three women. I would do it in a way which should not shock them with its
coarseness or starve them with its poverty. As it is now, most women deny
themselves the expression of the best part of their love, because they
know it will be either a puzzle or a terror to their lovers."
Percival was vitally interested at once.
"Is that really so?" he asked. "Do you suppose any of them withhold
anything from such a fear?" His face was so uplifted that I plunged on,
thoroughly in the dark, but, like Barkis, "willin'." If I could be of use
to him in an emergency, I was only too happy.
"Men never realize the height of the pedestal where women in love place
them, nor do they know with how many perfections they are invested nor how
religiously women keep themselves deceived on the subject. They cannot
comprehend the succession of little shocks which is caused by the real man
coming in contact with the ideal. And if they did understand, they would
think that such mere trifles should not affect the genuine article of
love, and that women simply should overlook foibles, and go on loving the
damaged article just as blindly as before. But what man could view his
favorite marble tumbling from its pedestal continually, and losing first a
finger, then an arm, then a nose, and would go on setting it up each time,
admiring and reverencing in the mutilated remains the perfect creation
which first enraptured him? He wouldn't take the trouble to fill up the
nicks and glue on the lost fingers as women do to their idols. He wouldn't
even try to love it as he used to do. When it began to look too battered
up, he would say, 'Here, put this thing in the cellar and let's get it out
of the way.'"
Percival listened with specific interest, and admitted its truth with a
fair-mindedness surprising even in him.
"Do you suppose it is possible for a man ever to thoroughly understand a
woman?" he asked, with a retrospective slowness, directed, I was sure,
towards that empty-headed sweetheart of his.
"I really do not know," I said honestly. "I think if he tried with all his
might he could."
"Do you think--you know me better than any one else does--do you think
_I_ could, if I gave my whole mind to it?"
"You, if anybody." I answered him with the occasional absolute
truthfulness which occurs between a man and a woman when they are
completely lifted out of themselves. Something more than mere pleasure
shone in his eyes. It was as if I had reached his soul.
"If no man ever has been all that a woman in love really believes him, the
best a man could do would be to take care that she never found out her
mistake," he said slowly.
"Exactly," I said; "you are getting on. It is only another way of making
yourself live up to her ideal of you."
"Supposing after all, that the woman I love will have none of me," he
said, unconsciously slipping from the third person to the first.
"I wouldn't admit even the possibility if I were a man. I would besiege
the fortress. I would sit on her front doorstep until she gave in. Don't
ask her to have you. Tell her you are going to have her whether or no," I
cried, thinking of Rachel's words. He looked so encouraged that I am
afraid I have sent him post-haste to the Flossy girl, and gotten him into
life-long trouble. But I had gone too far. I quite hurried, in my
accidental endeavor to shipwreck him.
"Men do not understand these things, because they will not give time
enough to them. Real love-making requires the patience, the tenderness,
the sympathy which women alone possess in the highest degree. Possibly she
loves you deeply, only you do not believe it. Gauged by a woman's love,
many men love, marry, and die, without even approximating the real grand
passion themselves, or comprehending that which they have inspired, for
no one but a woman can fathom a woman's love."
I couldn't help going on after I started, for he was thinking of the other
woman, and looking at me in a way that would have made my heart turn over,
if I hadn't been an Old Maid, and known that his look was not for me.
Then he ground my rings into my hand until I nearly shrieked with the
pain, and said, "God bless you!" very hoarsely, and dashed out of the
house before I could pull myself together. _I_ say so too. God bless me,
what have I done? I've sent him straight to that Flossy girl. I feel it.
I've smoothed out something between them. I have accidentally made him
articulate, and articulation in such a man as Percival is overpowering. He
is a murdered man, and mine is the hand that slew him.
Tabby, old maids are a public nuisance, not to say dangerous. They ought
to be suppressed.
* * * * *
I wonder if he will burst in upon her with that look upon his face!
V
THE HEART OF A COQUETTE
"Strange, that a film of smoke can blot a star!"
He did. And the woman was--Rachel. Tabby, I never was better pleased with
myself in my life. I love old maids. I think that whenever they are
accidental they are perfectly lovely. But _what_ a risk I ran!
I did not know a thing about it until I received their wedding-cards. It
was just like Rachel not to tell me, and it was insufferably stupid in me
not to use the few wits I am possessed of, and see how matters stood. But
my fears and tremors were that Frankie Taliaferro would get him, so I have
watched her all this time. Percival laughed almost scornfully when I told
him this, and said I had been barking up the wrong tree. I retaliated by
saying that if they had been ordinary lovers, I never could have made
such a mistake, and they took it as a great compliment. When I consider
the general run of engaged people, I am inclined to agree with them.
Everybody seems to think they are making an experiment of marriage,
because they are so much alike. But, then, doesn't every one who marries
at all, Jew or Gentile, black or white, bond or free, make an experiment?
I myself have no fear as to how the Percival experiment will turn out.
Rachel says that they are so similar in all their tastes and ideals that
if she were a man she would be Percival, and if he were a woman he would
be Rachel. "Then you still would have a chance to marry each other," I
said frivolously. But she assented with a depth of feeling which ignored
my feeble attempt to be cheerful. "Yet," she continued, "there is a
subtle, alluring difference in our thoughts; just enough to add piquancy,
not irritation, to a discussion. I do not love white, and he does not love
black, as so many husbands and wives do. We both love gray; different
tones of gray, but still gray. It is very restful." The Percivals are not
only restful to themselves, but to others. They used to be in the highly
irritable, nervous state of those whose sensitive organisms are a little
too fine for this world. I never objected to it myself, but I have said
before that Rachel was of no use to ordinary society, and Percival was
little better. When people failed to understand her, she retired into
herself with a dignity which was mistaken for ill-temper. She is too
refined and high-minded to defend herself against the "slings and arrows
of outrageous" people, although if she would, she could exterminate them
with her wit. And some could so easily be spared. It seems, too, that she
is great enough to be a target, so she is under fire continually. This,
while it causes her exquisite suffering, is from no fault of her own--save
the unforgivable one of being original. "A frog spat at a glow-worm. 'Why
do you spit at me?' said the glow-worm. 'Why do you shine so?' said the
frog." And as to Percival--the man I used to know was Percival in embryo.
He is maturing now, and is radiant in Rachel's sympathetic comprehension
of him. He refers to the time before he knew her as his "protoplasmic
state," as indeed it was. But there are a good many of us who would be
willing to remain protoplasm all our lives to possess a tithe of his
genius--you and I among the number, Tabby. You needn't look at me so
reproachfully out of your old-gold eyes. You know you would.
You have seen Sallie Cox, haven't you? Then you know how it jarred my
nerves to have her rush in upon me when my mind was full of the Percivals.
Sallie has flirted joyously through life thus far, and has appeared to
have about as little heart as any girl I ever knew. Sallie is the _sauce
piquante_ in one's life--absolutely necessary at times to make things
taste at all, but a little of her goes a long way. At least so I thought
until to-day.
"I've got something to tell you, Ruth," she said, "so come with me, and we
will take a little drive before going to cooking-school."
I went, knowing, of course, that she wanted to confide something about
some of her lovers.
"I am going to be married," she announced coldly. "It's Payson Osborne
this time, and I'm really going to see the thing through. It's rather a
joke on me, because it commenced this way. I was sick of lovers, and some
of the last had been so unpleasant, not to say rude, when I threw them
over, that I thought I would take a vacation. So when I met Payson, I
said, 'What do you say to a Platonic friendship?' It sounds harmless, you
know, Ruth, and he, not knowing me at all, assented. If he had been a man
who knew of my checkered career, he would have refused, suspecting, of
course, that I was going to flirt with him under a new name. But, as I was
serious this time, I knew it was all right. So we began. I suppose you
know he is enormously rich, besides being so handsome, and there will not
be a girl in town who won't say I raised heaven and earth to get him; but
I don't mind telling you, Ruth--because you are such an old dear, and
never are bothered with lovers(!); besides, it will do me good to tell it,
and I know you will never betray me--that I never cared for any man on
earth except Winston Percival. You needn't jump, and look as though the
house was on fire. It's the solemn truth, and I never dreamed that he
cared for Rachel until he married her. Mind you, he never pretended to
love me. It is every bit one-sided, and I don't care if it is. I am glad
that a frivolous, shallow-minded, rattle-brained thing like me had sense
enough to fall in love with the most glorious man that ever came into her
life. I shouldn't have made him half as good a wife as Rachel does--I
really feel as if they were made for each other--but he would have made a
woman of me. I'm honestly glad he is so happy, and things are much more
suitable as they are, for Payson is a thorough-going society man, and
doesn't ask much in a wife or he wouldn't have me, and he doesn't expect
much from a wife or he couldn't get me.
"Perhaps you don't know that a girl who makes a business of wearing scalps
at her belt never stands a bit of a chance with a man she really loves,
for she is afraid to practise on him the wiles which she knows from
experience have been successful with scores of others, because she feels
that he will see through them, and scorn her as she scorns herself in his
presence. She loses her courage, she loses control of herself, and, being
used to depend on 'business,' as actors say, to carry out her rôle
successfully, she finds that she is only reading her lines, and reading
them very badly too. If you could have seen me with Percival, you would
know what I mean. I was dull, uninteresting, poky--no more the Sallie Cox
that other men know than I am you. He absorbed my personality. I didn't
care for myself or how I appeared. I only wanted him to shine and be his
natural, brilliant self. I never could have helped him in his work. The
most I could have hoped to do would have been not to hinder him. I would
have been the gainer--it would have been the act of a home missionary for
him to marry me."
She laughed drearily.
"Isn't it horribly immoral in me to sit here and talk in this way about a
married man? It's a wonder it doesn't turn the color of the cushions. If
you hear of my having the brougham relined, Ruth, you will know why.
Ruth, I am so miserable at times it seems to me that I shall die. I'd love
to cry this minute--cry just as hard as I could, and scream, and beat my
head against something hard--how do you do, Mrs. Asbury?--but instead, I
have to bow from the windows to people, and remember that I am supposed to
be the complaisant bride-elect of the catch of the season. It is a
judgment on me, Ruth, to find that I have a heart, when I have always gone
on the principle that nobody had any. Yes--how-de-do, Miss Culpepper?
excuse me a minute, Ruth, while I hate that girl. What has she done to me?
Oh, nothing to speak of--she only had the bad taste to fall in love with
the man I am going to marry. Writes him notes all the time, making love to
him, which he promptly shows to me--oh, we are not very honorable, or very
upright, or very anything good in the Osborne matrimonial arrangement.
Anybody but you would hate me for all this I've told you, but I know you
are pitying me with all your soul, because you know the empty-headed
Sallie Cox carries with her a very sore heart, and that it will take more
than Payson Osborne has got to give to heal it. I call him Pay sometimes,
but he hates it. I only do it when I think how much he does pay for a very
bad bargain. But he doesn't care, so why should I?
"It really does seem odd, when I look back on it, to see how easy it was
to get him, when all the time I was perfectly indifferent to him, and
received his attentions on the Platonic basis to keep him from making love
to me. I really think I never had any one to care for me in so exactly the
way I like, and to be so easy in his demands, and to think me so
altogether perfect and charming, no matter what I do. It was because I was
absolutely indifferent to him. I never cared when he came. I never cared
when he went. Other lovers fussed and quarrelled and were jealous and
disagreeable when I flirted with other men, but Payson never cared. He
didn't tease me, you know. And whenever he said anything, I could look
innocent and say, 'Is that Platonic friendship?' So he would have to
subside. I know he thought some of my indifference was assumed, for when
he told me about Miss Culpepper he thought I would be vexed. I _was_
vexed, but I had presence of mind not to show it. I only laughed and made
no comment at all--asked him what time it was, I believe. Then when he
looked so disappointed and sulky, I knew I was right, and I patted Sallie
Cox on the head for being so clever--so clever as not to care, chiefly.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you cannot do with a man who loves
you, if you don't care a speck for him. And the luxury of perfect
indifference! Emotions are awfully wearing, Ruth. I wonder that these
emotional women like Rachel get on at all. I should think they would die
of the strain. Men are always deadly afraid of such women. I believe
Payson wouldn't stop running till he got to California if I should burst
into tears and not be able to tell him instantly just exactly where my
neuralgia had jumped to. No unknown waverings and quaverings of the heart
for my good Osborne. There goes Alice Asbury again. I am dying to tell you
something. You know why she hates me, and understand why she treats me so
abominably? Well, Asbury gave her the same engagement ring he gave me, and
she doesn't know it. Rich, isn't it? Here we are at the cooking-school. I
am so glad I can slam a carriage-door without being rude. It is such a
relief to one's overcharged feelings."
Tabby, dear, if your head ever spun round and round at some of the
confidences I have bestowed upon you, I can sympathize with you, for, as I
went into that class, my feelings were so wrenched and twisted that I was
as limp as cooked macaroni. You will excuse the simile, but that was one
of the articles at cooking-school to-day, and when the teacher took it up
on a fork, it did express my state of mind so exquisitely that I cannot
forbear to use it.
Sallie Cox! Well, I am amazed. Who would think that that bright, saucy,
clever little flirt, who rides on the crest of the wave always, could have
such a heart history? And Percival of all men! I wonder what he would say
if he knew. I don't know what to think about her marrying Payson Osborne.
The last thing she whispered to me as we came out of cooking-school was,
"Don't be too sorry for me because I am going to marry him. Believe me, it
is the very best thing that could happen to me."
I am very fond of the girl to-night. What a pity it is that everybody does
not know her as she really is! No one understands her, and she has flirted
so outrageously with most of the men that the girls' friendship for her is
very hollow. A few, of whom Alice Asbury is one, dare to show this quite
plainly, and of course Sallie doesn't like it. She pretends not to care
for women's friendship, but she does. She would love to be friendly with
all the girls, but they remember the misery she has made them suffer, and
won't have it.
Still, there is no doubt that she is marrying the man most of them want,
so that again she triumphs. But, unless I am much mistaken, even as Mrs.
Payson Osborne it will take her a long time to recover her place with the
women which she has lost by having so many of their sweethearts and
brothers in love with her.
Ah, Tabby, what a deal of secret misery there is in the world! Everybody
will envy Sallie Cox and think that she is the luckiest girl, and Sallie
will smile and pretend--for what other course is left to her, and who can
blame women who pretend under such circumstances? Perhaps there are
reasons just as good for many other pretenders in this world. Who knows?
We would be gentler if we knew more.
There will be other sore hearts besides Sallie's at her wedding. I had
heard before that Miss Culpepper was quite desperate over Osborne, but, as
she was a girl whom everybody thought a lady, I had no idea that she had
gone so far as Sallie says. Osborne probably didn't object to being made
love to. A man of his stamp would not be over-refined. Strange, now,
Sallie does not love Osborne herself, but she promptly hates every other
girl who dares to do it. Aren't girls queer?
Then there are a score of men who will gnash their teeth for Sallie--so
many men love these Sallie Coxes.
Frankie Taliaferro, the Kentucky beauty, who is staying with her this
winter, tells me that Sallie has had several dreadful scenes with
discarded suitors--that one said he would forbid the banns, and another
threatened to shoot himself if she really married Osborne.
I wonder how many marriages there really are where both are perfectly free
to marry. I mean, no secret entanglements on either side, no other man
wanting the bride, no girl bitterly jealous of her. I never heard of
one--not among the people _I_ know, at least.
Oh, Tabby, think of all the fusses people keep out of who promptly settle
down at the appointed time and become peaceful old maids. How sensible we
were, Tabby, you and Missis.
But doesn't it seem to you that people marry from very mixed motives? I
used to have an idea--when I was painfully young, of course--that they
married because they were so fortunate as to fall in love with each other.
Are you quite sure that foolish notion is out of your head too?
VI
THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD
"Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?... To be great is to be
misunderstood."
I have been away since early last summer, and consequently never had seen
Flossy's new baby until the newness had worn off, and it had arrived at
the dignity of a backbone, and had left its wobbly period far behind. I am
in mortal terror of a very little baby. It feels so much like a sponge,
yet lacks the sponge's recuperative qualities. I am always afraid if I
dent it the dents will stay in. You know they don't in a sponge.
As soon as I came home, of course I went to see Flossy's baby, and was
very much disconcerted to discover that she had named it for me. I was
afraid, I remember, that she would want to name the first girl for me, but
she did not. She named her after Rachel. I had an uncomfortable idea,
however, that my name had been discussed and vetoed, by either Flossy or
Bronson. But this time the baby is named Ruth, and I found that it was all
Flossy's doing.
I was irritated without knowing why. I didn't want anybody to know it
though, and so I was vexed when Bronson said to me, "I couldn't help it,
Ruth." There was no use in pretending not to understand. I could with some
men, but not with Bronson. He is too magnificently honest himself, and
uplifts me by expecting me to be equally so. Nevertheless I failed him in
one particular, for I answered him in my loftiest manner, "I am not at all
displeased. It is a great compliment, I am sure."
There is nothing so uncivil at times as to be cuttingly polite. What I
said wasn't so at all. But a woman is obliged to defend herself from a man
who reads her like an open book.
Flossy does not like children, and poor little Rachel never has had a life
of roses. Flossy says children are such a care and require so much
attention.
"Rachel was all that I could attend to, and here all winter I have had
another one on my hands to keep me at home, and make me lose sleep, and
grow old before my time. I don't see why such burdens have to be put upon
people. Children are too thick in this world any way."
She fretted on in this strain for some time, until Bronson looked up and
said,
"Don't, Flossy. You don't mean what you say. Do tell her the little thing
is welcome."
"I do mean what I say," answered Flossy.
Then, as Bronson left the room abruptly, Flossy said,
"And I was determined to name her after you. Bronson didn't want me to. He
said you wouldn't thank me for it, but I told him that Rachel Percival was
quite delighted with her namesake."
I hid my indignantly smarting eyes in the folds of the baby's dress, as I
held her up before my face, and made her laugh at the flowers in my hat.
Flossy thought I was not listening to her with sufficient interest; so she
got up and crossed the room with that little stumble of hers, which used
to be so taking with the men when she was a girl, and took Ruth away from
me.
There was a great contrast between the two children. Rachel Herrick is a
shy child, with a delicate, refined face, lighted by wonderful gray eyes
like Bronson's. I do not understand her. She seems afraid of me, and I
confess I am equally afraid of her. Even Rachel Percival does not get on
with her very well, although she has bravely tried. The child spends most
of her time in the library, devouring all the books she can lay her hands
on. Little Ruth is a round, soft, fluffy baby, all dimples and smiles and
good-nature, willing to roll or crawl into anybody's lap or affections. A
very good baby to exhibit, for strangers delight in her, and pet her just
as people always have petted Flossy. Rachel stands mutely watching all
such demonstrations, her pale face rigid with some emotion, and her eyes
brilliant and hard. She is not a child one would dare take liberties with.
No one ever pets her. Flossy complains continually of her to visitors and
to Bronson, so that Bronson has gotten into the way of reproving her
mechanically whenever his eye rests upon her. Her very presence, always
silent, always inwardly critical, seems to irritate her parents. She was
not doing a thing, but sitting sedately, with a heavy book on her lap,
watching the baby, with that curious expression on her face; but Flossy
couldn't let her alone.
"Baby loves her mother, doesn't she? She is not like naughty sister
Rachel, who won't do anything but read, and never loves anybody but
herself. Sister says bad things to poor sick mamma, and mamma can't love
her, can she? But mamma loves her pretty, sweet baby, so she does."
Rachel glanced at me with a hunted look in her eyes which wrung my heart.
But, before I could think, she slid down and the big book fell with a
crash to the floor. She ran towards the baby with a wicked look on her
small face, and the baby leaped and held out its hands, but Rachel
clenched her teeth, and slapped the outstretched hand as she rushed past
her and out of the room.
Poor little Ruth looked at the red place on her hand a minute, then her
lip quivered, and she began to cry pitifully.
I instinctively looked to see Flossy gather her up to comfort her. It is
so easy to dry a child's tears with a little love. But she rang for the
nurse and fretfully exclaimed,
"Isn't that just like her! I declare I can't see why a child of mine
should have such a wicked temper. Here, Simpson, take this young nuisance
and stop her crying. Oh, poor little me! Ruth, I'm thankful that you have
no children to wear your life out."
I dryly remarked that I too considered it rather a cause for gratitude,
and came away.