hero, and feel under
obligations to your employer to follow out his wishes to the letter.
However it may be, you have twice essayed to come to the point, and I
have twice tried to turn you aside. Now it is time to speak truthfully.
I admire and like you very much, but I have a will of my own, am nobody’s
puppet, and if Stuart Harley never writes another book in his life, he
shall not marry me to a man I do not love; and, frankly, I do not love
you. I do not know if you are aware of the fact, but it is true
nevertheless that you are the third _fiancé_ he has tried to thrust upon
me since July 3d. Like the others, if you insist upon blindly following
his will, and propose marriage to me, you shall go by the board. I have
warned you, and you can now do as you please. You were saying—?”
“That I love you with all my soul,” said Parker, grimly.
(“He didn’t really love her then, you know,” said Harley. “He’d been
cured of that in five minutes. But I was resolved that he should say it,
and he did. That’s how he came to say it grimly. He did it just as a
soldier rushes up to the cannon’s mouth. He added, also:”)
“Will you be my wife?”
“Most certainly not,” said Marguerite, turning on her heel, and leaving
the young man to finish his walk alone.
(“And then,” said Harley, with a chuckle, “Parker’s manhood would assert
itself in spite of all I could do. He made an answer, which I wrote
down.”
“I see,” said I, “but you’ve scratched it out. What was that line?”
“‘“Thank the Lord!” said Parker to himself, as Miss Andrews disappeared
around the corner,’” said Stuart Harley. “That’s what I wrote, and I
flatter myself on the realism of it, for that’s just what any
self-respecting hero would have said under the circumstances.”
A silence came over us.
“Do you wonder I’ve given it up,” asked Stuart, after a while.
“Yes,” said I, “I do. Such opposition would nerve me up to a battle
royal. I wouldn’t give it up until I’d returned from Barnegat, if I were
you,” I added, anxious to have him renew his efforts; for an idea had
just flashed across my mind, which, although it involved a breach of
faith on my part, I nevertheless believed to be good and justifiable,
since it might relieve Stuart Harley of his embarrassment.
“Very well,” I rejoiced to hear him say. “I won’t give it up until then,
but I haven’t much hope after that last chapter.”
So Harley went to Barnegat, after destroying his letter to Messrs.
Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick, whilst I put my breach of faith into
operation.)
VII
A BREACH OF FAITH
“_Having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath_,
_Study to break it_, _and not to break my troth_.”
—“Love’s Labor’s Lost.”
WHEN I assured Harley that I should keep my hands off his heroine until
he requested me to do otherwise, after my fruitless attempt to discipline
her into a less refractory mood, I fully intended to keep my promise.
She was his, as far as she possessed any value as literary material, and
he had as clear a right to her exclusive use as if she had been
copyrighted in his name—at least so far as his friends were concerned he
had. Others might make use of her for literary purposes with a clear
conscience if they chose to do so, but the hand of a friend must be
stayed. Furthermore, my own experience with the young woman had not been
successful enough to lead me to believe that I could conquer where Harley
had been vanquished. Physical force I had found to be unavailing. She
was too cunning to stumble into any of the pitfalls that with all my
imagination I could conjure up to embarrass her; but something had to be
done, and I now resolved upon a course of moral suasion, and wholly for
Harley’s sake. The man was actually suffering because she had so
persistently defied him, and his discomfiture was all the more deplorable
because it meant little short of the ruin of his life and ambitions. The
problem had to be solved or his career was at an end. Harley never could
do two things at once. The task he had in hand always absorbed his whole
being until he was able to write the word finis on the last page of his
manuscript, and until the finis to this elusive book he was now
struggling with was written, I knew that he would write no other. His
pot-boilers he could do, of course, and so earn a living, but pot-boilers
destroy rather than make reputations, and Harley was too young a man to
rest upon past achievements; neither had he done such vastly superior
work that his fame could withstand much diminution by the continuous
production of ephemera. It was therefore in the hope of saving him that
I broke faith with him and temporarily stole his heroine. I did not
dream of using her at all, as you might think, as a heroine of my own,
but rather as an interesting person with ideas as to the duty of
heroines—a sort of Past Grand Mistress of the Art of Heroinism—who was
worth interviewing for the daily press. I flatter myself it was a good
idea, worthy almost of a genius, though I am perfectly well aware that I
am not a genius. I am merely a man of exceptional talent. I have talent
enough for a genius, but no taste for the unconventional, and by just so
much do I fall short of the realization of the hopes of my friends and
fears of my enemies. There are stories I have in mind that are worthy of
the most exalted French masters, for instance, and when I have the time
to be careful, which I rarely do, I can write with the polished grace of
a De Maupassant or a James, but I shall never write them, because I value
my social position too highly to put my name to anything which it would
never do to publish outside of Paris. I do not care to prove my genius
at the cost of the respect of my neighbors—all of which, however, is
foreign to my story, and is put in here merely because I have observed
that readers are very much interested in their favorite authors, and like
to know as much about them as they can.
My plan, to take up the thread of my narrative once more, was, briefly,
to write an interview between myself, as a representative of a newspaper
syndicate, and Miss Marguerite Andrews, the “Well-Known Heroine.” It has
been quite common of late years to interview the models of well-known
artists, so that it did not require too great a stretch of the
imagination to make my scheme a reasonable one. It must be remembered,
too, that I had no intention of using this interview for my own
aggrandizement. I planned it solely in the interests of my friend,
hoping that I might secure from Miss Andrews some unguarded admission
that might operate against her own principles, as Harley and I knew them,
and that, that secured, I might induce her to follow meekly his schedule
until he could bring his story to a reasonable conclusion. Failing in
this, I was going to try and discover what style of man it was she
admired most, what might be her ideas of the romance in which she would
most like to figure, and all that, so that I could give Harley a few
points which would enable him so to construct his romance that his
heroine would walk through it as easily and as docilely as one could
wish. Finally, all other things failing, I was going to throw Harley on
her generosity, call attention to the fact that she was ruining him by
her stubborn behavior, and ask her to submit to a little temporary
inconvenience for his sake.
As I have already said, so must I repeat, there was genius in the idea,
but I was forced to relinquish certain features of it, as will be seen
shortly. I took up my pen, and with three bold strokes thereof
transported myself to Newport, and going directly to the Willard Cottage,
I rang the bell. Miss Andrews was still elusive. With all the resources
of imagination at hand, and with not an obstacle in my way that I could
not clear at a bound, she still held me at bay. She was not at home—had,
in fact, departed two days previously for the White Mountains.
Fortunately, however, the butler knew her address, and, without bothering
about trains, luggage, or aught else, in one brief paragraph I landed
myself at the Profile House, where she was spending a week with Mr. and
Mrs. Rushton of Brooklyn. This change of location caused me to modify my
first idea, to its advantage. I saw, when I thought the matter over,
that, on the whole, the interview, as an interview for a newspaper
syndicate, was likely to be nipped in the bud, since the moment I
declared myself a reporter for a set of newspapers, and stated the object
of my call, she would probably dismiss me with the statement that she was
not a professional heroine, that her views were of no interest to the
public, and that, not having the pleasure of my acquaintance, she must
beg to be excused. I wonder I didn’t think of this at the outset. I
surely knew Harley’s heroine well enough to have foreseen this
possibility. I realized it, however, the moment I dropped myself into
the great homelike office of the Profile House. Miss Andrews walked
through the office to the dining-room as I registered, and as I turned to
gaze upon her as she passed majestically on, it flashed across my mind
that it would be far better to appear before her as a fellow-guest, and
find out what I wanted and tell her why I had come in that guise, rather
than introduce myself as one of those young men who earn their daily
bread by poking their noses into other people’s business.
Had this course been based upon any thing more solid than a pure bit of
imagination, I should have found it difficult to accommodate myself so
easily to circumstances. If it had been Harley instead of myself, it
would have been impossible, for Harley would never have stooped to
provide himself with a trunk containing fresh linen and evening-dress
clothes and patent-leather pumps by a stroke of his pen. This I did,
however, and that evening, having created another guest, who knew me of
old and who also was acquainted with Miss Andrews, just as I had created
my excellent wardrobe, I was presented.
The evening passed pleasantly enough, and I found Harley’s heroine to be
all that he had told me and a great deal more besides. In fact, so
greatly did I enjoy her society that I intentionally prolonged the
evening to about three times its normal length—which was a very
inartistic bit of exaggeration, I admit; but then I don’t pretend to be a
realist, and when I sit down to write I can make my evenings as long or
as short as I choose. I will say, however, that, long as my evening was,
I made it go through its whole length without having recourse to such
copy-making subterfuges as the description of doorknobs and chairs; and
except for its unholy length, it was not at all lacking in realism. Miss
Andrews fascinated me and seemed to find me rather good company, and I
found myself suggesting that as the next day was Sunday she take me for a
walk. From what I knew of Harley’s experience with her, I judged she’d
be more likely to go if I asked her to take me instead of offering to
take her. It was a subtle distinction, but with some women subtle
distinctions are chasms which men must not try to overleap too
vaingloriously, lest disaster overtake them. My bit of subtlety worked
like a charm. Miss Andrews graciously accepted my suggestion, and I
retired to my couch feeling certain that during that walk to Bald
Mountain, or around the Lake, or down to the Farm, or wherever else she
might choose to take me, I could do much to help poor Stuart out of the
predicament into which his luckless choice of Miss Andrews as his heroine
had plunged him. And I wasn’t far wrong, as the event transpired,
although the manner in which it worked out was not exactly according to
my schedule.
I dismissed the night with a few paragraphs; the morning, with its divine
service in the parlor, went quickly and impressively; for it _is_ an
impressive sight to see gathered beneath those towering cliffs a hundred
or more of pleasure and health seekers of different creeds worshipping
heartily and simply together, as accordantly as though they knew no
differences and all men were possessed of one common religion—it was too
impressive, indeed, for my pen, which has been largely given over to
matters of less moment, and I did not venture to touch upon it, passing
hastily over to the afternoon, when Miss Andrews appeared, ready for the
stroll.