the hood of the vehicle. I obeyed the command with some incoherent
expressions of solicitude, leaving the driver to remind me that he did
not know what he was to do with us.
“I am not going home,” said Mrs. Fentley. “Tell him Ammerlin’s. I have
several errands, and as you evidently were only mooning at the Vulcan, I
think you might go along.”
“And hold your hat.”
“And hold my hat. I was going to that district messenger office back
there to send word over to Mrs. Linford that I couldn’t come, but I am
going now, just to be obstinate. There, you may let me have my hat. Did
you ever see anything so humiliating? I never expected to see it whole
again. Why, it seemed to scud right under the feet of a horse. And to
think that you should have seen the thing happen—”
“And sprang into the arena to rescue it.”
“Such a thing surely never happened to any one before. I hate wind. It is
so vulgar.”
“Yes,” I said, “especially when it is in an ill-bred hurry. But really
you have been in Chicago long enough to know that corner.”
“I know. But I was thinking of something else—”
“And hurrying a little yourself.”
“Well, it seems to me that I never knew so many things to come up. And I
don’t see why I _do_ hurry. I never get through, and if I did I should
think it hadn’t been worth while. There are a great many things a woman
would like to do if it were not for the others who are dipping into the
same thing. You have no idea how disagreeable some women are, with other
women. There is a woman on our advisory board at the Twilight Home who is
ingeniously doing everything she can to make the institution ridiculous.
If it wasn’t for giving her too much satisfaction I should get out of the
board. She is Dick’s aunt, by the way, and I believe it really grieves
her that she can’t manage me. There are three old women and four old
men in the Home now. There would be as many more if Mrs. Gritts didn’t
have a theory of receiving only select indigent. It costs about two
thousand apiece to maintain these seven. They are all so particular that
it requires the nicest discrimination to shop for them. I have just been
buying socks for our oldest and most particular man. Probably he won’t
wear them. He says he prefers English hose. We have his shirts made to
order, and he grumbles that they are infamously devised. If there is
anything they don’t grumble at Mrs. Gritts thinks up something new for
them.”
[Illustration]
“But how does Mrs. Gritts hold her majority of the board?”
“Oh, they all are afraid of her. You see, she got the endowment.”
“And she wishes to see it all spent.”
“It isn’t so much that, as it is that she wants it spent her way.”
“Well, her way seems to be very nice for the old ladies and gentlemen. I
am going to keep my eye on your Home. Does Mrs. Gritts have any objection
to a literary past?”
“I fancy it would not commend you. The fact is that Mrs. Gritts is much
influenced by the candidate’s appearance.”
“How unfortunate!” I said.
“There was an application yesterday in behalf of a desperately needy old
fellow, but what hair he has left is red, and Mrs. Gritts put her foot
down. He simply did not fit into her scheme of the pictorial effect. All
of our people have that silvery, well-bred-pensioner look.”
“But where does your fun come in?” I asked, with real curiosity.
“Oh, I don’t know. I inherited a lot of charities from my mother. Here’s
Ammerlin’s. Will you wait for me? I shall only be a moment.”
“More socks?”
“No,—some new curtains for the Directors’ room at the Littlewick
Hospital. You must wait. I haven’t seen anything of you, and you will be
running back to New York. You might as well wait here. I know how men
_hate_ these stores.”
“If you insist upon my not going with you—”
It was thus that I happened to be sitting in the hansom when Dick Fentley
came hustling up the street.
“Hello, old man!” he shouted. “What the deuce are you doing here?”
“Waiting for your wife,” I answered.
“Just like her,” he returned to this. “Where is she taking you?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” I replied. “I fancy nowhere in particular,
but I am not sure. Do you think it would be right for me to ask her?”
Dick laughed. “You’re safe! But if she tries to spring any infirmaries
or kindergartens on you, just bolt. Tell her I said she was to fetch you
home to dinner. Making you comfortable at the club?” and Dick was off up
the street just as Mrs. Fentley came out of Ammerlin’s.
“Do you know,” I said as I followed her into the hansom again, “it
scarcely seems as if you had had time to transact very much business.”
“I didn’t give you time to become impatient, did I?”
“No; I passed the sixty seconds very pleasantly with your husband.”
“The idea! Dick passed here? That means that he is going to spend the
afternoon with Bob Haverton somewhere.”
[Illustration]
“Isn’t Bob proper?”
“Sometimes. I fancy Dick gets most of his stories from Bob?”
“Aren’t they proper?”
“Sometimes. Oh, Bob is a very handsome fellow. He was in the navy at one
time. He was an Ensign—what they call an Insect in the navy. Then his
father died and left him a lot of money. Now he is occupied with the
problem as to which girl he will let have him.”
“I suppose they all want him?”
“Naturally. Whoever gets him will have a dreadful time. He is very
handsome.”
“I have known cases—” I began.
“Yes, but the chances will all be against her. A really handsome man like
Bob simply invites disaster. It is not at all the same with a handsome
woman. The whole mechanism of society is constructed with a view to
watching the handsome woman,—relatives, neighbors, other women in general
all watch her. But there is no one to watch the handsome man but his
wife.”
“I can see,” I said, “how that might be too much for one woman. And yet I
can see chances for assistance from other women.”
“Not from disappointed ones. The disappointed ones hate the handsome
man’s wife worse than the others do. No, she is bound to fight the thing
out for herself.”
“Well, most people get over it.”
“Get over what?”
“Being handsome.”
“Yet women have the worst of it again. The handsome man lasts longer
somehow.”
“Should you call Dick a handsome man?”
“Certainly not. Dick is a good fellow, but no one ever accused him
of being handsome. You should have known that I couldn’t possibly be
personal.”
“O, I did, from my side.”
“Don’t be malicious. The first case I ever knew was of a classmate of
mine, a lovely girl. Do you know, I was present at the beginning of a
most dreadful quarrel, after she had suffered everything. Well, he went
to the d— bad, and she went to Lenox; and they both came back and patched
it up somehow.”
“I can imagine your balancing in your mind four years ago the arguments
in favor of the proposition that Dick was handsome enough to count.”
“Nonsense. I never thought of such a thing then. I have learned a lot in
four years. Mother says I am a cynic.”
“What does Dick say you are?”
“Dick says I am a woman.”
“I hope this hasn’t resulted from your coming to Chicago—I mean your
being a cynic.”
“I scarcely think so. Do you know, Chicago is much less sentimental than
New York. That struck me when I first came here, and every time we go to
New York I am freshly impressed by the fact.”
“I have never thought of New York as especially sentimental.”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t unless you definitely compared it with some other
big city. You know what I mean,—in the matter of the sentiments. Chicago
seemed to me _désillusionné_. It hasn’t had to take time to get through
with some things, because it never began with them.”
“I suppose that you feel that Chicago is a little cynical, too.”
“Well, it is awfully hard to fool Chicago.”
“Do you suppose your old ladies and gentlemen think so?”
“I suppose you never will get through laughing at that. They really are
a good joke. But we have a certain amount of fun out of them after all.
I’m not like those women who only care for the games they can win at.
I’m satisfied to squeeze a little chuckle out of circumstances. I don’t
expect too much. Take matrimony. Some women think it is a poor game
simply because they haven’t been able to win at it. And it is the same
even with religion. The other night our bishop was telling me about the
diminishing congregations. I told him that the church people were not
keeping pace with the spirit of the time. ‘The trouble with you, Bishop,’
I said, ‘is that you don’t advertise. Look at Talmage.’ ‘My dear,’ he
said, ‘we do advertise somewhat, and we have one bargain day every week.
We call it Sunday. But people are becoming dreadfully exacting. And our
stock is very old.’ You can get a good deal of comfort out of the church
if you look at it as Renan did—as an institution for keeping other
people quiet.”
[Illustration]
“And yet,” I ventured to say, “there are folks who think that you young
women should go to church more than you do.”
“Oh, I do go to church. But I don’t take it seriously. I’m afraid I only
glance at the bargains and go out at the other door.”
“I dare say that you wouldn’t accept heaven unless there is an elevator,
a writing-room and an orchestrion.”
“Do you know, I fancy a good many of us think of the church as Mrs.
Stellmore feels about her husband. Probably you don’t know Mrs.
Stellmore. She is the second wife of one of our wealthiest brokers. The
other night she walked up to him right before us all, and putting her
hands on his shoulders said, ‘Oh, Tom! if you weren’t so good I couldn’t
be so wicked.’”
“I am going to ask as the foreigner who is writing us up so often asks:
Is this typical? Are many of your husbands, so to speak, so good as Mr.
Stellmore?”
“I suppose you mean, good in the ways that will let us be wicked. I’m
afraid a good many of them are. You see they are too busy to bother very
much with us, and we are deep in all sorts of charitable and intellectual
debaucheries. Then it is too late to try and reform us. But I was
going to tell you about Mrs. Stellmore. She is very entertaining, and
especially to her husband.”
“Surely that is an admirable trait,” I said.
“Oh, Stellmore knows what he is about when he lets her run around. She
fetches him the most interesting stories. One afternoon I heard her say,
‘Well, I must go and chase up something to amuse Tom with.’”
“It seems to me I have heard of that theory before, about the wife not
staying home where there will be no news but the ill temper of the cook
and the atrocities of the furnace, but going forth into the world, as she
does, and bringing home something amusing or instructive.”
“Maybe; but you never saw the scheme worked out so gayly as Mrs.
Stellmore works it out. Of course she has a good time.”
“Does she like his being so wonderfully willing?”
“Now that is cynical. No, she doesn’t seem to mind it. She really likes
her husband, and his goodness is a continual source of interest to her.
She is very shrewd. When I had that dreadful psychological young woman to
lecture at the house one afternoon I was telling Mrs. Stellmore what a
fizzle the thing had been. ‘And yet,’ I said, ‘she had the most gorgeous
recommendations.’ ‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Stellmore, ‘are you not aware that
no women can get hold of such gorgeous recommendations as those who do
not deserve them?’ Yet she is a thoroughly generous woman.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Not especially. She is a very decided blonde.”
“The wicked dye young.”
[Illustration]
“But she is the real thing. That is the way with a good many of her other
traits. She is more genuine than she gets credit for being. If it comes
to that, society is very cynical. It is always suspecting a bleach.”
“I am sorry to have suggested the cynicism of society. I fancy you feel
toward Mrs. Stellmore as I sometimes feel toward Stenson. Stenson—Dick
knows him—is one of the cleverest men you ever would be likely to meet.
He has been everywhere, has seen everything and everybody, and has the
most entertaining stories to tell of any place or any person you are
likely to mention. Now, of some people you have a fashion of saying to
yourself, ‘He is probably lying.’ But with Stenson you have an uneasy
feeling at the thought that probably he is telling the truth.”
“Then I should call Stenson a sort of personified newspaper. That is the
way I always feel about newspapers. It is very annoying.”
“But that is an unwholesome attitude of mind. Every woman should believe
one man and one newspaper, just as every man should, and I believe
generally does, believe one woman and one newspaper.”
“What an extraordinary theory.”
“Mrs. Fentley, that is a good working philosophy. There may not be either
one man or one woman who is worthy of such an unvarying faith, and for
the same reason it is possible that there is not one newspaper that
uniformly is worthy of belief. But that does not affect the matter. It
is a case of being comfortable.”
“Pardon me, but it looks to me more like a case of being fooled. Now my
theory—”
“As a cynic.”
“—as a cynic, is to have reservations. Of course I never could quite
believe my mother, for when I was wicked she never quite carried out her
threats. I can see now that she was wise in having her reservations, too.
Her theory was dangerously severe. Her practice was wiser.”
“You judge by the results. She would value your praise.”
“Oh, I often have said this to her. Then, my teachers were frequently
mistaken.”
“Did you tell them, too?”
“Certainly,—in my nice way, you know. Then Dick,—I never could be so much
in love with him that I should not know that he had reservations. Once,
when we had been married about a year, Dick came home very late, and I
asked where he had been. You know how young I was when I was married.
‘Why, Ethel,’ said Dick, ‘you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’ ‘I
should,’ I said, ‘tell me where you have been.’ ‘Now Ethel, why do you
ask me that? I know you wouldn’t believe me.’ But I persisted. ‘I promise
you, Dick, that I shall believe just what you tell me.’ ‘Well,’ he said,
‘I have been down to the Young Men’s Christian Association.’ I never
bothered Dick again. That is the next best thing to your philosophy,
I suppose. It is about my mother’s point of view. She used to say that
a good way to make a child a liar was to force an issue when there was
nothing to be gained by it.”
“That is why you do not force issues with Dick?”
“Precisely. And that is why Dick lets me alone pretty much.”
“I see; this is what we may call applied cynicism. Though I should think
that Dick might have more than one reason for not asking you where you
have been. You never could finish the story. And by the way, do you mind
telling me where we are going? You are keeping me in dread lest this
pleasure should be interrupted.”
“We shall be at Mrs. Linford’s in two minutes.”
“What shall you do there?”
“I shall assist Mrs. Linford in managing a British lion.”
“A what?”
“They say he is dreadfully brutal. It will be so nice to have you to help
stroke him.”
“But—”
“Oh, Mrs. Linford will be delighted. Though perhaps you had better not
mention books to him. They say he simply _hates_ other literary people.
And Mrs. Linford warned me not to speak of railroads. It seems that he
grows absolutely cataleptic at the mention of American railroads.”
“That is one of my favorite themes. You had better leave me outside or
let me go back to the Vulcan.”
“Nonsense! Here we are.”
The lion had not come, and was not coming. They said it was just like
him. Yet they seemed quite unhappy.
“So that now,” said Mrs. Fentley an hour later, “you are going home to
dinner with me.”
“Yes,” I returned, “Dick said I was to bid you fetch me. It is very nice
to have you guess his wishes this way. But mind you, I shall be quite
unmanageable if you mention the subject of Lake winds!”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VII
WITH A CHAPERON
[Illustration]
They all had climbed down from the coach but Miss Rittingway, the
Judge, and myself. Some of them had gone over to the ball game in which
young Medrick was to play. Others were at the stables. The Grifton girl
and Mentley were strolling among the booths. The Judge had asked Miss
Rittingway to go with him and see the fruit exhibit, and Miss Rittingway
had begged off. “I am going to sit here for a while,” she said in her
quietly conclusive way.
“But what did we come to the Fair for,” demanded the Judge, “if not to
run about and see everything?”
“My dear Judge,” returned Miss Rittingway, “I don’t forbid you to run
about or around and see everything.”
“I wish you would,” said the Judge. “I need minding. I am dying to be
bossed by somebody. I heard some one say that you were the chaperon in
this miscellaneous party, and there isn’t a member of the outfit who
needs your gentle guidance, your subtly restraining influence more than I
do. It is positively wicked to turn me loose at a county fair.”
“I’m awfully sorry, Judge,” returned Miss Rittingway, “but really I never
agreed to chaperon you.”
The Judge cast an appealing glance at me. “Oh, I don’t blame _you_!” he
said, with a mischievous twitch in his eyes, “and I’m coming back, unless
my unrestrained career ends in disaster.”
We watched the Judge until he had disappeared in the crowd.
“Do you think the Judge will marry again?” asked Miss Rittingway.
“Of all questions,” I replied, “that is the one I am least fitted to
answer. I have positive reverence for one who is capable of successfully
making that variety of guess. I represent an extremely crude form of the
prophet. When the sky is filled with extremely dark clouds I think that
it _may_ rain. That is as far as I have ever been able to go.”
“Well, I was wondering whether you had noticed any rather dark clouds in
the Judge’s sky.”
“I can’t say that I have. A woman has better sight for those things. She
can see a cloud when it isn’t bigger than a woman’s hand.”
Miss Rittingway smiled. “A prudent prophet,” she said, “always notices
the direction of the wind, and avoids being misled by the youngest
inhabitant.”
“Should you say that the Judge’s general amiability indicated anything
favorable to matrimony?”
“No; never that in itself. General amiability in my judgment even may be
taken as an opposing sign. It is particular amiability that counts.”
“Hasn’t the Judge been particularly amiable to you?” I asked.
“Nonsense. The Judge has talked somewhat to me because I am the most
detached member of the party. The Judge is a judicious man. He enjoys
going through the motions of being reckless with me because he recognizes
me as safe. I am very safe.”
“I suppose I should know what that means. It is something nice, I hope.”
“It is a neutral quality. It hasn’t anything to do with niceness or the
other thing so far as I can see.”
“But if a person were safe _and_ nice that person would, I should say,
be the sort of person with whom judges would like to be particularly
amiable. That seems clear enough. But what is this safeness? How does it
feel? Of course it isn’t complacence or anything of that sort.”
“It might be, I suppose. Sometimes I resent it—being regarded as so
safe. That might suggest that I am not complacent about it.”
[Illustration]
Miss Rittingway was holding a pink parasol between her and a brilliant
but not vehement sun. The faint flush which she gained from the silk
glorified a naturally brilliant complexion. Miss Rittingway was easily
the prettiest woman in the impromptu and somewhat heterogeneous coaching
party. I had been conscious of a certain quality in her which, now that
she had used the word “safe,” made her more enigmatical than before.
It was evident that her safeness was something more than discretion, a
quality which we find so happily illustrated in the American girl. It
was not merely a sense of proportion of which her sense of humor gave
so true a sign. Her attitude of mind made me think of the remark of a
modern dramatic teacher before a class of young women. “Ladies,” he said,
“you always must distribute yourself over the centre of gravity.” At
the first sound of it the admonition seemed mystical and empty enough.
But when he went on to explain his admonition it began to seem more
mundane and applicable. No pose, he told them, could be or could seem
natural and finished which did not establish an equation with the law
of gravity. He showed that every plant or tree, every bird on a bough,
naturally and inevitably attained a balance, and that art, continually,
in every department, sought this effect of balance, of visible relation
between action or repose and the obvious centre of gravity. All of which
is apologetically interpolated for the purpose of suggesting that Miss
Rittingway’s mental lines appeared to be beautifully distributed over the
centre of gravity. A little severity to the northeast was always balanced
by an alleviating grimace to the southwest, and her contagious laugh
never left a doubt of the reserve assets.
[Illustration]
“But,” I said to her, “you should be married. If you are a predestined
chaperon you should outwardly conform to the conventions by reason of
which there is such a thing as a chaperon. Society and the dictionary
expect you to be married. They do not insist, any more than society does
in the case of the parson and the doctor. But they favor and expect.”
“You see I am in my novitiate,” said Miss Rittingway, looking at the palm
of her left glove. “I am not yet ready to take the veil.”
“Meanwhile,” I said, “you do not seem to have accumulated any prejudices
against the office. It sits lightly upon you. The robes of your
responsibility flow gracefully. There is something which I have no doubt
is typical in your unmarried chaperonage. You may not suspect just what
there is of end-of-the-century character in your situation. We have had
a lot of talk about chaperons, from which one might think they had just
been invented. I am wondering whether you have any definite theories
about chaperons.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t. I don’t think they are an altogether foolish idea,
and I don’t think that they can be taken quite seriously either—perhaps
I mean solemnly. Certainly a chaperon who took herself solemnly would
scarcely fit into our American scheme.”
“As for that, no one who takes himself solemnly fits very well into our
American scheme, though I have noticed that we Americans take many things
seriously which we assume to carry with lightness, even with levity. I
often suspect that we differ more from other peoples in our insistence
upon this appearance of lightness than in our actual social qualities.”
[Illustration]
“But isn’t that a social quality with us?” demanded Miss Rittingway,
“this insistence upon an external lightness? The American is funny about
some things.”
“I presume he is a bigger humorist than he commonly suspects.”
“He hates to admit that humanity is about the same sort of thing here
as elsewhere. He despises the old labels. He believes in liberty as if
he had patented the notion, and wants his children to have lots of it;
but he is undoubtedly the most cautious parent in the world. He says we
have no classes, and leaves the foreigner to find that we have classes as
definitely set as any in the world.”
“Dear me!” I cried. “Is he so sophistical as that? If the American parent
is cautious he is cautious in a very liberal way. There is the Grifton
girl—”
At this I saw Miss Rittingway’s eyes wander in the direction of the
booths as if it might be possible to estimate the situation of Mentley
and his companion.
“The Grifton girl,” I said, “is a very modern daughter. I should fancy
that she was somewhat difficult. I mention this because it has appeared
that you have a particular interest in Miss Grifton.”
“I have. In a particular sense I am the chaperon of Miss Grifton. That is
to say, I promised her mother, who is as delicate as one of those mothers
in an old-fashioned English novel, though by no means so submissive, that
I would do my best to keep Alice from being engaged to more than one man
at a time.”
“Is she so engaging a girl?”
“It doesn’t seem to be precisely the old case of not being able to say
‘no.’ A girl who can’t say ‘no’ has only to be pretty and amiable like
Alice to get into a heap of difficulty. But she _can_ say ‘no.’ She said
‘no’ to the young man her father likes.”
“The faculty for saying ‘no’ to that one is often developed quite early.
My friend Sudwell told me one day that his daughter had a dexterity in
despising the men he liked that made him wonder whether she read his
thoughts or simply had a perverted taste.”