Time was pressing. In another week these long-continued and
long-to-be-remembered Christmas festivities would come to an end.
Yesterday, Alice had failed to extract any information from Charley.
To-day, she would make another effort.
Opportunities were not lacking,—abundant opportunities. Somehow,
everything had changed. Yesterday, wherever Alice was, there was a
cluster of merry faces. To-day, her mere appearance upon the piazza
seemed to dissipate the groups that chanced to be sitting there. One by
one, on one pretext or another, the young people would steal away; and
it was astounding how often Charley constituted the sole social
residuum. Charley thought it famous luck; but Alice detected distinct
traces of design in this sudden avoidance of her society. “They seem to
be engaged,”—she knew that innocent phrase of Uncle Tom’s was passing
from mouth to mouth, and it annoyed her; for, at the period in question,
it was fashionable for our Virginia girls to be ashamed of being
engaged; and so deep-rooted was this feeling, that whereas we are
assured by Cornelius Nepos that Epaminondas was such a lover of truth
that he would not lie even in jest—but enough of the virtuous Theban—
Alice, then, being superior neither to her sex nor to her age, as I am
glad to say, was half vexed at being so constantly left alone with
Charley,—yet half willing to be so vexed. There was an innuendo, it is
true, in the very absence of her companions; but then the soft rubbish
that Charley was pouring into her pink ear!
Of all passions, love is the most selfish; not excepting hunger and
thirst. Yesterday, Alice had been eager to speak with Charley, alone, in
the interests of her friend Mary. To-day she has already had three talks
with him; and although he had given her nothing more to do than to
listen to the conjugation of one little verb, she had not thought of
Mary once. Left together for the fourth time, they were sitting on the
piazza; and Charley, having already exhausted and re-exhausted the other
tenses, was about to tackle the pluperfect,—that is to say, having
persuaded himself that it was true, he was beginning to explain to Alice
how it was that, before he had ever seen her, and merely from what he
had heard of her, etc., etc., etc. [Fib! _Alice F._] Just at this
juncture, Mary brushed past them. Charley raising his eyes and seeing in
Mary’s a casual, kindly smile, returned it with interest,—the happy
dog! Alice raised hers, and seeing the casual, kindly smile,—and
more,—looked grave.
“What is the matter?” asked Charley.
Compared with your infatuated lover, your hawk is the merest bat.
Alice rose. “I want to have a talk with you. Let us walk down to ‘the
Fateful.’”
“The Fateful”—“Fateful Argo,” to give the name in full—had been
christened by Billy. It was neither more nor less than a large and
strongly-built row-boat, which had been hauled up on the shore; and
being old and leaky, had been abandoned there. It had become imbedded in
the sand, and being protected from the wind by a dense clump of
low-growing bushes, was a very pleasant resting-place for the romantic,
in sunny winter weather. It has been sung that Venus sprang from the
waves. The truth of the legend I can neither deny nor affirm; but it is
certain that their gentle splashing had a strange intoxication for many
a couple that ventured to take their seats in this “Fateful Argo.”
Alice took her seat in the stern, and Charley (although there were
several other seats in good repair) sat beside her.
I think it will be allowed me that no book was ever freer than this from
satirical reflections upon women (or, in fact, freer from reflections of
every sort upon any and all subjects); but I am constrained to observe,
just here, that it seems to me that they have, at times, a rather
inconsequential way of talking. That is, you cannot always tell, from
what they have just said, what is coming next.
“I have asked you,” began Alice, “to come with me to this retired spot
that I may have a talk with you. I have a favor to—Mr. Frobisher, you
must be beside yourself! And the piazza full of people!” [Shades of
Epaminondas! _A. Frobisher._]
That’s what I complain of. When they begin a sentence, you never know
how it is going to end.
“On the contrary,—thank heaven!—I am beside you.”
“But you won’t be beside me long, if you don’t behave yourself.
Don’t,—oh, _don’t_! Are you _crazy_?”
“Perfectly,—and glad of it,” replied Charley, with brazen resignation.
“Well, then.” And with a supple grace disengaging herself from his
proximity, so to speak, she whisked away to the seat in front.
That’s the reason I always did love women. Their memories are so short.
No matter how angry they may be, if you will watch them while they are
scolding you, you will see that they are forgiving you as fast as they
can.
“You are perfectly outrageous!” said Alice; at the same time readjusting
her collar,—and with both hands,—just to show how dreadfully provoked
she was.
“Outrageous? Presently you will be calling me Argo-naughty,” said
Charley. [This is too bad! I never made one in my life. _Chs. F._]
Alice had purposed looking indignant for two or three consecutive
seconds, but surprised by this totally unexpected sally, she burst out
laughing. She had opened her batteries on the enemy, but, by ceasing to
fire, she had revealed the exhaustion of her ammunition; and he, so far
from being stampeded, showed symptoms of an advance. As a prudent
captain, all that was left her was to retire. She took the seat next the
prow. The enemy seized the vacated position.
“That seat is very rickety.”
“So I perceive,” remarked the enemy, rising and advancing.
“Oh, but there is not room on this for two. Go back to the stern.” And
she threw out skirmishers.
The now exultant foe grasped one of the skirmishers in both his: “You
will forgive me?”
“Oh, I suppose so, if you will go back to your seat, and behave
yourself. Let go my hand.”
“You have promised it to me.”
“Yes, but indeed, Mr. Frobisher, the girls on the piazza—”
“The piazza is nearly a hundred yards away, bless its heart!”
“Indeed, indeed—_there_ now!” she suddenly added, with a stamp of her
foot, “I told you so!”
When? When did she tell him so? That’s another reason I could never make
a woman out.
It was then that Charley heard the sound of heavy footsteps crunching
through the sand, and, turning his head, saw through the twilight an
approaching figure almost at his elbow.
Alice, like most, though not all of her sex, was, as I have mentioned
before, a woman. Raising her placid face and serene eyes, she pointed
out to her companion, with the tip of her parasol, a gull that hurried
above them in zigzag, onward flight. “Yes,” continued she,—or seemed to
continue,—“she seems to be belated. I wonder where she will roost
to-night? On some distant island, I suppose.”
“Sam, is that you? Sam is one of my men,—one of the best on my farm.
Sam, this is Miss Alice—Miss Alice Carter.”
“Sarvant, mistiss,” said Samuel, hastily removing his hat and bowing,
not without a certain rugged grace; while at the same time, by a
backward obeisance of his vast foot, he sent rolling riverward a peck of
shining sand.
“Well, Sam, any news from the farm?”
“Lor’, mahrster, d’yar never is no news over d’yar! I most inginerally
comes over to Elminton when a-sarchin’ for de news.”
“And you want to make me believe that you walk over here every night for
the news, do you? Sam is courting one of Uncle Tom’s women,” added
Charley, addressing Alice. “I am in daily expectation of having him ask
my consent to his nuptials.”
Sam threw back his head and gave one of those serene, melodious laughs
(as though a French horn chuckled), the like of which, as I have said
before, will probably never again be heard on this earth. “Lor’ bless
me, young mistiss, what’s gone and put dat notion ’bout my courtin’ in
Marse Charley head? I always tells ’em as how a nigger k’yahnt do no
better’n walk in de steps o’ de mahrster, and Marse Charley and me is
nigh onto one age; and Marse Charley ain’t married, leastwise not yet.”
“You mean to say,” said Alice, “that when Mr. Frobisher marries it will
be time enough for you to think of taking a wife?”
“Adzackly, young mistiss, adzackly, dat’s it. But Lor’ me, I dunno,
neither. I ain’t so sartin ’bout dat. Sam don’t want to be hurried up.
He want to take he time a-choosin’. A man got to watch hisself dese
times. D’yar ain’t no sich gals as d’yar used to be. De fact is, ole
Fidjinny has been picked over pretty close, and Sam ain’t after de
rubbage dat de others done leff.”
“I am afraid you are rather hard to please, Sam?”
“Yes, mistiss, Sam _is_ hard to please.” [Three weeks from this date Sam
led to the altar a widow with one eye and eleven children,—making an
even dozen,—who was lame of the left leg, black as the ace of spades,
and old enough to be his mother.] “I won’t ’spute dat. Ain’t I
patternin’ after Marse Charley? Slow and sho’ is de game Marse Charley
play, and Sam’s a-treadin’ in he tracks. Lor’, mistiss, you wouldn’t
believe how many beautiful young ladies has been a-fishin’ for him; but
pshaw! dey mought as well ’a’ tried to land a porpoise wid a pin-hook!”
Encouraged by the smiles evoked by this bold comparison, Sam bloomed
into metaphor:
“But he was not to be cotched, not he! Leastwise not by dem baits.
‘Never mind, Marse Charley,’ says I to myself, ‘never you mind. You
g’long! Jess g’long a-splashin’ and a-cavortin’ and a-sniffin’!’ ’Fore
Gaud dem’s my very words, ‘but d’yar’s a hook somewhar as will bring you
to sho’ yet,’ says I; ‘and dat hook is baited wid de loveliest little
minner,’—umgh-u-m-g-h! Heish! Don’t talk!”
Charley could scarcely suppress his delight. “And how soon,” said he,
carelessly dropping his hand into his pocket,—“how soon am I to be
landed?”
“How soon?” repeated Sam, leaning upon his heavy staff and reflecting
with a diplomatic air. “How soon? Lor, mahrster, what for you ax a
nigger dat question? How is a nigger to know? But I do believe,” said
he, turning his back upon the river, and at the same time landing his
metaphor, “dat you have done jumped over into de clover-field already,
and you ain’t gwine to jump back no mo’.” (Here Charley withdrew his
hand from his pocket and threw his arm casually behind him, across the
gunwale of the Argo.) “Leastwise,” he added with a
perceptible-imperceptible glance at Alice,—“leastwise I don’t see how
you could have de heart to do it.”
Here Charley gave a slight movement of his wrist, invisible to Alice;
and Sam, with a few sidelong, careless steps, placed himself behind his
master. He stooped and rose again, and Alice saw in his hand three or
four oyster shells. These he dropped from time to time, pouring forth,
meanwhile, a wealth of tropes and figures drawn from both land and sea;
but the last shell seemed to fall into his pocket.
An Anglo-Saxon, if he have a well-born father, a careful mother, and
half a dozen anxious maiden aunts, you shall sometimes see hammered into
the similitude of a gentleman; but in your old Virginia negro
good-breeding would seem to have been innate.
“Some says dat d’yar is as good fish in de sea as ever was cotched out
of it; but I tells ’em, when you done pulled in one to suit you, you
better row for de sho’ less a squall come and upsot de boat. Well,
good-evenin’, Miss Alice, and good-evenin’, Marse Charley!” And with
polite left foot and courteous right the black ploughman sent rolling
the shining sand.
“There, now,” said Alice, “you see! What did I tell you?”
“Oh,” replied Charley, “Sam will keep dark!”
Yes, those were his very words! And Alice acknowledges that he made the
one recorded above (though I see he has denied it). Such is ever the
ruin wrought by love, even in the mind of a philosopher.
“By the way,” said Alice, as she stood with her feet upon the gunwale of
the Argo, ready to spring, “in the rather mixed metaphors of honest Sam,
which of us was the fish and which the hook? ‘Porpoise,’” quoted she,
laughing, “I trust I don’t remind you of one?”
Charley, who stood in the sand, held one of Alice’s hands in each of his
with a degree of pressure entirely incommensurate with the necessities
of equilibrium: “✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻” sang he, with a rapt and fatuous smile. “✻ ✻
✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ Absence of wings ✻ ✻ ✻ vision ✻ ✻ ✻ ✻ eyes beheld.” For, upon
my word, the reader must not expect me to transcribe more than a word,
here and there, of such jargon.
Yet, though my tongue be harsh, I do not in my heart blame Charley; for
Alice, at all times a pretty girl, was, just at this moment, as she
stood above him with the dark sky for a background, radiantly beautiful
in his eyes. And more,—
She looked beautiful on purpose.
I repeat it,—she did it on purpose.
And here, though it is abhorrent to all my art-instincts to break the
current of my story with anything like a thought, original or
selected,—though I have promised the reader to place before him a
succession of pictures merely, without even adding, _This is Daniel_,
and, _These are the Lions!_—I feel that I have used an expression
requiring an explanation. That explanation I cannot give save through
the medium of what—disguise it how I will—wears the semblance of a
thought.
Buckle, in his “History of Civilization in England,” lays it down that
no man can write history without a knowledge of the physical sciences.
Now it is equally true that no one can discuss human nature
scientifically without an acquaintance with zoology. It is Darwin and
the naturalists who have opened up this new field of inquiry; and
Comparative Zoological Nature has now become as needful a study to the
playwright and novelist as Comparative Anatomy is to the physiologist.
For my own part, whenever I would know whether a certain proposition be
true of man, I first inquire if it holds good as to the lower
animals,—to speak as a man; and in the course of my desultory
investigations on this line I have stumbled upon sundry valuable truths.
Among the convictions which I have reached in this way is the one which
led me to say just now that our pretty little Alice, perched upon the
gunwale of the Argo, bethought her of making poor Charley crazy with
love, by simply looking very, very beautiful; and did so look
accordingly, then and there. Of the mere fact there can be no doubt,
since I have Charley’s word for that. [Fact. _C. F._] [Goose! _A. F._]
[Who? _J. B. W._] But a scientific explanation of the phenomenon can be
given only by a student of Comparative Zoological Nature.
The way in which I hit upon the truth in question was as follows. A
vexatious incident in my own private history had occurred just at the
time when I had set myself the task of weaving this Monograph, and I was
ruefully ruminating upon woman and her ways, and bringing up in my mind,
and contrasting with her (in my Comparative Zoological fashion) all
manner of birds and fishes and what not, when all of a sudden there
popped into my head eels, and how marvellously slippery they were.
But, thought I, if you can but get your finger and thumb into their
gills, you’ve got ’em; and if eels—
But straightway I lost heart; for I remembered, from my Darwin, that of
gills—or _branchiæ_, as he will persist in calling them—no traces have
for ages been discovered in the _genus_ _homo_,—at least in the adult
stage. Far from it; for the Egyptian mummies, even in their day, for
example, got on perfectly without them.
The case was hopeless, therefore; but still I went on ruminating about
women and eels and eels and women, in the most aimless and unprofitable
fashion, till, wandering off from the eel of commerce and the pie, I
chanced to think of the electric variety of that fish. Here faint
streaks of dawn began to make themselves felt; and so, making a rapid
excursion through the animal kingdom, and recalling the numberless
appliances for offence, defence, and attraction to be observed therein,
I returned flushed with victory. I had made a discovery. It is this.
Just as the eel in question (the _Gymnotus electricus_) has a reservoir
of electricity, to be used when needed, so woman, I find, carries about
her person more or less bottled beauty, which she has the singular power
of raying forth at will.
More or less; in too many cases, less; but evolution, through selection,
may ultimately mend that.
How, or by what mechanism they contrive to do this, is more than I can
tell. We know, it is true, that the _Anolis principalis_ (the so-called
chameleon of the Gulf States) can change at will from dingy brown to a
lovely pea-green, by reversing certain minute scales along its back; but
to jump from this fact to the conclusion that the woman you saw at
breakfast old and yellow, but youthful and rosy at the ball, indued all
this glory by simply reversing her scales, is, in the present state of
our knowledge, premature. Besides, we have just seen that the gills of
the prehistoric sister have long since disappeared; so that the woman of
the period may, upon investigation, turn out not to have any scales,
minute or other, to reverse; so unsafe are analogies in matters of
science.
But the fact remains (no other hypothesis covering all the observed
phenomena) that women carry about their persons bottled beauty.
As to the thing itself, female beauty, I do not pretend to know any more
about it than other people. That it is in its nature a poison has been
notorious for thousands of years, attacking the male brain with
incredible virulence. This pathological condition of that organ has been
spoken of for ages as Love, as everybody knows. But what everybody does
not know, is that woman possesses the power of _concentrating_ this
toxic exhalation upon a doomed male,—dazzling him with what I may
provisionally term beauty’s bull’s-eye lamp. Love is _not_ blind. Just
the reverse. The lovelorn see what is invisible to others, that is all;
the focussed rays of the most magical of all magic lanterns.
Before I made this discovery, I was continually wondering how most of
the women I knew had managed to get married; but it is a great comfort
to me now to know that they are all beautiful (in the eyes of their
husbands).
Setting in motion, then, this subtle mechanism, which all women possess
(though in some it don’t seem to work), Alice showered down upon
Charley, from hazel eyes and sunny hair, from well-turned throat and
dimpled hand, from undulating virgin form and momentary
ankle-flash,—showered down upon him as she stood there graceful as a
gazelle ready to spring, a sparkling wealth of youth and beauty.
No matter what Charley said.
“I am glad you think so,” said she, fluttering down from her perch.
The shining sand was deep; and that’s the reason they walked so slowly;
and that’s the reason Alice clung so closely to his arm; and that’s the
reason Charley thought he was walking on rosy morning clouds.
“Oh!” cried Alice,—and Charley’s face was corrugated with sudden care:
had some envious shell dared bruise her alabaster toe?
“Did you hurt your foot, — — —est?”
“Oh, no; I just remembered that I had forgotten the very thing that I
came to the Argo to talk over with you.”
“What was that?”
Alice looked perplexed.
“Tell me, — —ing; what is it?”
“I don’t know where to begin.”
“At the b-b-b-beginning, of course.”
“With some people I should; but do you know that you are a very queer
creature?”
“Your fault; I was just like other people till I met you,—a little
cracked ever since.”
“Oh, I like you that way.” And she gave his arm a little involuntary
squeeze. [Nothing of the kind. _Al._]
“How am I queer, then?”
“Well, you never tell people anything.”
“I have told you a good many things within the last day or two.”
“Only one thing, but that a good many times. But I am not a bit tired of
hearing it.”
Here Charley gave her hand a voluntary little squeeze against his heart.
[Inadequate statement of an actual occurrence. _C. F._]
“The fact is, I want to ask you a question, and am actually afraid you
won’t answer it. There, I knew you would not! A cloud passed over your
face at the very word question. You are so strange about some things!”
“Let’s hear the question; what is it about?”
“About the Don. There! Why, you are positively frowning!”
“Frowning!”
“Yes; your face hardened as soon as I uttered the word Don.”
“The Don! What am I supposed to know about him? Have not you known him
as long as I, and longer?”
“Oh, I am not going to ask you who he is, or anything of that kind. I
presume he alone knows that.” (Charley’s face grew serene.) “It is
something entirely different. Is the Don—I know you will think it idle
curiosity, but, indeed, indeed, it is not—is the Don—in love?”
“Is the Don in love?” cried Charley, with a sudden peal of laughter. “Is
the Don in love? And that is the weighty question that you have made
such a pother about! Is the Don in love!”
“That sounds more like my question than an answer to it.”
“Now, seriously, my —ous —ing, you did not expect me to answer such a
question as that?”
“No, I _didn’t_!” (A little snappishly.) “Any other man—under the
circumstances—”
“Yes, I believe I am very different from other men, and it is well; for
if every man were of my way of thinking, every girl in the world, save
one, would be deserted; and soon there would be but one man left on
earth,—such a Kilkenny fight would rage around that one girl!”
“I knew you would not answer my question.” (_Not_ snappishly.)
“How am I to know anything about it?”
“You and he are inseparable—”
“And hence he has made a confidant of me, and I am to betray him? No, he
has never alluded to any such matter. Upon my word, I know nothing
whatever upon the subject.”
“Indeed? You are a droll couple, to be sure,” and she looked up,
admiringly, at one-half of the couple, “talking together for hours, and
never telling one another anything! Well, then, I shall answer the
question myself: The Don is in love: there!”
“What extraordinary creatures women are, to be sure! You ask a question,
are vexed at getting no answer, and then answer it yourself! The Don is
in love, then; but with whom?”
“That I don’t know; I only suspect. Oh, yes, I more than suspect; in
fact, I _know_, but some of the girls don’t agree with me, and I want to
know which side you are on.”
“On yours, of course—”
“No joking; I am in earnest. The question between us girls is this: it
is plain to us all that he is in love—”
“Then, why on earth—”
“Don’t you know that when you wish to find out about one thing the best
way is to ask about another?”
“That aphorism, I must confess, is entirely new to me.”
“Well, it is a household word with women. _Of course_ he is in love;
we—all of us girls, I mean—know _that_. But with whom? That is the
question which divides us.”
“And you wish to put that conundrum to me? Indeed, I know nothing about
it.”
“Nor suspect?”
Charley hesitated.
“Honor bright? Oh, don’t be so hateful!”
Charley smiled; Alice saw he was weakening.
“Oh, _do_ tell me, which of the two?”
“Which of the _two_?” repeated Charley, looking puzzled. “Surely, you
cannot be in earnest; for of all the men I know, Dory—the D-D-D-Don”
[What, Charley, stammering on a mere lingu palatal!] “is the least
likely to have two loves.”
“Dody, Dody! Why do you call him Dody?”
“I called him the Don,” said Charley, doggedly.
“And Dody, too! Why Dody? What a droll nickname!” And she laughed.
“You are mistaken; I did not call him Dody.”
“You didn’t?”
“No; but my tongue,” said Charley, coloring, “is like a
mustang,—buck-jumps occasionally, and unseats its rider—_her_ rider.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” said Alice, with tender earnestness, and gave
his arm—this time consciously—an affectionate, apologetic squeeze. [I
don’t deny it! _Al Frob._]
“So the Don is not only a lover, but a double-barrelled one?”
“No, we don’t think that,” said Alice, laughing; “but there is a dispute
among us which of two birds he wishes to bring down.”
“Which of two birds? Really, you puzzle me,” said Charley, reflecting.
“I could guess the name of one, perhaps; but the other—I am completely
at sea.” And he looked up in inquiry.
“Is it possible! How blind, blind, blind you men are! And yet they tell
me that nothing ever escapes your lynx eyes! Why, Lucy and Mary, of
course.”
“Lucy and Mary!” cried Charley, and, throwing back his head, he exploded
with a shout of single-barrelled amazement.
“Wit and humor!” “Repeat, repeat, Alice!” cried voices from the piazza.
The strollers looked up in surprise at finding themselves so near the
porch, while the occupants of this favorite lounging-place were in no
less wonder at hearing Frobisher giving forth so unusual a sound. Alice
swept the faces of her friends with a bright smile of greeting, but
there was a certain preoccupation in her look. Charley’s laugh had
startled her. “Unconscious wit, then;” and turning, she looked up into
her companion’s face with a puzzled air.
It would seem that that sudden and unusual draft upon Charley’s
cachinnatory apparatus had exhausted that mechanism, for he was not even
smiling now, but in what is called a brown study. He slowly turned on
his heel as though to return to the Argo, or, rather, as if he had no
intentions of any kind, his movements being directed by what Dr.
Carpenter calls unconscious cerebration. Alice, holding her companion’s
arm, turned upon him as a pivot (though with conscious cerebration, for
she could almost feel upon the back of her head the smiles raying forth
from the porch).
“Mary and Lucy, did you say?” inquired he, turning quickly upon her as
though it had suddenly flashed upon him that he had not, perhaps, heard
aright.
“Yes, Mr. Frobisher. What on earth is the matter?”
“What’s the matter? Why, nothing, of course. You simply amused me, that
is all.” And smiling stiffly, he threw up his head with a sort of shake
and made as though he would join the party on the porch.
This time Alice did not rotate on the pivot, but, standing firm, became
the centre of revolution herself, and brought Charley to a “front face”
again, by a sturdy pull upon his arm, and began to move slowly forward,
as though to return to the Argo. “What is it?” asked she, looking up
into his face with eager interest. “_Do_ tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Why you act so strangely? Which of the two, then?”
These words threw Charley into his brown study again. Looking far away,
with drawn lids, he was silent for some time. “Alice,” said he, turning
slowly and looking into her eyes, “I am going to surprise you.”
“_Neither_ Mary nor Lucy, you are going to say!” And her snowy bosom
beat with thick-thronging breaths. “O-o-oh, I know,” cried she, with a
look of pain. “_He is married already!_”
Yet why with a look of pain? Ought she not rather on her friend’s
account to have rejoiced? But here was a hero evaporated; and in this
humdrum treadmill of our life there is _so_ little of romance! And do we
not all of us, men and children alike, strain our eyes against the
darkened sky, regretful that the flashing but all too evanescent meteor
has passed away into the abyss of night?
Charley smiled. “How fearfully and wonderfully is woman made! You first
ask me for information which I do not possess, but which it appears you
do, then answer your own question; then when I am about to say
something, you tell me what I am about to say; and then—with a little
shriek—discover the mare’s nest I am about to reveal! No, I was not
going to say ‘neither Lucy nor Mary,’ nor yet that the Don was married.
I was about to make a proposition to you. Are you really _very_ anxious
to have it decided whether it is Mary or Lucy?”
“Very.”
“Then I know but one way: ask the Don himself.”
“The idea!” cried Alice, with a cheery laugh. “What!” added she, looking
up into his face with great surprise, “surely you are not in earnest!”
“I am.”
“Mr. Frobisher!”
“I am. I said I was going to surprise you.”
Alice wheeled in front of him, and they stood looking into each other’s
eyes. “Upon—my—word,” said she, slowly, “I believe you really mean
it!”
“I do.”
“Mr. Frobisher! Then, if it be so important to you to know, why don’t
you ask him yourself?”
“It is of no earthly importance to me to know; it is of importance
to—to—to—him to be asked?”
“You awful sphinx! You will kill me with curiosity! But why not ask him
yourself? Why put it on me?”
“Because,” said Charley, smiling,—“simply because it is your question;
you want the answer to the riddle, not I!”
“That’s just the way with you men,” said Alice, smiling; “you affect to
be lofty beings, superior to the foible, curiosity. And so you would
make a cat’s paw of me?”
“Well, yes; for it is you who want the chestnuts.”
“And my fingers, therefore, are to be burnt; for this same Mr. Don is an
awful somebody to approach.”
“To others, perhaps, but not to you; nor to me, either, perhaps; but the
chestnuts are for you. Besides, as Dido said to her sister Anna, you
know the approaches of the man and the happy moment. How often have I
seen every one quaking with awe when you are attacking him with your
saucy drolleries, and how charmed he always is, and how he laughs!”
“And poor dear mamma,” said Alice, with a tender smile, “how she shakes
and weeps and weeps and shakes! Do you know, Mr. Frobisher, though I say
it ‘as shouldn’t,’ I am not, by half, so giddy and brainless as I seem?
Do you know why I cut up so many didoes? (By the way, I wonder whether
that rather colloquial phrase has any reference to Æneas’s girl?) But it
is the truth, that half the time that I am cutting my nonsensical
capers, it is just to make mamma laugh. Ah, Mr. Frobisher, you have
hardly known what a mother can be, and you will have to love mine! You
won’t be able to help it.” And the cutter of capers and of didoes passed
her hand across her eyes. “Look,” said she after a pause, “there she
sits now, and beside the Don, too. Don’t she look serene? See how she is
smiling at me over the banister!” And throwing herself into an attitude,
she blew kiss after kiss to Her Serenity, in rapid succession, from
alternate hands. “There! she is off. As her eyes are shut tight, she
will not be able to see me for half a minute, and I will take the
opportunity of telling you, for your comfort, that she does not think
there is a man living half good enough for me. How do you feel?”
“I feel that she is right.”
“And I feel that she is twice wrong. First, because she does not know
me, and secondly, because she does not know—_somebody_!” And skipping
up the steps, she ran to her mother and bounced into her lap: “Are you
glad to see me? Did you think I was never coming back?”
“A bad penny is sure—”
“Who’s a bad penny?” And taking the plump cheeks between her palms, she
squeezed the serene features into all manner of grotesque and
rapidly-changing shapes. “Who’s a bad penny? Isn’t she a beauty?” said
she, twisting the now unresisting head so as to give the Don a full view
of the streaming eyes and ludicrously projecting lips. “Behold those
æsthetic lines! Ladies and gentlemen,” said she, turning, with a quick
movement, her mother’s face in the opposite direction, “I call your
attention to the Cupid’s bow so plainly discernible in the curves of
that upper lip. Can you wonder that papa is a slave? By the way,”
continued she in the same breath, and taking no heed of the general
hilarity that she had aroused,—“by the way, Mr. Don, are _you_ glad to
see me?” But without waiting for him to find words to reply, a quizzical
look came into her face as she observed that with the beat of her
mother’s laughter her own person was gently bobbing up and down, as
though she rode a pacing horse: “Snow-bird on de ash-bank, snow-bird on
de ash-bank, snow-bird on de ash-bank,” she began, in a sort of Runic
rhythm, or shall we say in jig measure? “snow-bird on de ash-bank;” and
from her curving wrists, drawn close together in front of her bosom, her
limp hands swung and tossed, keeping time, jingling like muffled bells.
The pacing horse now broke into a canter, and the canter became a
gallop: “Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, ride a cock-horse to
Banbury Cross! This steed is about to run away; discretion is the better
part.” And springing from her mother’s lap, she stood before the Don.
“Have you prepared your answer yet? Are _you_ glad to see me once more?”
The Don put his hand upon his heart. Alice extended hers. The Don took
it.
“You have not answered my question.”
“Words cannot ex—”
“Words? Who is talking about words?” And she extended her hand again.
“Press that lily fair,—just one little squeeze. She—the rotund
smiler—won’t be able to see for half a minute yet. Quick! She is wiping
her eyes! Ah! ah! ah! Really and truly? Enough! Desist! We are
observed!”
“She is the girl to tackle him!” thought Charley, wiping _his_ eyes.