Next morning, as the two girls were tripping downstairs, Mary said to
herself, “Now I shall observe the Don narrowly, and see whether there is
anything in what Alice says. Perhaps there may be some little foundation
for her opinion.” Entering the breakfast-room in this frame of mind, it
is not to be wondered at that, as she saluted one after another of the
company, her eyes suddenly gave forth kindlier beams as they met those
of the Don. Very likely the Don did not make any such comparison. He may
not have remarked that the smile she gave him was sweeter or sweetest;
but he felt that it was sweet.
There were only two vacant seats at the table when the two girls
entered. One, at my grandfather’s right, he had expressly reserved for
Alice, who had entirely captivated him the evening before by her
sparkling gayety. The other was next the Don’s, and this Mary took. That
sweet smile merited response of some sort, and his attentions to his
fair neighbor were assiduous and delicate. He was always courteous, but,
certainly, rather constrained; now, his manner seemed to her singularly
gentle. What was thawing him out? Perhaps—well, at any rate—
“Thank you,” cooed she, in that soft, high-bred tongue of
Richmond,—“thank you,”—in requital for hot waffle, weaving wreathed
smile, entangler of the hearts of men. Could he, the friendless one and
solitary, could he be unmoved? And so, smile answered smile, and
interest brought interest, making it compound; and every school-boy
knows how fast that counts up.
✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻
Yes, it was too much; five or six pages of Able-Analysis, showing just
what these two young people felt, and why they felt it; and so, I passed
a pen across the whole. It makes the chapter shorter; but even that has
its possible advantages. The fact is, I am not quite sure that I know
what they did think and feel; for was not the Don an Enigma? and was not
Mary a woman?
After all, what is the use of all this microscopic anatomy in tracking
the progress of heart-affairs? It seems to me that falling in love is as
elementary a process as sitting down on an ice-pond. The rub is _how
not_ to do it. If the novelists would but tell us _that_! Fortunately
for me, I am not called on to do this, as I am not a novelist, but a
bushwhackerish philosopher instead. And then—have I defrauded you, fair
reader?—this is not a love-story! When I sat down to write it, I
resolved to exclude, most rigidly, from its pages, all allusion to the
tender passion; but, somehow, though against my will, my personages
could not be kept free from its toils. My error was in bringing them
together to spend Christmas in a Virginia country-house. The thing
cannot be remedied, now, without an entire change of plot; so I shall
have to let it go as it is. But the reader must credit the whole of this
Episode of Love, which has forced itself into a theme of a different
nature, to Alice Carter. Without her assistance I could not have written
one word of it. She and Charley, to be entirely honest, are the real
authors of this book. They have furnished most of the facts; I am to
pocket all the glory.
To show the part Alice has had in the matter, I will mention, by way of
example, a conversation we had years after the occurrences herein
described,—less, in fact, than eighteen months ago. We were talking of
the good old times,—_Consule Planco_,—and happened to speak of this
particular Christmas at Elmington, and especially of the week that
preceded Christmas Eve.
“Did you know as early as that, that a love-affair was brewing between
Mary and the Don?”
“Of course; at any rate, I feared it. You know how harum-scarum I was in
those days?”
“I do,” I replied, “if harum-scarum means irresistible.”
“_You_ resisted me, at any rate; but, as I was going to remark, I had
the regulation number of eyes about my person, and couldn’t well help
seeing what lay straight before me.”
“_I_ saw nothing!”
“Ah, but you are a man! and remember that there are none so blind as
those who can’t see!”
“Then you think the affair was well under weigh before the end of the
first week?”
“With the Don, yes; and Mary was far more interested than she would
allow herself to believe.”
“Do you suppose that she was aware of the critical state of the Don’s
affections?”
“Of course she was; don’t you know that a woman always perceives that a
man is falling in love with her long before he finds it out himself?”
“Not to add,” I rejoined, “that she often perceives it when the man
never _does_ find it out himself. By the way, why do women always
express surprise at a proposal, as I am told they invariably do?”
“Oh, that is to gain time; but rest assured, the surprise is about as
real as that felt by a spider when a fly, after buzzing about her web
for a time, and lightly grazing first one thread and then another, at
last puts himself in a position where he may be made available.”
“Poor fly!”
Upon the authority, then, of Alice, who holds the position of
Editor-in-chief of the Love-department of this work, I may assure the
reader that by the time that one week had passed over the heads of our
party at Elmington this was the state of things:
Mary was sure that the Don loved her, and believed that she was
fancy-free. The Don was aware, no doubt, of the state of his own
affections, and was, we will suppose,—for there is no way of
knowing,—in perplexing doubt as to the condition of Mary’s. Alice knew
more than either of them; while upon me, the teller of this tale, their
various nods and becks and wreathéd smiles had been entirely lost.
I knew no more of what was going forward than Zip did of the amours of
Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman.