"MY LITTLE RHINOCEROS-BIRD."
It was not all sweet nonsense, though, with this man and woman. Some
practical things of life became theirs soon, because of the love which
was theirs.
A curious thing, and to me a pleasant thing, occurred one night. I was
with Grant Harlson in his room, and he was lying on a sofa smoking,
while I lounged in an easy-chair. Harlson was pretty well fagged out,
for it was the end of a hard day for him, as, for that matter, it had
been for me. There was a ward to be carried against a ring, and
Harlson was in the midst of the fray for half a hundred reasons, and I
was aiding him. He headed the more reputable faction, but in the
opposition were many shrewd men and men of standing.
It was no simple task we had before us, and we had been working hard,
and we were not quite satisfied with the condition of things. The
relations of two men of prominence we wanted to know particularly. Had
there, or had there not, been a coalition between them? If there had,
it would change Harlson's policy, naturally, but work so far had been
conducted on the supposition that an ancient political feud between the
two was not yet ended, and that upon the support of one against the
other he could count with reasonable certainty. We were discussing
this very matter when there came a ring at the door, and a cab-driver
entered.
"There is a lady in my cab," said he, "who wants to see Mr. Harlson."
Harlson was puzzled.
"I don't know what it means," he said. "Come down with me and we'll
solve the mystery," and we went to where the cab was drawn close to the
sidewalk.
The door was opened with some energy, and a woman's head appeared--a
head with brown hair.
"Grant!"
"Jean! What is the matter? What brings you here at such a time? My
poor child."
She laughed. "There is nothing the matter, you big baby. Only I heard
something I thought you would care to know, and which I thought you
should know at once, so I came to tell you."
"Yes, tell me."
"It was this way, you see." All this impetuously. "I was at Mrs.
Carlson's party, and among the guests were Mr. Gordon and Mr. Mason,
with their wives. I didn't listen intentionally, of course, but Mr.
Mason and Mr. Gordon came close to where I was sitting and I heard your
name mentioned, and I suppose that made my hearing suddenly acute, and
I heard in two sentences enough to know that those two gentlemen are
working together against you in something political. So, sir, knowing
your foolish interest in such things, and actuated by my foolish
interest in you, I told aunt I'd like to go home early, and a cab was
called and I was put into it, and I told the driver to come here,
and--you know the rest, you staring personage."
Women can read men's faces, and Jean Cornish must have been repaid for
what she had done by the mere look of the man before her. He said
nothing for a moment, and then uttered only these words softly:
"My little rhinoceros-bird."
"Will you kindly explain the meaning of that extraordinary phrase?"
He did not answer just then, but got into the cab with her and directed
the driver to her home.
She had removed her wraps in the drawing-room when she turned to him
and demanded further information as to the term applied to her. He
made comment on some people's general ignorance of natural history,
took a big arm-chair, placed the young lady in a low seat close beside
him, and, assuming a ponderous, pedagogical air, began:
"The rhinoceros, my child, as you may possibly be aware, is a huge
beast of uncouth appearance, with a horn on its nose, and inhabiting
the wild regions of certain wild countries, notably Africa. It is a
dangerous animal, and has enemies galore and friends but few. The
hunter counts it a noble prize, and steals upon it in its fastnesses,
and even a rhinoceros may not withstand the explosive bullet of modern
science. Somewhat sluggish and dull, at times, is the rhinoceros, and
it is in his careless, listless moods that he is liable to fall a
victim. Well for him is it on such occasions that he has a friend, a
guardian, a tiny lover. Well for him that the rhinoceros-bird exists!
The rhinoceros-bird is a little thing which never deserts the mighty
beast. It perches upon his head or back, and flutters about him, and
makes of him its world. To the rhinoceros-bird the rhinoceros is all
there is of earth. And well is the brute repaid for liking the bird
about him. Though the monster may have stupid periods, the bird has
none, and, hovering about bushes, fluttering over openings, ever alert,
watchful and solicitous, naught may escape its eye, and, danger once
discovered, swift is the warning to the slumbering giant, and then woe
to the intruder on his domain! And such, dear pupil, is the
rhinoceros-bird. And you are my rhinoceros-bird."
She understood, of course. The look in her eyes told that, but her
words belied her.
She said that, in a general way, the simile had application, the
rhinoceros being a huge beast of uncouth appearance.
And, so far as this conversation was concerned, he perished miserably.
But that was only the beginning of a practical exhibition of the
woman's earnestness and acuteness, and her great love. It was but
evidence that she was to be, what she became in time, his
rhinoceros-bird in all things, his right hand, prompter in such
relations as a woman's wit and woman's way best serve. She was of him.
But with two who blended, so there must be many added intervals of
delicious nonsense before the reality of marriage came.
They made odd names for things. They ate lobster together one day, and
he, in some mood, kept misquoting and distorting passages from the
Persian poet, and thenceforth broiled lobster was known to the two as
"a Rubaiyat." And there were a score or two of other bizarre titles
they had made for things or for localities, with the instinct of so
embalming a perfect recollection. And each had certain tricks of
speech, of course, as have all human beings, and these two, so living
in each other, caught all these, and mocked and gibed and imitated,
until there was little difference in their pronunciations. To some one
overhearing them they might have been deemed as of unsound mind, though
they were only talking in love's volapuk.
They resembled each other, these two beings, as nearly in bodily
fancies as in other ways. Each, for instance, was a great water lover,
each addicted to the bath and perfumes, he perhaps because of his long
gymnasium training, and she from the instinct of all purity which
appertains to all women worth the owning.
One afternoon they had fled from the city and were walking on the
beach, beside the lake, with no one near them. For a mile in either
direction, they could look up and down and see that no intruder was in
sight. He sent flat stones skipping and galloping over the waves with
some whirling trick of underthrow, and tried to teach her the device of
it, and they sat upon the sand and ate the luncheon he had secured
preparatory to this great excursion, a luncheon devised with great
skill by a great caterer, and packed in a paper box which would go in a
coat-pocket, and they talked of many things and delighted in being
together, and alone. And he, floundering in the sand, must needs get
much of it inside his shoe. And then this reckless person, having
removed the shoe to rid himself of the sand, must needs step in a
treacherous spot and wet his stocking dismally. And the sensible thing
to do was to remove the stocking and dry it in the sun.
There should be, so far as its relation to society is concerned, no
difference between the human hand and the human foot, but, somehow, the
average man is not, as a rule, ready to exhibit his bare feet
carelessly to the one woman, and to the average woman a similar
revelation would seem a thing indelicate; but these two were not of the
common sort. Harlson pulled off his stocking as carefully as he would
have done a glove, and spread it on the sand where it might dry, and,
laughing at his disaster, he dabbled with his foot in the sand.
She looked at him curiously. She looked at the foot, too, being a
woman, and this being the man above all others to her, and then she
laughed out joyously and frankly.
"I don't believe any one but you would have done that, Grant. And what
a foot you have!"
He replied, with much pomposity, that it was the far-famed Arabian
foot, the instep of which arched so beautifully that water could flow
beneath it without wetting the skin. Just at present, though, he
thought a little water might run over it to advantage, instead of
under, the sand being a trifle mucky. And why would no one else have
done such a thing? And he was glad she liked his foot; in fact, he was
glad she liked anything about him, and rather wondered that she did,
and the world had become to him a good place to live in.
All of which was but the sentimentalism which appertains to a man and a
woman in love with each other, but the drift of thought continued in
the direction suggested by his action and her comment. They looked at
the lake, with its shifting coloring of green and blue and purple, and
he told her how, some day, he would teach her to swim like a Sandwich
Island beauty, and she said she would like to learn. She liked the
water.
"I'm very glad of that," he commented; "I like it myself. I am a great
bather. I admire the English for the 'tubbing' which is made such a
subject of jest against them by other people. There must be water into
which I may tumble when I rise in the morning, or water in abundance in
some way, else I should be a trifle uncomfortable all day long. I
don't mean just a mild lavatory business, you know, but a plunge or a
cataract, or something of that sort. It is barely possible, my dear,
that you are going to marry a man whose remote ancestors were the
product of evolution from otters, instead of monkeys. Think of that!"
And she confessed, half-blushingly, her own regard for water, and that
she had been laughed at by other women for what they deemed a fancy
carried to an extreme. And she said she was very glad that a great big
Somebody was dainty in his ways. While in many respects she could not
approve of him, it was a comfort, at least, to be enabled to think of
him as ever clean and wholesome, and as having one weakness of which
she could condone.
He looked at her majesty, as she sat enthroned upon a little mound, but
to her small oration made no reply. He was worshiping her bodily. And
from this conversation came a sequel, a day or two later, which was but
the worshiping put into things material. Of his love and the bath he
would have fancies, and he wanted what touched her to be from him. She
was surprised by a cumbrous package which, opened, revealed great
things for a woman's dalliance with water--the soft Turkish towel, vast
enough to envelop her, the perfumed soaps, and even the bath-mittens.
And she was a little frightened, maybe, at the personality of it all,
but she recognized the nature of his fancy, and but loved him the more
because he had it. It was an odd gift, it is true, but they were odd
people. They were very close together.
An eventful day in other respects, that is, from a lover's point of
view, was this one of the outing by the lake. The stocking dried, and
in its proper place upon the foot, and inside the shoe again, and the
lunch dispatched, there was more idle rambling by the lakeside, and, of
course, more lovers' talk. At one place there was a little wood which
extended to the water's edge, and there she perched herself in a seat
formed by the bent limb of an upturned tree, and he produced from his
coat-pocket a paper of macaroons for her dessert, and she sat there
munching them like a monkey, while he sprawled, again upon the sand.
She made a pretty picture, this small, brown woman, thus exalted; to
him a wonderful one. Suddenly she ceased her munching and spoke to him
imperiously:
"Come here, sir."
He rose and went to her, standing before her, obedient and waiting.
She reached up and took his face between her hands, and pulled his face
gently downward until the faces of the two were close together. She
looked into his eyes.
"I merely called you up, sir," she said, "to impart a certain piece of
information. I am in love with you."