A WRONG ADJUSTMENT
Eveley's resolve to spend her fortune for an auto met with less
resistance than she had anticipated. It seemed that every one had known
all along that she would fool the money away on something, and a motor
was far more reasonable than some things.
"I said travel," said Kitty. "And we can travel in a car as well as on a
train--more fun, too. And though it may cut us off from meeting a purple
prince--a pretty girl with a car of her own is a combination no man can
resist. And maybe if we are very patient and have good luck, we may save
a millionaire from bandits, or rescue a daring aviator from capture by
Mexicans."
Miriam nodded, also, her eyes cloudy behind the dark lashes. "Very nice,
dear. Get a lot of stunning motor things and--irresistible, simply
irresistible. You must have a red leather motor coat. You will be
adorable in one. But you'll have to shake Nolan, dear. You stand no
chance in the world if you are constantly herded by a disagreeable young
lawyer, guardianing you from every truant glance."
"It isn't at all bad," quickly interposed Eileen. "I believe that more
than anything else in the world, a motor-car reconciles a woman to life
without a husband. She gets thrills in plenty, and retains her
independence at the same time."
"Eileen," put in Nolan sternly, "I am disappointed in you. A woman of
your ability and experience trying to prejudice a young and innocent girl
against marriage is--is--"
"You are awfully hard to suit, Nolan," complained Eveley gently. "You
shouted at Miriam and Kitty for advising a husband, and now you roar at
Eileen for advising against one."
"It isn't the husband I object to--it is their cold-blooded scheme to go
out and pick one up. Woman should be sought--"
"Well, when Eveley gets a car she'll be sought fast enough," said Kitty
shrewdly. "She hasn't suffered from any lack of admirers as it is, but
when she goes motoring on her own--_ach_, Louie."
"Then you approve of the car, do you, Nolan?"
"Well, since I can not think of any quicker or pleasanter way of spending
the money," he said slowly, "I may say that I do, unequivocally."
"Why unequivocally?"
"What's it mean, anyhow?" demanded Kitty.
"Can't you talk English, Nolan?" asked Eveley, in some exasperation. "You
started off as if you were in favor, but now heaven only knows what you
mean."
"Get your car, my poor child, by all means. Get your car. But a
dictionary is what you really need."
The rest of the evening they were enthusiastic almost to the point of
incoherency. Kitty was in raptures over an exquisite red racer she had
seen on the street. Miriam described Mary Pickford's rose-upholstered
car, and applied it to Eveley's features. Nolan developed a surprisingly
intimate knowledge of carburetors, horse-powers and cylinders.
When at last they braved the rustic stairway, homeward bound, with
exclamatory gasps and squeals, gradually drifting away into silence,
Eveley sat down on the floor to take off her shoes--a most childish habit
carried over into the years of age and wisdom--and was immediately
wrapped in happy thoughts where stunning motor clothes and whirring
engines and Nolan's pleasant eyes were harmoniously mingled. And when at
last she started up into active consciousness again, and rushed pellmell
to bed, mindful of her responsibility as a business girl, sleep came very
slowly. And when it came at last, it was a chaotic jumble of excited
dreams and tossings.
The life of the bride and groom in the nest beneath Eveley's Cloud Cote
had progressed so sweetly and smoothly that Eveley had come to feel it
was quite a friendly dispensation of Providence that permitted her to
live one story up from Honeymooning. So the next morning, in the midst of
the confusion that came from dressing and getting her breakfast and
reading motor ads in the morning paper at the same time, she was utterly
electrified to hear a sudden sharp cry of anguish from little Mrs. Bride
beneath--a cry accompanied by sounds caused by nothing in the world but a
passionate and hysterical pounding of small but violent feet upon the
floor.
"Oooooh, oooooh, don't talk to me, Dody, I can't bear it. I can't, I
can't. Ooooh, I wish I were dead. Go away, go away this instant and let
me die. Oh, I shall run away, I shall kill myself! Oooooh!"
"Dearie, sweetie, don't," begged Mr. Groom distractedly. "Lovie,
precious, please." And his voice faded off into tender inarticulate
whispers.
For a long second Eveley was speechless. Then she said aloud, very
grimly, "Hum. It has begun. I suppose I may look for flat-irons and
rolling-pins next. Hereafter they are Mr. and Mrs. Ordinary Married
People."
After long and patient, demonstrative pleading on his part, Mrs. Severs
was evidently restored to a semblance of reason and content, and quiet
reigned for a while until the slam of the door indicated that Mr. Severs
had heeded the call of business.
Almost immediately there came a quick creaking of the rustic stairs and a
light tap on Eveley's window.
"Come in," she called pleasantly. "I sort of expected you. You will
excuse me, won't you, for not getting up, but I have only fifteen minutes
to finish my breakfast and catch the car."
"You are awfully businesslike, aren't you?" asked Mrs. Severs admiringly.
"Yes, I will have a cup of coffee, thanks. I need all the stimulation I
can get."
She was pale, and her eyes were red-rimmed, Eveley noted commiseratingly.
"We are expecting an addition to our family this afternoon, Miss
Ainsworth," she began, her chin quivering childishly.
"Mercy!" gasped Eveley.
"Our father-in-law," added Mrs. Severs quickly. "Dody's father. He is
coming to live with us."
"Oh!" breathed Eveley. "Won't that be lovely?"
Mrs. Severs burst into passionate weeping. "It won't be lovely," she
sobbed. "It will be ghastly." She sat up abruptly and wiped her eyes. "He
is the most heart-breaking thing you ever saw, and he doesn't like me. He
doesn't approve of dimples, and he says I am soft. And he has the most
desperate old chum you ever saw, a perfect wreck with red whiskers, and
they get together every night and play pinochle and smoke smelly old
pipes, and he won't have curtains in his bedroom, and he is crazy about a
phonograph, and he won't eat my cooking."
"I should think you would like that," said Eveley. "Maybe he will cook
for himself."
"That is just it," wailed Mrs. Severs. "He does. He cooks the smelliest
kind of corn beef and cabbage, and eats liver by the--by the cow, and has
raw onions with every meal. And he drinks tea by the gallon. And he cooks
everything himself and piles it on his plate like a mountain and carries
it to the table and sits there and eats it right before company and
everybody."
"I don't see how Mr. Severs ever came to have a father like that," said
Eveley in open surprise.
"Well, the funny thing about it is that he would really be very nice if
he wasn't so outrageous. And he swears terribly. He says 'Holy Mackinaw'
at everything. But he loves Dody. They lived together for years, and it
nearly killed him when Dody got married. And Dody said, 'You will live
with us of course, father,' and so we expected it. But he went off for a
visit after we were married--he and the red-whiskered friend, and we sort
of thought--we kind of hoped--miracles do happen, you know--and so I just
kept believing that something would turn up to save us. But it didn't.
Dody got a letter this morning, and he will be here this afternoon. Oh, I
wish I were dead."
"Is he terribly poor?"
"Mercy, no! He's got plenty of money. Lots more than we have. Enough to
live anywhere he pleases."
"I see it all," said Eveley ominously. "You won't be happy with him, and
he won't be happy with you, but you are all putting up with it because it
is your--duty."
"Yes, that is it, of course."
Eveley poured herself another cup of coffee and drank it rapidly, without
cream, and only one lump of sugar. "I am upset," she said at last. "This
has simply shattered the day for me. Excuse me, you'll have to hurry, I
only have five minutes left. I haven't explained my belief and principles
to you--you being young and newly married and needing all the illusions
possible--but I do not believe in duty."
"Gracious," gasped the bride. "You don't?"
"Absolutely not. No human being should do his duty under any conceivable
circumstances. You see, there are two kinds, the pleasurable ones, and
the painful ones. Pleasurable duties are done, not because they are
duties, but because they are pleasurable. So they do not count. And a
painful duty can not be a duty or it would not be painful. My idea is,
that there must be a happy adjustment of every necessity, so when a duty
is painful, it is the wrong adjustment. You and your father-in-law are
giving yourselves pain because it is the wrong adjustment."
"It sounds very clever."
"It is the only beautiful plan of life," said Eveley modestly.
"And then we would not have to live with father at all?"
"Most certainly not."
"It certainly is a glorious theory," said the bride enthusiastically.
"You explain it to Dody, will you? He is positively death on duty,
especially when it is painful. He'd do his duty if it killed him and me,
burned the house down and started a revolution."
"I have to go now," said Eveley. "Excuse me for rushing you off, but I am
late already. I'll explain it to you another time."
Very skilfully she piloted her caller out the window and down the rustic
steps.
"Remember this," she said as they reached the bottom. "As long as duty is
painful, it is not a duty and can not be. Now find another adjustment.
That is the end of it." And she started on a quick trot for the corner.
"But father will be here this afternoon just the same," called Mrs.
Severs after her in mournful tones.
Being very businesslike, Eveley made a set of notes about the case on her
way down-town.
Liver and cabbage.
Raw onions.
Smelly pipe.
Red-whiskered friend.
Pinochle.
Hates dimples. (I'll keep my left side turned his way.)
Money enough to live on.
Crazy about Dody--christened Andrew.
Dody believes in duty.
"Of course it is up to me to save them," she decided cheerfully, and was
quite happy at the prospect of an engagement in her campaign. "But I
can't neglect getting my car, even to save human nature from its duty,"
she added. And then her mind wandered from the duties of brides, to the
pleasures of young motorists.
Her plan of expenditure was most lucid. She would invest eighteen hundred
dollars in a car, and spend two hundred for clothes "to sustain the
illusion." Nolan did not understand exactly what she meant by that, but
on general principles was convinced it was something reprehensible and
sneered at it. The other five hundred was to be deposited in the bank as
a guarantee for future tires and gasoline and repairs. Nolan said that
according to his information it would be wiser to buy a second-hand car
for five hundred, and keep the eighteen hundred for tires and gas and
repairs.
But Nolan was a struggling young lawyer--even more struggling than
young--and the girls were accustomed to his pessimistic murmurs, and gave
them no heed at all.
Although Eveley had determined to confine herself to eighteen hundred
dollars for the car, she was not morally above accepting demonstrations
of cars entailing twice, and even thrice, that expenditure. "For," she
said, "for all I know somebody else may die and leave me some more, and
then I can get an expensive one. And besides, I feel it is my duty--oh,
no, I mean I feel it would be lots of fun, as a conscientious and
enthusiastic motorist to know the good points of every car."
So Nolan assured her of his complete support and assistance in her
search, even to the detriment of his labors at the law office, where he
hoped one day to be a member of considerable standing. Nolan had two fond
dreams--to become a regular member of the firm, and to marry Eveley. They
were closely related, one to the other. If he could not marry Eveley, he
had no desire for a partnership nor anything else but speedy death. But
until he had the partnership, he felt himself morally obligated to deny
himself Eveley in the flesh. For he was one of those unique,
old-fashioned creatures who feels that man must offer position and
affluence as well as love to the lady of his choice. So it was no mere
mercenary madness on his own account that kept Nolan living a life of
gentle and economic obscurity, patient struggling for a foothold on the
ladder of fame in his profession.
He knew better than to propose to Eveley. He realized that if they were
once formally and blissfully engaged, he, being only mortal man with
human frailties, could never resist the charm of complete possession, and
he foresaw that betrothal would end in speedy marriage to the death of
his determination to bring his goddess glory.
Thus Nolan's lips were sealed--on the subject of marriage. "Though
goodness knows, he has plenty to say about everything else," Eveley
sometimes complained rather plaintively. And his attentions took the form
of a more or less pleasant watch-dog constancy, and an always more and
never less persistence in warding off other suitors not handicapped by
his own scruples in regard to matrimony.