A REAL KISS
At seventeen, Eleanor was through at Harmon. She was to have one year
of preparatory school and then it was the desire of Beulah's heart
that she should go to Rogers. The others contended that the higher
education should be optional and not obligatory. The decision was
finally to be left to Eleanor herself, after she had considered it in
all its bearings.
"If she doesn't decide in favor of college," David said, "and she
makes her home with me here, as I hope she will do, of course, I don't
see what society we are going to be able to give her. Unfortunately
none of our contemporaries have growing daughters. She ought to meet
eligible young men and that sort of thing."
"Not yet," Margaret cried. The two were having a cozy cup of tea at
his apartment. "You're so terribly worldly, David, that you frighten
me sometimes."
"You don't know where I will end, is that the idea?"
"I don't know where Eleanor will end, if you're already thinking of
eligible young men for her."
"Those things have got to be thought of," David answered gravely.
"I suppose they have," Margaret sighed. "I don't want her to be
married. I want to take her off by myself and growl over her all alone
for a while. Then I want Prince Charming to come along and snatch her
up quickly, and set her behind his milk white charger and ride away
with her. If we've all got to get together and connive at marrying her
off there won't be any comfort in having her."
"I don't know," David said thoughtfully; "I think that might be fun,
too. A vicarious love-affair that you can manipulate is one of the
most interesting games in the world."
"That's not my idea of an interesting game," Margaret said. "I like
things very personal, David,--you ought to know that by this time."
"I do know that," David said, "but it sometimes occurs to me that
except for a few obvious facts of that nature I really know very
little about you, Margaret."
"There isn't much to know--except that I'm a woman."
"That's a good deal," David answered slowly; "to a mere man that seems
to be considerable of an adventure."
"It is about as much of an adventure sometimes as it would be to be a
field of clover in an insectless world.--This is wonderful tea, David,
but your cream is like butter and floats around in it in wudges. No,
don't get any more, I've got to go home. Grandmother still thinks it's
very improper for me to call upon you, in spite of Mademoiselle and
your ancient and honorable housekeeper."
"Don't go," David said; "I apologize on my knees for the cream. I'll
send out and have it wet down, or whatever you do to cream in that
state. I want to talk to you. What did you mean by your last remark?"
"About the cream, or the proprieties?"
"About women."
"Everything and nothing, David dear. I'm a little bit tired of being
one, that's all, and I want to go home."
"She wants to go home when she's being so truly delightful and
cryptic," David said. "Have you been seeing visions, Margaret, in my
hearth fire? Your eyes look as if you had."
"I thought I did for a minute." She rose and stood absently fitting
her gloves to her fingers. "I don't know exactly what it was I saw,
but it was something that made me uncomfortable. It gives me the
creeps to talk about being a woman. David, do you know sometimes I
have a kind of queer hunch about Eleanor? I love her, you know,
dearly, dearly. I think that she is a very successful kind of
Frankenstein; but there are moments when I have the feeling that she's
going to be a storm center and bring some queer trouble upon us. I
wouldn't say this to anybody but you, David."
As David tucked her in the car--he had arrived at the dignity of
owning one now--and watched her sweet silhouette disappear, he, too,
had his moment of clairvoyance. He felt that he was letting something
very precious slip out of sight, as if some radiant and delicate gift
had been laid lightly within his grasp and as lightly withdrawn again.
As if when the door closed on his friend Margaret some stranger, more
silent creature who was dear to him had gone with her. As soon as he
was dressed for dinner he called Margaret on the telephone to know if
she had arrived home safely, and was informed not only that she had,
but that she was very wroth at him for getting her down three flights
of stairs in the midst of her own dinner toilet.
"I had a kind of hunch, too," he told her, "and I felt as if I wanted
to hear your voice speaking."
But she only scoffed at him.
"If that's the way you feel about your chauffeur," she said, "you
ought to discharge him, but he brought me home beautifully."
The difference between a man's moments of prescience and a woman's, is
that the man puts them out of his consciousness as quickly as he can,
while a woman clings to them fearfully and goes her way a little more
carefully for the momentary flash of foresight. David tried to see
Margaret once or twice during that week but failed to find her in when
he called or telephoned, and the special impulse to seek her alone
again died naturally.
One Saturday a few weeks later Eleanor telegraphed him that she
wished to come to New York for the week-end to do some shopping.
He went to the train to meet her, and when the slender chic figure in
the most correct of tailor made suits appeared at the gateway, with an
obsequious porter bearing her smart bag and ulster, he gave a sudden
gasp of surprise at the picture. He had been aware for some time of
the increase in her inches and the charm of the pure cameo-cut
profile, but he regarded her still as a child histrionically assuming
the airs and graces of womanhood, as small girl children masquerade in
the trailing skirts of their elders. He was accustomed to the idea
that she was growing up rapidly, but the fact that she was already
grown had never actually dawned on him until this moment.
"You look as if you were surprised to see me, Uncle David,--are you?"
she said, slipping a slim hand, warm through its immaculate glove,
into his. "You knew I was coming, and you came to meet me, and yet you
looked as surprised as if you hadn't expected me at all."
"Surprised to see you just about expresses it, Eleanor. I am surprised
to see you. I was looking for a little girl in hair ribbons with her
skirts to her knees."
"And a blue tam-o'-shanter?"
"And a blue tam-o'-shanter. I had forgotten you had grown up any to
speak of."
"You see me every vacation," Eleanor grumbled, as she stepped into the
waiting motor. "It isn't because you lack opportunity that you don't
notice what I look like. It's just because you're naturally
unobserving."
"Peter and Jimmie have been making a good deal of fuss about your
being a young lady, now I think of it. Peter especially has been
rather a nuisance about it, breaking into my most precious moments of
triviality with the sweetly solemn thought that our little girl has
grown to be a woman now."
"Oh, does _he_ think I'm grown up, does he really?"
"Jimmie is almost as bad. He's all the time wanting me to get you to
New York over the weekend, so that he can see if you are any taller
than you were the last time he saw you."
"Are they coming to see me this evening?"
"Jimmie is going to look in. Peter is tied up with his sister. You
know she's on here from China with her daughter. Peter wants you to
meet the child."
"She must be as grown up as I am," Eleanor said. "I used to have her
room, you know, when I stayed with Uncle Peter. Does Uncle Peter like
her?"
"Not as much as he likes you, Miss Green-eyes. He says she looks like
a heathen Chinee but otherwise is passable. I didn't know that you
added jealousy to the list of your estimable vices."
"I'm not jealous," Eleanor protested; "or if I am it's only because
she's blood relation,--and I'm not, you know."
"It's a good deal more prosaic to be a blood relation, if anybody
should ask you," David smiled. "A blood relation is a good deal like
the famous primrose on the river's brim."
"'A primrose by the river's brim a yellow primrose was to him,--and
nothing more,'" Eleanor quoted gaily. "Why, what more--" she broke off
suddenly and colored slightly.
"What more would anybody want to be than a yellow primrose by the
river's brim?" David finished for her. "I don't know, I'm sure. I'm a
mere man and such questions are too abstruse for me, as I told your
Aunt Margaret the other day. Now I think of it, though, you don't look
unlike a yellow primrose yourself to-day, daughter."
"That's because I've got a yellow ribbon on my hat."
"No, the resemblance goes much deeper. It has something to do with
youth and fragrance and the flowers that bloom in the spring."
"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la," Eleanor returned
saucily, "have nothing to do with the case."
"She's learning that she has eyes, good Lord," David said to himself,
but aloud he remarked paternally, "I saw all your aunts yesterday.
Gertrude gave a tea party and invited a great many famous tea party
types, and ourselves."
"Was Aunt Beulah there?"
"I said all your aunts. Beulah was there, like the famous Queenie,
with her hair in a braid."
"Not really."
"Pretty nearly. She's gone in for dress reform now, you know, a kind
of middy blouse made out of a striped portière with a kilted skirt of
the same material and a Scotch cap. She doesn't look so bad in it.
Your Aunt Beulah presents a peculiar phenomenon these days. She's
growing better-looking and behaving worse every day of her life."
"Behaving worse?"
"She's theory ridden and fad bitten. She'll come to a bad end if
something doesn't stop her."
"Do you mean--stop her working for suffrage? I'm a suffragist, Uncle
David."
"And quite right to remind me of it before I began slamming the cause.
No, I don't mean suffrage. I believe in suffrage myself. I mean the
way she's going after it. There are healthy ways of insisting on your
rights and unhealthy ways. Beulah's getting further and further off
key, that's all. Here we are at home, daughter. Your poor old
cooperative father welcomes you to the associated hearthstone."
"This front entrance looks more like my front entrance than any other
place does," Eleanor said. "Oh! I'm so glad to be here. George, how is
the baby?" she asked the black elevator man, who beamed delightedly
upon her.
"Gosh! I didn't know he had one," David chuckled. "It takes a
woman--"
Jimmie appeared in the evening, laden with violets and a five pound
box of the chocolates most in favor in the politest circles at the
moment. David whistled when he saw them.
"What's devouring you, papa?" Jimmie asked him. "Don't I always place
tributes at the feet of the offspring?"
"Mirror candy and street corner violets, yes," David said. "It's only
the labels that surprised me."
"She knows the difference, now," Jimmie answered, "what would you?"
The night before her return to school it was decreed that she should
go to bed early. She had spent two busy days of shopping and "seeing
the family." She had her hours discussing her future with Peter, long
visits and talks with Margaret and Gertrude, and a cup of tea at
suffrage headquarters with Beulah, as well as long sessions in the
shops accompanied by Mademoiselle, who made her home now permanently
with David. She sat before the fire drowsily constructing pyramids out
of the embers and David stood with one arm on the mantel, smoking his
after-dinner cigar, and watching her.
"Is it to be college, Eleanor?" he asked her presently.
"I can't seem to make up my mind, Uncle David."
"Don't you like the idea?"
"Yes, I'd love it,--if--"
"If what, daughter?"
"If I thought I could spare the time."
"The time? Elucidate."
"I'm going to earn my own living, you know."
"I didn't know."
"I am. I've got to--in order to--to feel right about things."
"Don't you like the style of living to which your cooperative parents
have accustomed you?"
"I love everything you've ever done for me, but I can't go on letting
you do things for me forever."
"Why not?"
"I don't know why not exactly. It doesn't seem--right, that's all."
"It's your New England conscience, Eleanor; one of the most specious
varieties of consciences in the world. It will always be tempting you
to do good that better may come. Don't listen to it, daughter."
"I'm in earnest, Uncle David. I don't know whether I would be better
fitted to earn my living if I went to business college or real
college. What do you think?"
"I can't think,--I'm stupefied."
"Uncle Peter couldn't think, either."
"Have you mentioned this brilliant idea to Peter?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He talked it over with me, but I think he thinks I'll change my
mind."
"I think you'll change your mind. Good heavens! Eleanor, we're all
able to afford you--the little we spend on you is nothing divided
among six of us. It's our pleasure and privilege. When did you come to
this extraordinary decision?"
"A long time ago. The day that Mrs. Bolling talked to me, I think.
There are things she said that I've never forgotten. I told Uncle
Peter to think about it and then help me to decide which to do, and I
want you to think, Uncle David, and tell me truly what you believe
the best preparation for a business life would be. I thought perhaps I
might be a stenographer in an editorial office, and my training there
would be more use to me than four years at college, but I don't
know."
"You're an extraordinary young woman," David said, staring at her.
"I'm glad you broached this subject, if only that I might realize how
extraordinary, but I don't think anything will come of it, my dear. I
don't want you to go to college unless you really want to, but if you
do want to, I hope you will take up the pursuit of learning as a
pursuit and not as a means to an end. Do you hear me, daughter?"
"Yes, Uncle David."
"Then let's have no more of this nonsense of earning your own
living."
"Are you really displeased, Uncle David?"
"I should be if I thought you were serious,--but it's bedtime. If
you're going to get your beauty sleep, my dear, you ought to begin on
it immediately."
Eleanor rose obediently, her brow clouded a little, and her head held
high. David watched the color coming and going in the sweet face and
the tender breast rising and falling with her quickening breath.
"I thought perhaps you would understand," she said. "Good night."
She had always kissed him "good night" until this visit, and he had
refrained from commenting on the omission before, but now he put out
his hand to her.
"Haven't you forgotten something?" he asked. "There is only one way
for a daughter to say good night to her parent."
She put up her face, and as she did so he caught the glint of tears in
her eyes.
"Why, Eleanor, dear," he said, "did you care?" And he kissed her. Then
his lips sought hers again.
With his arms still about her shoulder he stood looking down at her. A
hot tide of crimson made its way slowly to her brow and then receded,
accentuating the clear pallor of her face.
"That was a real kiss, dear," he said slowly. "We mustn't get such
things confused. I won't bother you with talking about it to-night, or
until you are ready. Until then we'll pretend that it didn't happen,
but if the thought of it should ever disturb you the least bit, dear,
you are to remember that the time is coming when I shall have
something to say about it; will you remember?"
"Yes, Uncle David," Eleanor said uncertainly, "but I--I--"
David took her unceremoniously by the shoulders.
"Go now," he said, and she obeyed him without further question.