THE CLUB BECOMES POPULAR.
The influence of Wee Winnie on the war-path was soon apparent. On the
following Wednesday morning the ante-room of the Club was as crowded
with candidates as if Lillie had advertised for a clerk with three
tongues at ten pounds a year. Silverdale had gone down to Fleet Street
to inquire if anything had been heard of Miss Ellaline Rand's projected
paper, and Lillie grappled with the applicants single-handed.
Turple the magnificent, was told to usher them into the confessional one
by one, but the first two candidates insisted that they were one, and as
he could not tell which one he gave way.
It is said that the shepherd knows every sheep of his flock
individually, and that a superintendent can tell one policeman from
another. Some music-hall managers even profess to distinguish between
one pair of singing sisters and all the other pairs. But even the most
trained eye would be puzzled to detect any difference between these two
lovely young creatures. They were as like as two peas or two cues, or
the two gentlemen who mount and descend together the mirror-lined
staircase of a restaurant. Interrogated as to the motives of their
would-be renunciation, one of them replied: "My sister and myself are
twins. We were born so. When the news was announced to our father, he is
reported to have exclaimed, 'What a misfortune!' His sympathy was not
misplaced, for from our nursery days upward our perfect resemblance to
each other has brought us perpetual annoyance. Do what we would, we
never could never get mistaken for each other. The pleasing delusion
that either of us would be saddled with the misdeeds of the other has
got us into scrapes without number. At school we each played all sorts
of pranks, making sure the other would be punished for them. Alas! the
consequences have always recoiled on the head of the guilty party. We
were not even whipped for neglecting each other's lessons. It was always
for neglecting our own. But in spite of the stern refusal of experience
to favor us with the usual imbroglio, we always went on hoping that the
luck would turn. We read Shakespeare's _Comedy of Errors_, and that
confirmed us in our evil courses. When we grew up, it would be hard to
say which was the giddier, for each hoped that the other would have to
bear the burden of her escapades. You will have gathered from our
friskiness that our parents were strict Puritans, but at last they
allowed an eligible young curate to visit the house with a view to
matrimony. He was too good for us; our parents were as much as we wanted
in that line. Unfortunately, in this crisis, unknown to each other, the
old temptation seized us. Each felt it a unique chance of trying if the
thing wouldn't work. When the other was out of the room, each made love
to the unwelcome suitor so as to make him fall in love with her sister.
Wretched victims of mendacious farce-writers! The result was that he
fell in love with us both!"
She paused a moment overcome with emotion, then resumed. "He proposed to
us both simultaneously, vowed he could not live without us. He exclaimed
passionately that he could not be happy with either were t'other dear
charmer away. He said he was ready to become a Mormon for love of us."
[Illustration: _He was willing to become a Mormon._]
"And what was your reply?" said Lillie anxiously.
The fresh young voices broke out into a duet: "We told him to ask papa."
"We were both so overwhelmed by this catastrophe," pursued the
story-teller, "that we vowed for mutual self-protection against our
besetting temptation to fribble at the other's expense, never to let
each other out of sight. In the farces all the mistakes happen through
the twins being on only one at a time. Thus have we balanced each
other's tendencies to indiscretion before it was too late, and saved
ourselves from ourselves. This necessity of being always together,
imposed on us by our unhappy resemblance, naturally excludes either from
marriage."
Lillie was not favorably impressed with these skittish sisters. "I
sympathize intensely with the sufferings of either," she said slily, "in
being constrained to the society of the other. But your motives of
celibacy are not sufficiently pure, nor have you fulfilled our prime
condition, for even granting that your reply to the eligible young
Churchman was tantamount to a rejection, it still only amounts to a half
rejection each, which is fifty per cent. below our standard."
She rang the bell. Turple the magnificent ushered the twins out and the
next candidate in. She was an ethereal blonde in a simple white frock,
and her story was as simple.
"Read this Rondeau," she said. "It will tell you all."
Lillie took the lines. They were headed
THE LOVELY MAY--AN OLD MAID'S PLAINT.
The lovely May at last is here,
Long summer days are drawing near,
And nights with cloudless moonshine rich;
In woodlands green, on waters clear,
Soft-couched in fern, or on the mere,
Gliding like some white water-witch,
Or lunching in a leafy niche,
I see my sweet-faced sister dear,
The lovely May.
_She_ is engaged--and her career
Is one of skittles blent with beer,
While I, plain sewing left to stitch,
Can ne'er expect those pleasures which,
At this bright season of the year,
The lovely may.
Lillie looked up interrogatively. "But surely _you_ have nothing to
complain of in the way of loveliness?" she said.
"No, of course not. _I am_ the lovely May. It was my sister who wrote
that. She died in June and I found it among her manuscripts. Remorse set
in at the thought of Maria stitching while I was otherwise engaged. I
disengaged myself at once. What's fair for one is fair for all. Women
should combine. While there's one woman who can't get a husband, no man
should be allowed to get a wife."
"Hear, hear!" cried Lillie enthusiastically. "Only I am afraid there
will always be blacklegs among us who will betray their sex for the sake
of a husband."
"Alas, yes," agreed the lovely May. "I fear such was the nature of my
sister Maria. She coveted even my first husband."
"What!" gasped the President. "Are you a widow?"
"Certainly! I left off black when I was engaged again, and when I was
disengaged I dared not resume it for fear of seeming to mourn my
_fiancé_."
"We cannot have widows in the Old Maids' Club," said Lillie regretfully.
"Then I shall start a new Widows' Club and Old Maids shall have no place
in it." And the lovely May sailed out, all smiles and tears.
The newcomer was a most divinely tall and most divinely fair brunette
with a brooding, morbid expression. Candidate gave the name of Miss
Summerson.
Being invited to make a statement, she said: "I have abandoned the idea
of marrying. I have no money. Ergo, I cannot afford to marry a poor man.
And I am resolved never to marry a rich one. I want to be loved for
myself, not for my want of money. You may stare, but I know what I am
talking about. What other attraction have I? Good looks? Plenty of girls
with money have that, who would be glad to marry the men I have
rejected. In the town I came from I lived with my cousin, who was an
heiress. She was far lovelier than I. Yet all the moneyed men were at my
feet. They were afraid of being suspected of fortune-hunting and anxious
to vindicate their elevation of character. Why should I marry to gratify
a man's vanity, his cravings after cheap quixotism?"
"Your attitude on the great question of the age does you infinite
credit, but as you have no banking account to put it to, you traverse
the regulation requiring a property qualification," said the President.
"Is there no way over the difficulty?"
"I fear not: unless you marry a rich man, and that disqualifies you
under another rule." And Miss Summerson passed sadly into the outer
darkness, to be replaced by a young lady who gave the name of Nell
Lightfoot. She wore a charming hat and a smile like the spreading of
sunshine over a crystal pool. "I met a young Scotchman," she said, "at a
New Year's dance, and we were favorably impressed by each other. On the
fourteenth of the following February I received from him a Valentine,
containing a proposal of marriage and a revelation of the degradation of
masculine nature. It would seem he had two strings to his bow--the other
being a rich widow whom he had met in a Devonshire lane. Being a
Scotchman he had for economy's sake composed a Valentine which with a
few slight alterations would do for both of us. Unfortunately for
himself he sent me the original draft by mistake and here is his
VERACIOUS VALENTINE.
Though the weather is snowy and dreary
And a shiver careers down my spine,
Yet the heart in my bosom is cheery,
For I feel I've exchanged mine for thine.
Do not call it delusion, my dearie,
But become my own loved Valentine.
For that { stormy June day you } remember,
{ New Year's dance you must }
When we { sheltered together from rain,
{ waltzed to a languorous strain,
While the sky, like the Fifth of November, }
And our souls glowed despite 'twas December }
Gleamed with lightening outrivalling P { ain. }
With a burning but glorious p { }
Ah me! In my fire's dying ember
I can see that { dank Devonshire lane.
{ bright ball-room again.
And } I spoke { of the love that I } bore you,
Yet } { not then, fearing to }
And of how for a widow I } yearned,
Though for maidenly love my heart }
Not a schoolgirl { and fealty I swore you,
{ I'd gazed on before you,
And you listened till sunshine re- } turned,
Had my heart with such sweet madness }
Then { you } parted { from me who } adore you,
{ we } { but still I }
And my heart and umbrella you spurned. }
Though you may not my love have discerned, }
Not repelled by { hoarded-up } money,
{ having no }
I adore you, my { Belle, } for yourself,
{ Nell, }
You are sweeter than music or honey;
And Dan Cupid's a sensuous elf,
Who is drawn to the fair and the sunny,
And is blind unto nothing but pelf.
Need we feel a less genuine passion
Because we { shall } live in May-fair?
{ can't }
Love { blooms rich } in the hothouse of fashion,
{ oft fades }
'Tis { an orchid that flourishes there;
{ a moss-rose that needs the fresh air;
Yet I would not my own darling lass shun
Were she even as { poor } as she's { fair.
{ rich } { rare.
There are fools who adore a complexion
That's like strawberries mingled with cream. }
As with Nubian blacking a gleam }
A brunette } is my own predilection,
But a blonde }
And the glances from { dark } eyes that beam
{ blue }
Then refuse not my deathless affection,
Neither shatter my amorous dream.
You're the very first { woman } who's thrilled me
{ maiden }
With the passion that tongue cannot tell.
Of none else have I thought since you filled me
With { despair in that Devonshire dell. }
{ unrest when the waltz wove its spell. }
When your final refusal has killed me.
On my heart will be found graven { Belle.
{ Nell.
"How strange!" said Lillie. "You combine the disqualifications of two of
the previous candidates. You are apparently poor and you have received
only half a proposal."
A flaming blonde, whose brow was crowned with an aurora of auburn hair,
was the next to burst upon the epigrammatic scene. She spoke English
with an excellent Parisian accent. "One has called me a young woman in a
hurry," she said, "and the description does not want of truth. I am
impatient; I have large ideas; I am ambitious. If I were a grocer I
should contract for the Sahara. I fall in love, and when Alice Leroux
falls in love it is like the volcano which goes to make eruption. Figure
to yourself that my man is shy--but of a shyness of the most
ridiculous--that it is necessary to make a thousand sweet eyes at him
before he comprehends that he loves me. And when he comprehends it, he
does not speak. _Mon Dieu_, he does not speak, though I speak, me, with
fan, my eyes, my fingers, almost with my lips. He walks with me--but he
does not speak. He takes me to the spectacle--but he does not speak. He
promenades himself in boat with me--but he does not speak. I encircle
him with my arms, and I speak with my lips at last--one, two, three,
four, five, kisses. Overwhelmed, astonished, he returns me my
kisses--hesitatingly, stupidly, but in fine, he returns them And then at
last--with our faces together, my arm round his graceful waist--he
speaks. The first words of love comes from his mouth--and what think you
that he say? Say then."
[Illustration: _I encircle him with my arms and speak with my lips._]
"I love you?" murmured Lillie.
"A thousand thunders! No! He says: 'Miss Leroux--Alice; may I call you
Alice?'"
"I see nothing to wonder at in that," replied Lillie quietly. "Remember
that for a man to kiss you is a less serious step than for him to call
you Alice. That were a stage on the road to marriage, and should only be
reached through the gate of betrothal. Changes of name are the outward
marks of a woman's development as much as changes of form accompany the
growth of the caterpillar. You, for instance, began life as Alice. In
due course you became Miss Alice; if you were the eldest daughter you
became Miss Leroux at once; if you were not, you inherited the name only
on your sister's death or marriage; when you are betrothed you will
revert to the simple Alice, and when you are married you will become
Mrs. Something Else; and every time you get married, if you are careful
to select husbands of varying patronymics, you will be furnished with a
change of name as well as of address. Providence, which has conferred so
many sufferings upon woman, has given her this one advantage over man,
who in the majority of instance is doomed to the monotony of ossified
nomenclature, and has to wear the same name on his tombstone which he
wore on his Eton collar."
"That is all a heap of galimatias," replied the Parisienne with the
flaming hair "If I kiss a man, I, surely he may call me Alice without
demanding it? Bah! Let him love your misses with _eau sucrée_ in their
veins. When he insulted me with his stupidity, I became furious. I threw
him--how you say?--overboard on the instant."
"Good heavens!" gasped Lillie. "Then you are a murderess!"
"Figure you to yourself that I speak at the foot of the letter? Know you
not the idioms of your own barbarian tongue? It seems to me you are as
mad as he. Perhaps you are his sister."
"Certainly. Our rules require us to regard all men as brothers."
"_He!_ What?"
"We have rejected the love of all men; consequently we have to regard
them all as our brothers."
"That man there my brother!" shrieked Alice. "Never! Never of my life! I
would rather marry first!" And she went off to do so.
The last of these competitors for the Old Maiden Stakes was a whirlwind
in petticoats who welcomed the President very affably. "Good-morning,
Miss Dulcimer," she said. "I've heard of you. I'm from Boston way. You
know I travel about the world in search of culture. I'm spending the day
in Europe, so I thought I'd look you up. Would you be so good as to
epitomize your scheme in twenty words? I've got to see the Madonna del
Cardellino in the Uffizi at Florence before ten to-morrow, and I want to
hear an act of the _Meistersingers_ at Bayreuth after tea."
"I'm rather tired," pleaded Lillie, overwhelmed by the dynamic energy
radiating from every square inch of the Bostonian's superficies. "I have
had a hard morning's work. Couldn't you call again to-morrow?"
"Impossible. I have just wired to Damietta to secure rooms commanding a
view of Professor Tickledroppe's excavations on the banks of the Nile. I
dote on archæological treasures and thought I should like to see the Old
Maids. Are they on view?"
"No, they are not here," said Lillie evasively. "But do you want to join
us?"
"Shall I have time? I remember I once wasted a week getting married.
Some women waste their whole lives that way. Marriage is an incident of
life's novel--they make it the whole plot. I don't say it isn't an
interesting experience. Every woman ought to go through it once, but
with the infinite possibilities of culture lying all round us it's mere
Philistinism to give one husbandman more than a week of your society.
Mine is a physician practising in Philadelphia. Judging by the checks he
sends me he must be a successful man. Well, I am real glad to have had
this little talk with you, it's been so interesting. I will become an
Honorary Member of your charming Club with pleasure."
"You cannot if you are married. You can only be a visitor."
"What's my being married got to do with it?" inquired the American in
astonishment. "This is the first time I have ever heard that the name of
a club has anything to do with the membership. Are the members of the
Savage Club savages, of the Garrick Garricks, of the Supper Club
suppers?"
"We are not men," Lillie said haughtily. "I could pass over your
relation to the hub of the universe, but when it comes to having a
private hub I have no option."
"Well, this may be your English idea of hospitality to travellers of
culture," replied the Bostonian warmly, "but if you come to our crack
Crank Club in the fall you shall be as welcome as a brand new poet.
Good-bye. Hope we shall meet again. I shall be in Hong Kong in June if
you like to drop in. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Lillie, pressing one hand against the visitor's and the
other to her aching forehead.
Silverdale found her dissolved in tears. "In future," he said, when she
had explained her troubles, "I shall hang the rules and by-laws in the
waiting room. The candidates will then be able to eliminate themselves.
By the way, Ellaline Rand's _Cherub_ is going to sit up aloft,--on a
third floor in Fleet Street."