me. Death did me a friendly service. He called to her last resting-place
an ancient dame who had severely played the role of grandmother and
mother-in-law in our large establishment--unloved, tyrannical,
unregretted. But custom bade us mourn. Then was my opportunity. Our
doors were closed, but I was not idle--_I studied myself_, and,
retrospectively, all of my friends. After several months of hard
training and much serious thought I found myself ready. I had
established my little theories about life, and their intricate relations
to myself, and cast about carefully for something upon which I might
with safety and good results practice upon. Most of my friends were
tame, uninteresting, and none of them just then my lovers. I resorted to
many of the little airs and tricks of social trade. I soon found myself
doing quite a brisk little business in a quiet way; quite quiet, for
I still wore light mourning and, of course, was not going out; we all
thought it best to pay the highest possible respect to the late but
unlamented grandmother. I soon gained the reputation--which I bravely
sustained--of being far above the idle, cruel dealer in human hearts; I
was said to be full of old-fashioned coquetry, but not even flirtatious;
that I was gracious, had pleasing manners, but was the very soul of
sincerity, and would never be guilty of leading men on and on. I was
frequently contrasted with that devilish brown-eyed beauty--a recognized
flirt, ready to sacrifice any man on her crowded altar. A man once said
to me of her:
"Such kings of shreds have wooed and won her,
Such crafty knaves her laurel owned,
It has become almost an honor
Not to be crowned."
"Hush! hush! she is my friend," I said, for I knew him to be one of
her rejected lovers. In a month I had gently told him nay. But he was
innocent, he did not know that I had played my cards for him. He thought
me cold, but he thought me kind. He advertised me in desirable places
and with most desirable people. I captivated several other desirable
men. It is so easy for a woman to fool a man. But I was eager to try
my powers on better metal--some man of the world. A victory in such a
quarter would fully establish me, and it would bring the very best men
to my side, for they, like sheep, readily follow the well-known leader.
And perhaps--Gerome might return.
One winter's night late, after I had gone to my room, two men called.
Ordinarily I should have excused myself, but something--we call it fate,
I believe--prompted me to see them. One was an old friend--a friend of
the family. The other a thorough man of the world, and--I knew it
intuitively--my desired victim. He was an idle, indifferent, Social
Drifter. He was an artist by profession; his inclination--and his
leisure--made him more of a _diletante_ than any thing else. He was
more notorious than famous. He had done nothing to give himself fame,
but he had done many odd things which gave him notoriety. I have always
had a secret but deep-rooted love of notoriety; it makes my blood tingle
with a most delicious sensation. I knew that he could give me a great
deal of _quiet notoriety_ which was the one thing needed to make me
a success--notice, notice, constant notice! The surgeon may be ever so
skillful and yet if his skill be not known his instruments, rusted with
disuse, will cling to their unopened cases and his hand will forget its
cunning. So is it with the flirtatious maiden; she must hang forth a
sign which may be read, and quickly, even by those who run.
My artist lover was not the ideal slender, pale-faced youth; he was not
beautiful, he was not good looking. But perhaps I should have loved him
if he had been the one, and tolerated him longer if he had been the
other. He was aggressive; he was open, direct always; he was not blunt,
yet he was free from the all-prevalent use of the _preliminary_.
He loved me! And he very soon told me as much and more. He made no
concealment of the fact to me, or indeed to others. He loved me, was
proud of it, and glad to have all know of it. Of course this was just
what I wanted, for he was not a susceptible man. He had not been in love
for years. His declarations meant something, and people knew it. Thus
was I brought into notice. "Who, pray, is this Mary Lee Manley?" they
began to ask. "Is she the same scrawny, ugly girl who was such a flat
failure in society two years ago?" "What has she done to herself? She
is certainly not a beauty but she has improved, just how we are unable
to say."
The men began to find me, hunted me up, and were unable to realize that
I was that self same individual whom they had so diligently avoided
her first season out. All the while my affair went on, systematically
artistic, with that Social Drifter. No man will ever love me again
as I was loved by that man. I wantonly played with his openly avowed
affections. I was deliberate, artistic. I was cold. I led him on
blindly. I calculated every move with mathematical accuracy. I left
nothing undone. I skillfully covered my tracks. I always told him sadly,
gently, that I did not love him, and that I never could. Yet I told him
in such a manner that, almost breathless with a new hope, he refused to
believe me, refused to listen. He was always considerate and I hated him
for his consideration. He was always thoughtful, unselfish, and alas,
always loving. Finally, after I had successfully played him for all
that he was worth--which was a great deal to me--I told him to go. I
dismissed him with scorn and without reason. Of course there had been no
love in my heart for this man, but his delicate attentions were always
intensely flattering. And once, just once, I might have yielded, but
my family, my own judgment, every thing, was against the man, and to
the end he continued to be simply a trial for my untried and newly
discovered powers. And then, perhaps the more potent reason of all,
Gerome Meadows gave uneasy indications of a desire to return. I, and
immediately, made arrangements for the full gratification of his desire.
Now was my chance. Revenge, when delayed, is all the sweeter for the
delay. The world must know of my power, and through Gerome Meadows! I
had waited long and patiently, but I had not wasted my time. I had gone
through a severe social training, and with the best results. I was an
accomplished flirt, but I was not trammeled by the always dangerous
reputation--it was not known. It was simply a rumor about town that I
might be somewhat of a trifler, but it had not been affirmed, and few
believed the idle, unauthorized rumor; it had not even reached the ears
of Gerome Meadows. He had hotly quarreled with his devilish, brown-eyed
beauty. She had dismissed him after a highly tragic scene. The details
were highly sensational--as told by her devoted partizans, and warmly
denied by his and his outraged family (principally irate mother). They
sound like the fragments of a romance written by Bulwer, and with a
liberal touch of Lucile. It was the talk of the town, and many things
were said, and a few were done. I was silent and hopeful. My triumph was
near! She had done with him, and forever. He did not cut his handsome
throat! He did not do any of the thrilling but uncomfortable things done
by the usual rejected lover in the average novel--_but he came back
to me!_ Once more Gerome Meadows was my recognized lover, and the
people--the fickle people--began to whisper it about (greatly to my
satisfaction), that perhaps this very uncertain Mr. Meadows had always
loved me from the time his sister Kate and myself were school-girls
together. And furthermore, he had for a while yielded to the manifold
fascinations of that devilish brown-eyed beauty. In fact, he himself
told me a goodly number of just such little speeches; discoursed on the
difference between real love and mere fascination. He told me that I was
the only woman he ever could really love, and that he had for me a pure
and warm affection. Ah! how sweet were those declarations to my ear. But
not to my heart--it was closed against him.
I was not the woman he had known and halfway loved before--for I had
eagerly tasted deep and long of the Egyptian flesh-pots, and I refused
any other kind of social sustenance. I allowed him to believe that his
tardy return had routed all rivals from the field. I forced him to fancy
me to be so different from _that other woman_. I was, in truth, a
cool, quiet reaction. I coaxed him into believing me to be full of a
gentle, womanly purity. I made him blind to the fact that I was a
worldly woman, conscious of and ready to unhesitatingly use my
worldliness. I measured my powers aright--I could at my own sweet will
allow him, force him, coax him, make him _do any thing_. I cunningly
wove a web in and around the heart of Gerome Meadows--his rejected, torn
and dejected heart. I gently soothed him into not quite a forgetfulness,
yet a strong and healthful calm. He was grateful. Reactions are always
dangerous; he wondered why he had not known me before as he knew me
then. And while he wondered I charmed him into a new love fever. It was
almost a touch of real passion. It was a skillful drawing together of
the scattered ligaments of that other and violently broken love. I had
labored hard, and not altogether in vain. He was mine for the taking.
Would I take him?
We stood together late one afternoon in a rich oriel window which
overhung the street. We were silent. The rustle of the light summer
drapery filled the air with a faint but melodiously tender undertone.
We looked out of the broad open window down the street. It was near the
close of a superb summer's day. I was in a mood to yield. My old nature
seemed to rise out of its former self. It was the one golden opportunity
for the man by my side. The old tender leaning toward him came back
again, stronger, more subtle than ever before. It was--for the
while--love, or something very like unto love. My nature, my soul was at
its utmost flow, but no one touched the flood-gates. Gerome was passive,
silent. One word, a hand-touch, and I would have loved him and bound
myself to him for weal or woe! Little things are every thing in a
woman's life. Robert Fairfield passed by beneath the window; he briefly
paused, politely looked up, lifted his hat, _smiled_, and--innocent
of what he had done--went on his way. He had simply done what was the
proper and usual thing, but his conventional smile had come into my life
at a strangely opportune moment--or, was it opportune? My heart had been
laid bare, the flood-gates had been touched, and they had slowly opened
beneath the magic influence of a _smile_. Gerome Meadows had been
silent. He had lost his one golden opportunity. I told him so, and sent
him away. I fired upon him a volley of ridicule and contempt; my revenge
was complete. He was angry, surprised, disappointed. The old wounds were
torn open afresh; but he was not easily undone. He immediately made
peace with his irate mother. He placed himself in her charge. He
promised to try again, but under her direction and according to her
selection. In a few days more he goes to the altar with this new and
latest love. But, ah! Gerome, your charming, susceptible self never
loved but once! Where is that devilish brown-eyed beauty? It is well
that she is silent! One word from her and--but, go marry. And pray, take
with you my conventional wishes for your peace and happiness. On your
wedding day I will write you a dainty card and send you a trifle.
What shall it be? What would be, under the "existing circumstances," the
most appropriate thing? Perhaps a little Cupid, somewhat weather-beaten
and with an empty quiver might do, or, best of all, _a lock of
golden-brown hair_ stolen from the rich, heavy tresses of that
devilish brown-eyed beauty. What say you? But _au revoir_, Gerome
Meadows.
There is to be a reception--a most elegant affair--the night of the
wedding. It is to be given by that now well-satisfied lady, Mrs.
Gillespie Meadows, the mother of my dear, dear Gerome. My escort: Robert
Fairfield. The beginning of another end! What will it be?
[Illustration:
Miss Mary Lee Manley,
(of The Inner Sisterhood.)]
* * * * *
VII
An Olive Outline
In Shades and Shadows
Of a Clever Social Life.
* * * * *
Platitudes and Pleasures.
My life is different from the usual social existence of the average
society girl.
I have never followed the mirage of a definite ideal.
I have never been a straggler for social honors--they have been mine
without the struggling. I was born to a position. It is mine by right
of inheritance. There is no strong odor of lately acquired greenbacks
about our old and very respectable establishment. We live on a quiet,
unfashionable street; we are somewhat apart from the world, and yet we
are frequently sought--for we never seek. My grandfather was a man of
excellent parts and much power in his native State. He was a well-known,
important factor in the home of his adoption. His wife was celebrated
for her ready wit and radiant beauty in the days when Madison was
President.
My father is a great man. It is not a greatness hedged in by a local
limit; he is known far and wide. His scientific researches have made him
famous and his name familiar and beloved on foreign shores. Nor is he a
prophet without honor even in his own country.
My mother is a rare woman. She is peculiarly a womanly woman. She
constantly gives her best thought, her best effort, to the members of
her family, always forgetting self; and she is full of the tenderest
consideration toward other people. She never speaks ill of her neighbor;
she is always true. She is always ready to discharge her duty--and more.
She is tender, gentle, firm; there is not a flower which blooms more
full, better rounded out, more sweet, better to look upon, or in any way
more complete, more perfect than she.
I may not be great or entirely good myself, but I constantly breathe an
atmosphere exhilarating and pure--made so by the presence of a great man
and a good woman.
Our house is the tacitly recognized head-quarters for all kinds and
conditions of clever people, and some not so clever, but who--in their
way--are just as interesting:
Social Exquisites.
Social Drifters.
Briefless Barristers.
Men Who Have Risen.
Men Unsuccessful.
Sympathy Seekers.
Sympathy Finders.
Newspaper Reporters.
Newspaper Poets.
Authors Private.
Authors Public.
People Of The Army.
People Of The Navy.
Bohemians, Ragged As To Their Cuffs, Unkempt
As To Their Raiment.
All Classes, Shades And Conditions Of Life.
In Short, A Strange Kaleidoscopic Circle.
To be a gentleman above question is the _badge of admission_. To be
clever is the _badge of promotion_. I am the center of this
intensely interesting circle. I am the focus, the magnet around which
they all revolve. The bulk of the social burden rests on me. The minute
but highly important details are carefully watched and skillfully
righted by the good mother. I am the General Entertainer, but she is the
ameliorator of those little roughnesses, those little sharp corners
which cling even to unconventional people. Her clear, well-balanced
mind, her gentle, yet quietly positive temperament, peculiarly fit her
for this necessary but frequently neglected social work.
I am young, beautiful, untrammeled; I am full of an unlimited ambition;
I am not content with the small things of life; I will have none of
those precious morsels--mere fragments--which tempt and readily please
my sweet sisters in Vanity Fair. Young, yet I am far enough beyond
twenty to have ideas of my own. Beautiful, yet I am free from that
all-conscious air which pervades the average beauty. Untrammeled,
because men do not touch me--have not the power to rouse within me one
tender feeling. I am interested always, but I am never susceptible.
Women depend too much on their intuitions; they know so little about
human nature, and less about man-nature. An intuition is oftentimes a
safeguard to woman but more frequently a danger, because it creates
within her too much of a servile dependence upon mere impulses and first
impressions. My own intuitions are strong, but I want my knowledge to be
stronger. I want to know all there is to know about men, women, and
things. Women are usually like open books to me, easily read while
passing on to matters more interesting--men.
A man once asked me what special impression or effect I should like to
have on a man of the world who had been every where, done every thing,
seen every thing, knew every thing (or at least thought so)--in fine,
a man with the edge of every desire dulled, the glow of every passion
cooled. My answer was simply this: I should try to give him what I
constantly and without much effort gave most men--_A new sensation_.
After all it is not such a hard thing to do. Blasé men are my especial
prey; they can always be reached; their vulnerable points are many, but
generally well concealed.
I have lost my early enthusiasms, but my enthusiastic _manner_
still remains. A genuine, cynical touch has, here of late, fallen into
my life. It is not an affectation. I am all the better for that touch;
it makes me more of a power among my subjects. For they are in reality
my subjects. In the main they are loyal. They are ready to fight for me
and my cause--if I had one.
I have divided my subjects--and other men--into:
I. Platitudes,
II. Pleasures.
Platitudes are men who lead an honest, stupid existence. They are
contented with their lot--because ignorant of any other. They are
resentful of all innovations--because they are narrow-minded and full
of deep ruts; they are guiltless of one clever thought; they sometimes
stumble into somewhat of a clever action, but humbly deprecate the move,
unconscious of having done a clever thing. Such men used to float about
me in shoals of delicious stupidity. I was such a new creature! I was so
different from the women they had met and always known. They were the
foolish moths, I the candle-flame. They dashed blindly into danger; they
fluttered about in ungraceful, ungracious misery. Finally, they would
fly out and go on their little commonplace ways full of scars and petty
burns, but not altogether marred--all the better for their uncomfortable
but harmless burning. But nowadays it is quality not numbers which I
desire, so they let me alone and are indeed astonished, bewildered, to
find that I can go on, quite successfully too, and _without them_.
Poor little fools; they are not an absolute necessity to any one--hardly
to themselves.
A Platitude is a selfish creature, and never very grateful unless he
expects a continuance of past favors. With him a cessation of favors
means a cessation of gratitude. A limited number of the Platitude class
still linger about me--principally on account of a long-contracted
habit. They are content with whatever they get; they are entirely
harmless, always useful in some way, and occasionally quite interesting.
* * * * *
A Pleasure is the direct opposite of a Platitude.
He is a clever man--clever in some one particular way. He is generally
a man with many brilliant theories brilliantly brought forth. He is
ready to entertain any proposition. He is ready to try any new field of
human action. He is sometimes sympathetic, more frequently antagonistic.
But my so-called _Pleasures_ may not be forced under any one head
which will accurately describe them as a class. Indeed, each one is a
class within himself; that is my reason for using so broad a term as
Pleasures: they are, in fact, Pleasures to me. They are really necessary
to my happiness--not individually, but as an entirety.
Most of these men have been at some one time my lovers--at least after
a fashion. Some of them are foolishly constant. They are not foolish on
account of their constancy--a most commendable trait--but because of
their inability to know just when to make a display of their devotion.
The general run of lovers--at least mine--are distressingly inopportune.
This a woman, in spite of herself, deeply resents; it is so unpardonably
stupid of a sensible man not to know just when to make known his tender
passion. Lovers seldom study the women they love. They labor hard and
plow straight on, in spite of any timid opposition from the other
quarter; they are heedless of the future; they are eager to gain the
prize, and often stride far beyond--overstep the mark, which sometimes
is but a mere shadow line.
Most women fail to understand why they are unable to retain their
rejected lovers. To me the explanation is plain. The average woman has
nothing to give her lover, when he asks the all-important question, but
a few tender, meaningless words to environ her _yes_ or _no_.
Of course, when the answer is yes, they both feed on the thought of
marriage until its consummation. But if she is forced to say no, it
leaves her barren of any thing to offer in lieu of the affection
demanded. She is at once destituted of resources. She has no mental
reservoir out of which she may feed the man's desire, and gently but
effectually turn it into an intellectual channel of her own making and
directing. Therefore the man is lost to her--be he Platitude or
Pleasure. She has made the fatal failure of neglecting to furnish--and
at once--a sufficient amount of intellectual excitement to fascinate the
man into lingering, and force him finally into a steadfast allegiance.
Women ought never insult their rejected lovers by _asking_ them for
their friendship. Those things come, if come they can, of themselves. It
is such an ugly mistake to insist on giving every thing a name. Emotions
thrive so much better when they are nameless. We rightly label poisons,
but why should we label perfumes? I love a touch of the vague and of the
mysterious. It is the mystery-man who wins the woman. Direct
courtships--when found in novels--read well, but they are not advisable
in real life. Women like to upset well-laid plans by perverse and
counter movements. A man must always let a woman do a reasonable share
of the courting. I know so many men who have been courted outright by
their wives--of course in a gentle, womanly way. It is often done. I
have sometimes been so much interested in a man that I have fancied
myself at last in love. But it is always a fleet-footed fancy. Interest
and Love are not always the same--Robert Fairfield once interested me,
but I never loved him.
I lead an ideal, independent life. I have no uncongenial family
ties. My wishes, yea, even my whims, find instant gratification, if
gratification is possible. I am just delicate enough to gain the
tenderest consideration from all who know me. My little social sins
gain the readiest forgiveness--from those who love me--and, in the eyes
of some, grow into positive virtues. I maybe outrageously tardy for an
engagement, or, without any particular reason, break it altogether,
yet be understood and upheld. Platitudes do not always understand, and
sometimes foolishly rebel. But it is of no use. I have a little way
of making them believe that it was actually they and not I who had
committed the offense. And they plead for _me_ to forgive _them!_
My modes of life are somewhat peculiar--at least commonplace persons
think them so. I give little lunches and dinners. I invite just
whomsoever I please. Now and then, for the sake of good form, and of the
good mother, I have regulation affairs, to which I bid the _society
regulars_--the so-called first and best set, who take invitations
as a matter of course, who consider themselves the social salt of the
earth, who go every where, and move about the houses of other people
as if they owned them. The _Society Regular_ is a well-dressed,
bad-mannered, somewhat disagreeable animal, devoid of innate delicacy,
and absolutely without gratitude. They are Platitudes of the first
water. They do not frequent my house. They never dine or lunch with
me, my Pleasures and other Platitudes.
This regulation affair is generally and afternoon tea. I leave out my
retinue, the Kaleidoscopic Circle, and tell them about it afterward. My
Social Exquisites and my Social Drifters are _reformed regulars_--brands
snatched from the burning by me. Briefless Barristers delight me very
much. I have several interesting specimens in the legal line. It is
interesting to have "young men of great promise" around me. True, their
fees are small and few between, yet that enables them to see just that
much more of me. In the old days I used to read law with them; but I
have very wisely abandoned that little habit--it was tiresome.
I have one or two Men Who Have Risen. They are crude, uncultured
creatures, but full of excellent points. One of them is a widower,
who made his large fortune killing hogs, and afterward canning peas,
tomatoes, etc. Of course he talks all the time about how he made his
money. I am always an attentive listener, and I verily believe that I
now have a practical knowledge of the hog business and canning interests
of the country.