"What I wanted to say was about--Cyrus," she went on. "My Cyrus told
me that he don't see how he could get along without you, no way, and
I advised him to talk to you about it, because I knew it'd relieve
his mind and because it'd set you to looking at him in a different
way. Anyhow, it's always a good plan to ask for what you want. And he
did--and he told me you wouldn't hear to him. Don't think I'm trying to
persuade you. All I meant to say is that--"
She stopped and smiled, a bright shadow of that old, broad, beaming
smile of hers.
"I'd do anything for you!" I exclaimed, on impulse.
"I'm afraid that wouldn't suit Cyrus," she drawled, good humoredly.
"He'd be mad as the Old Scratch if he knew what I was up to now.
Well--do the best you can. But don't do anything unless it's for his
sake. Only--just look him over again. There's a lot to Cyrus besides
his cowlick. And he's been so dead in love with you ever since he first
saw you that he's been making a perfect fool of himself every time he
looked at you or spoke to you. Sometimes, when I've seen the way he's
acted up, like a farmhand waltzing in cowhides, I've felt like taking
him over my knees and laying it on good and hard."
I was laughing so that I couldn't answer--the reaction from the fear
that she might be very, very ill had made me hysterical. I could still
see that she was sick, extremely sick, but I realized that our love for
her had just put us into a panic.
"Do the best you can, dear," she ended. "And everything--all the
entertaining here and the going out--must be kept up just the same
as if I was being dragged about down stairs instead of lying up here
resting."
She insisted on this, and would not be content until she had my
promise. "And don't forget to cheer pa and Cyrus up. I never was sick
before--not a day. That's why they take on so."
I think I have been succeeding in cheering them up. And everything is
going forward as before--except, of course, that we've cut out every
engagement we possibly could.
It's amazing how many friends "ma" Burke has made in such a short
time. Ever since the news of her illness got out, the front door has
been opening and shutting all day long. And those of the callers that
I've seen have shown a real interest. This has made me have a better
opinion of human nature than I had thought I could have. I suppose
half the seeming heartlessness in this world is suspicion and a sort
of miserly dread lest one should give kindly feeling without getting
any of it in return. But "ma" Burke, who never bothers her head for an
instant about whether people like her, and gets all her pleasure out of
liking them, makes friends by the score.
I'm in a queer state of mind about Cyrus.
March 3. "Ma" Burke was brought down to the drawing-room for tea
to-day. She held a regular levee. Those that came early spread it
round, and by six o'clock they were pouring in. She looked extremely
well, and gloriously happy. All she had needed was complete rest and
sleep--and less to eat. "After this," she said, "I'm not going to eat
more than four or five meals a day. At my age a woman can't stand the
strain of ten and twelve--my record was sixteen--counting two teas
as one meal." For an hour there was hilarious chattering in English,
French, German, Italian, Russian, and mixtures of all five. I think
the thing that most fascinates Mrs. Burke about Washington is the many
languages spoken. She looks at me in an awed way when I trot out my
three in quick succession. And she regards the women as superhuman who
speak so many languages so fluently that they drift from one to the
other without being quite sure what they're speaking. There certainly
were enough going on at once to-day, and a good many of the women
smoked.
But to return to Mrs. Burke. When only a few of those we know best were
left this afternoon, and Nadeshda was smoking, Jessie, who is always
so tactful, said to Robert: "I'm glad to see that you don't object to
Nadeshda's smoking."
Mrs. Burke laughed. "Why should he?" said she. "Why, when we were
children ma and pa used to sit on opposite sides of the chimney,
smoking their pipes. And ma dipped, too, when it wasn't convenient for
her to have her pipe."
"Do _you_ smoke, Mrs. Burke?" asked Jessie, with wide, serious eyes. "I
never saw you."
"No, I don't," she confessed. "Tom used to hate the smell of it, so I
never got into the habit."
Nadeshda was tremendously amused by what Mrs. Burke had said about
pipes. "I didn't know it was considered nice for a lady to smoke in
America until recently," said she. "And pipes! How eccentric! Mama
smokes cigars--one after dinner, but I never heard of a lady smoking a
pipe."
"Ma wasn't a lady--what _you'd_ call a lady," replied Mrs. Burke. "She
was just a plain woman. She didn't smoke because she thought it was
fashionable, but because she thought it was comfortable. As soon as we
children got a little older we used to be terribly ashamed of it--but
_she_ kept right on. And now it's come in style."
"Not _pipes_," said Jessie.
"Not _yet_," said "ma," with a smile.
When I thought they had all gone, and I was writing in my "office" for
a few minutes before going up to dress, Nadeshda came in to me. "Ma"
Burke used often to say that Nadeshda's eyes were "full of the Old
Scratch," but certainly they were not at that moment. She was giving
me a glimpse of that side which, as Browning, I think, says, even the
meanest creature has and shows only to the person he or she loves. Not
that Nadeshda loves me, but she has that side turned outermost nowadays
whenever she hasn't the veil drawn completely over her real self.
"My dear," she said in French, "what is it? Why these little smiles all
afternoon whenever you forgot where you were?"
I couldn't help blushing. "I don't quite know, myself," I replied--and
it was so.
"Oh, you cold, cold, _cold_ Americans!"--then she paused and gave me
one of her strange smiles, with her eyes elongated and her lips just
parted--"I mean, you American women."
"Cold, because we don't set ourselves on fire?" I inquired.
"But yes," she answered, "yourselves, and the men, too. Never mind. I
shall not peep into your little secret." She laughed. "It always chills
me to grope round in one of your cold American women's hearts."
"I wish you could tell me what my secret is--and that's the plain
truth," said I.
She laughed again, shrugged her shoulders, pinched my cheek, nodded
her head until her big plumed hat was all in a quiver and was shaking
out volumes of the strong, heavy perfume she uses. And without saying
anything more she went away.
March 4. Cyrus and I sat next each other at dinner at the Secretary
of War's to-night. It has happened several times this winter, as the
precedence is often very difficult to arrange at small dinners. Old
Alex Bartlett took me in, and as he's stone deaf and a monstrous eater
I was free.
Cyrus had taken in a silent little girl who has just come out. She had
exhausted her little line of prearranged conversation before the fish
was taken away. So Cyrus talked to me.
"She's grateful for my letting her alone," said he when I tried to turn
him back to his duty. "Besides, if I didn't meet you out once in a
while you'd forget me entirely. And I don't want that, if I can avoid
it."
"Thank you," said I, for lack of anything else to say, and with not
the remotest intention of irritating him. But he flushed scarlet, and
frowned.
"You always and deliberately misconstrue everything I say," said he
bitterly. "I know I'm unfortunate in trying to express myself to you,
but why do you never attribute to me anything but the worst intentions?"
"And why should you assume that every careless reply I make is a
carefully thought out attack on you?" I retorted. "Don't you think your
vanity makes you morbid?"
"You know perfectly well that it isn't vanity that makes me think you
especially dislike me," said he.
"But I don't," I answered. "I confess I did at first, but not since
I've come to know you better."
"Why did you dislike me at first?" he asked. "You began on me with
almost the first moment of our acquaintance."
"That's true--I did," I admitted. "I had a reason for it--didn't
Nadeshda tell you what it was?"
He looked frightened.
"Be frank, if you want me to be frank," said I.
"I never for an instant believed what she said," he replied abjectly.
Then after a warning look from me, he added--"_Really_ believed it, I
mean."
"And what was it that you didn't really believe?" I demanded.
He looked at me boldly. "Nadeshda and one or two others told me that
you and your friends had arranged it for me to marry you. But, of
course, I knew it wasn't so."
"But it was so," I replied. "You were one of the considerations that
determined my friends in trying to get me my place."
"Well--and why didn't you take me when I finally fell into the trap?"