One evening a few weeks previous to the formation of the Young Woman's
Club--for an infant society of that name dated from the burlesque
meeting just described--Randolph Chance was seated in the room of his
nearest friend and was talking over the events of the day. Ordinarily
he was not free of speech, but with this man he could think aloud.
There are folk whose very presence is enough to shut one up with a
snap as the wrong touch closes the shell of a clam; there are others
who act upon us as heaven's own sun and dew act upon the flowers.
For a time after Randolph had taken his accustomed seat--an old chair
in an ingle-nook of the fireplace--he was silent, possibly through
physical disability, for there was no elevator at night, and nine
flights of stairs is not provocative of conversation; or he may have
been awed into silence, for he often told Steve that he was nearer
heaven than he would ever be again in all probability. Be that as it
may, he sat there enjoying his thoughts and the restful atmosphere of
the room. Quite unlike a bachelor's apartment, this; as unlike as many
another belonging to that particular branch of the _genus homo_--rooms
in which we would probably receive a mild shock and be compelled to
rebuild our entire structure of theories on the subject of the
helplessness, uncomfortableness, and general miserableness of that
specimen known as bachelor. To be sure, Steve Loveland was fortunate
in the selection of his rookery, but that might be called an outcome
of his genius--a genius with which bachelors are not supposed to be
blessed. At first glance, one who had no such gift for situation would
not have considered such a spot favorable for the construction of a
home--if this word may, for a moment, be snatched from the wedded
portion of the human race--but the artist in Steve recognized its
possibilities.
Carnot Fonnac, who originally reared and owned the building under
discussion, was himself a wretched, reprehensible bachelor, but being
also a Frenchman he possessed some taste; and intending to make his
abode in the sky-parlor of his structure, he so planned it that there
was a hint of grace and beauty in its arches and dimensions, as well
as of expanse. An English friend suggested the fireplace, and he had
the good sense to act upon this most sensible advice. After Fonnac's
death his building went into retirement, so to speak; fashion minced
off in another direction and left it to its grief, so now, at the
remove of some fifteen years, Steve Loveland obtained the rental of
the attic for a mere song, and here he cast his lot, for he was his
own housekeeper. A few screens skillfully arranged reduced the
apparent size of the apartment; some old-fashioned furniture his
mother spared him made it homelike and comfortable; an air-tight stove
on the one side (there were two chimneys) held Boreas at bay, while on
the other a little basket grate of coals, setting like a ruddy gem in
the center of the ample fireplace, was at once an element of good
cheer and a respecter of the law of economy.
On this particular evening the cronies sat in their accustomed places
within the fireplace, one on either side; a little stand, on which
were set a couple of plates of crackers and cheese, stood near by, and
a pot of oysters, cheerily simmering, hung from the crane above the
fire.
Randolph was silent; so was Steve--the latter never talked; in place
of words he used the poker--not in any fiendish way; heaven forbid!
but in a mild, unobtrusive manner, intelligible only to himself and
Randolph. In this system of fireworks stenography, so to speak, a
series of slow, deliberate pokes under the fire implied contemplation;
poking down from above stood for disagreement; while thrusts of the
poker between the ribs of the grate expressed sympathy or agitation.
"Steve," said Randolph--his chair was tilted against the brick side
wall of the chimney, and he was leaning back, with his hands clasped
behind his head--"I tell you she's a pretty nice girl; an awfully
sensible girl; one of the kind that sets your brain to jogging. It's
easy to talk to her, she's so suggestive, wide awake, and at the same
time she's restful, too. She's none of your hoity-toity characters,
one thing one day and another the next, so you never know where you
stand with them. You can feel secure with her. I feel as if I had
known her all my life; there's the most perfect understanding between
us; we don't have to talk; I think she knows my thoughts, and I'm
certain I know hers. Awfully nice girl; one of the nicest I ever
knew."
"Must be," said Steve gently.
After this there was some talk of a desultory sort, some solicitous
watching of the oysters that were singing softly preparatory to
boiling, and then Randolph bethought him of a conversation he
overheard on the train that day and repeated it to Loveland, who sat
bending over toward the fire, his elbows resting on his knees and
poker in hand ready for action.
"I tell you, Steve, it sets one thinking to get at the woman's side of
the matter," said Randolph. "I've been idiot enough to suppose they
thought just as we do on most subjects."
Loveland smiled and poked the fire gently from above.
"You know we've always been taught that women were naturally
dependent, and I supposed it was second nature for them to receive
money from their husbands, and so they got enough they cared no more
about it. Do you think many of them feel like that woman in the car?"
Loveland poked the fire from beneath and then sighed helplessly.
"Can't say, I'm sure," he replied in his gentle, hesitant way. "They
don't seem to go according to tradition in anything, so far as I've
noticed. They're a peculiar race."
"Oh, I don't know about that," said Randolph in a practical tone.
"It's pretty easy to understand, once your attention's called to it.
I'd never given the subject any thought, but if one chooses to observe
he can very soon find out what's what. Some men are idiots and won't
learn, so they get in a mess.
"It's natural for you to be mystified, Steve," continued Randolph
after a short pause, "but you see I have a sister and I know all about
women. You can judge of the rest by any one of them. They're pretty
much alike."
Loveland gave the top of the fire a few little jabs.
"Yes, I know," said Randolph. "You have mother and sister both, but
you haven't lived with them for years. If you don't actually live in
the same house with women you can't know them. Of course even then you
may be in the dark on a point or two, as I was on the money question,
but you can soon learn. All a woman wants is fair treatment. If a man
drinks and makes a beast of himself or sulks around in place of
telling her what he don't like and letting her change it, of course
she isn't going to be happy. It's easy as rolling off a log to manage
a woman."
Loveland rose and thrust the poker down through the top crust of the
fire and left it standing there.
"As far as management goes," Randolph went on unheedingly, "leaving
morality, and expense, and all that out of the question, I'd just as
soon turn Mormon and marry forty women."
Here Loveland stabbed the fire clear through the body, bringing the
poker out on the under side and against the hearth with a force that
bent its glowing point.
"The stew's done," he said. "We'll dish up now."
This little scene, or rather the conversation that seasoned the stew,
soon faded from Randolph's memory, but it lingered in the mind of his
companion. Men like the latter, little given to speech, are apt to
turn and re-turn in thought what has been said to them, and therefore
do not easily forget.
Several weeks after this the two men sat on the bachelor hearth once
more; Loveland in his usual quiet mood and Chance smarting from a
recent wound. He had begun to feel that his position was almost secure
with Miss Leigh, but that day, on the occasion of a picnic at which he
had amused himself by trifling with a silly young girl, he was amazed,
mortified, and hurt by receiving the cold shoulder when he proffered
his company to Miss Leigh on the way home.
His friend's hospitable hearth had more than once proven a refuge and
a solace. It was so to-night, and Randolph began to take heart again
as he settled back in his comfortable chair in the ingle-nook and
watched the hanging of the oyster stew upon the crane.
For a time the gentle simmering of the appetizing dish was the only
sound to be heard. Randolph did not feel like talking or even
listening, and his companion knew how to hold his peace.
Steve Loveland was one of those men whose intuitive sense is as fine
as a woman's; of delicate physique, strong brain, and a sensitive
temperament that might have gone off on a morbid tangent but for the
common sense, cheerfulness, and unselfishness that held it true to the
course. The last man in the world to lead a lonely life, but there was
an invalid mother and a delicate sister in a pretty little country
town home some two hundred miles away, and that was why Steve had no
home of his own. Loving nature as I think most men of fine, sensitive
fiber do, yearning for wife, and children, and hearthstone, as every
good man must, he had cheerfully and forever put one side all hope of
fulfilling these holy dreams and had taken his place on the force of a
daily paper, never thinking he was a hero. His comrades never thought
of that, either; they only knew that he was always pleasant, always
considerate, always every inch a man, and they loved him with one
accord.
It was to such a friend as this that Randolph had given his heart, for
although he did not fully understand him, he loved him, and the
answering affection he received was one of the most beautiful of
tributes to his own fine qualities.
When Randolph was ready to talk he told the story of the day--its
hope, its disappointment, and humiliation.
"It beats the Dutch, Steve. I can't think what was the matter. There
wasn't a thing I did or a word I said to make her behave so."
Steve was softly poking the fire from above. The night was quite cool
for June.
"No, there was not," Randolph reaffirmed. "I've gone over the whole
day again and again. I didn't give her the least excuse. What do you
suppose was the matter with her?"
Steve looked up with an almost startled air.
"Oh, I'm sure I can't say. They're quite beyond me."
"They're beyond every one," said Randolph in the tone of a Supreme
Court judge. "I don't see what the Lord made them for."
Steve looked up again and there was the least suspicion of a twinkle
in his eye.
"How is it," he asked in his gentle way--"how many of them is it you
are prepared to manage?"
Randolph brought his chair down on its four legs.
"Not a confounded one!" he said.