TWO FOOLS STILL.
When a woman, who is all there is in the world to a man, falls into the
deliciously generous mood of abandonment, and is revealing what is in
her heart, the man, I understand from various excellent authorities,
gets about as near heaven as he may ever do in the flesh. And Harlson
formed no exception to the rule. The small personage on the limb of
the fallen tree owned him as absolutely and completely as ever
Cleopatra owned a slave, or Elizabeth a servitor.
"I don't know what to say," he murmured. "There aren't any
words--but--you understand."
She pulled his face still closer and kissed him on the lips, though
blushing as she did so, for this young woman had fancies regarding lips
and regarding kisses which should be entertained by a greater number of
the women of the land. Then she told him to lie upon the sand again;
that she wanted to look at him. And he obeyed, machine-like.
She was in a fantastic mood assuredly. She watched him, her cheek
resting upon one little hand for a long time, a thoughtful look upon
her face. Then she broke out impetuously:
"How smooth and clean your face is! Do you--do you go to--you know
what I mean. Do you go to a barber every day?"
He answered that he shaved himself.
"Is it very hard?" she asked.
"Well, that depends."
She studied once more for a long time, then spoke again, on this
occasion blushing furiously:
"Grant, dear, I want to _do_ things for you always. I want to take
care of you. It seems to me that, some time, I might learn, you know.
It seems to me that some time I might almost"--with a little
gasp--"shave you."
He wanted to gather her up in his arms and smother and caress her,
after that climax of tender admission, but she waved her hand as she
saw him rising. He fell back then upon his ignoble habit of talking
vast science to her.
"My dear, that dream may, I hope, be realized. I'd rather have my face
slashed by you than be shaved by the most careful, conscientious and
silent barber in all Christendom, but shaving is a matter of much
gravity. It is not the removal of the beard which tests the intellect;
it is the sharpening of the razors."
"How is that, sir?"
"All razors are feminine, and things of moods. The razor you sharpen
to-day may not be sharp, though manipulated upon hone or strap with all
persistence and all skill. The razor you sharpen to-morrow may be far
more tractable. Furthermore, the razor which is comparatively dull
to-day may be sharp to-morrow, without further treatment."
She said that, in her opinion, that was nonsense, and that he was
trying to impose upon a friendless girl, because the topic was one of
which men would, ordinarily, have a monopoly, and regarding which they
would assume all wisdom, and, perhaps, make jests.
"I am in earnest," he said. "Razors have moods, and are known to sulk.
But science has solved the conundrum of their antics. It has been
discovered that whetting changes the location of the molecules of
metal, that there is frequently left what is not a perfect edge after
the supposed sharpening, but that, given time, the molecules will
readjust themselves, and the edge return. My dear, you are now, or at
least should be, a woman rarely learned in one great mystery. Is there
no reward for merit?"
She scorned reply to such a screed, but slid down from her perch with
the remark that she had "et hearty." A man who had eaten near them in
a restaurant had used the expression, and they had both promptly
adopted it.
He rose, went to her side, and leaned over, and inhaled the perfume of
her hair.
She looked up mischievously. "You are a big black animal!"
As already remarked, these two were very foolish.
That same evening, when Grant Harlson reached his office, he found a
note awaiting him. It was a pretty, perfumed thing, and he knew the
handwriting upon it well. He had not seen the writer for three months.
He had almost forgotten her existence, yet she had been one with whom
his life had been, upon a time, closely associated. He opened the
envelope and read the note:
MY DEAR GRANT: Yon know I am philosophical--for a woman--and that I
have never been exacting. I have formed habits, though, and have
certain foolish ways. One of these ways was to be much with Grant
Harlson, not very long ago. I lost him, somehow, but still have a
curiosity to see his face again, to note if it has changed. I have
something to say to him, too. Please call upon me to-night. ADA.
The effect of the note upon the man was not altogether pleasant. He
felt a certain guiltiness at his own indifference. This clever woman
of the social world he knew was not to be trifled with by one unarmored
or irresolute. He had hoped she would forget him, that his own
indifference would breed the same feeling upon her part, and now he
knew he was mistaken, as men have been mistaken before. There was an
interview to be faced, and one promising interesting features. He
started on the mission with a grimace.