_"We look at the one little woman's face we lovey as we look at the
face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own
yearnings."_--George Eliot.
"But after all it is not fair to blame her as you do, Cuthbert. She is
what she must be. It is not at all strange. Midge--"
"I am quite out of patience with you, Nora;" exclaimed Cuthbert Wagner,
vehemently. "How can you excuse her? Midge, as you call her, has been no
friend to you. She was deceitful and designing all along. She even tried
in every way she could think of to undermine you in _my_ affections!" He
tossed his head contemptuously and strode to the window where he stood
glaring out into the moonlight in fierce and indignant protest. His wife
had so often spoken well of Margaret Mintem. She did not appear to hold
the least resentment toward the school-friend of her past years, while
Cuthbert could see nothing whatever that was good or deserving of
praise in the character of the young lady in question. He was bitterly
resentful because Margaret Mintem had spoken ill of his wife while she
was only his betrothed, and Cuthbert Wagner did not forgive easily.
Nora crossed the room with her swift, graceful tread, and the sweep of
her lace gown over the thick rug had not reached her husband's ear as he
stood thumping on the window pane. He started a little, therefore, when
a soft hand was laid upon his arm and a softer face pressed itself close
to his shoulder.
"It is very sweet of you, dear," she said in her low, gentle voice,
"It is very sweet of you to feel so keenly any thrust made at me; but
darling, you are unfair to Midge, poor girl! My heart used often to
bleed for her. It must be terribly hard for her to fight her own nature,
as she does,--as she _must_,--and lose the battle so often after all."
"Fight fiddle-sticks!" said Cuthbert, and then went on grumbling in
inarticulate sounds, at which his wife laughed out merrily.
"Oh, boo, boo, boo," she said, pretending to imitate his unuttered
words.
"I don't believe a word of it. _I know Margaret Mintern_. Did I not
room with her for three long years? And do I not know that she is a good
girl, and a very noble one, too, in spite of her little weakness of envy
or jealousy?
"She can't help that. I am sure she must be terribly humiliated by it.
Indeed, indeed, dear, I know that she is; but she cannot master it. It
is a part of her. I do not know whether she was bom with it or not; but
I do know that all of her life since she was a very little girl she has
been so situated that just that particular defect in her character is
the inevitable result. Don't you believe, Cuthbert, that all such things
are natural productions? Why, dearie, it seems to me that you might as
reasonably feel angry with me because my hair is brown as toward Midge
because her envy sometimes overbears her better qualities. The real
fault lies--"
"O Nora, suppose you take the stump! Lecture on 'Whatever is is right,'
and have done with it."
"Aha, my dear," laughed his wife, "I have caught you napping again. I do
not say that it is right; but I do say that it is natural for Margaret
to be just what she is. That is just the point people always overlook,
it seems to me. Nature is wrong about half of the time--even inanimate
nature. Just look over there! See those splendid mountains and the
lovely little valley all touched with moonlight; but, oh, how the
eye longs for water! A lake, a splendid river, the ocean in the
distance--something that is water--_anything_ that is water! But no, it
is valley and mountain and mountain and valley, until the most beautiful
spot in the world, when first you see it, grows hateful and tiresome and
lacking in the most important feature."
Cuthbert laughed. "A lake would look well just over there by McGuire's
barn, now, wouldn't it? And, come to think of it, how a few mountains
would improve things over at Newport or Long Beach." He stopped to thump
a bug from his wife's shoulder.
"How pretty you look in that black lace, little woman. I don't believe
nature needed any improver once in her life anyhow--when she made you."
Nora smiled. A pleased, gratified little dimple made itself visible at
one corner of her mouth. Her husband stooped over and kissed it lightly,
just as the portiere was drawn aside and a guest announced by James, the
immaculate butler.
"We've just been having a quarrel, Bailey," said Mr. Wagner, as he
advanced to greet the visitor, "and now I mean to leave it to you if--"
"Yes," drawled Mr. Bailey, "I noticed that as I came in. You were just
punctuating your quarrel as James drew back the portiere. That is the
reason I coughed so violently as I stepped inside. Don't be alarmed
about my health. It isn't consumption. It is only assumption, I do
assure you. I assumed that you assumed that you were alone--that there
wasn't an interested spectator; but, great Scott! Bert, I don't blame
you, so don't apologize;" and with a low bow of admiration to his
friend's wife, he joined in the laugh.
"But what was the row? I'm consumed to hear it," he added, as they were
seated. "I should be charmed to umpire the matter--so long as it ended
that way. Now, go on; but I want to give you fair warning, old man, that
I am on Mrs. Wagner's side to start with, so you fire off your biggest
guns and don't attempt to roll any twisted balls."
"_Curved_ balls," laughed Nora, "not twisted; and it seems to me you
mixed your games just a wee bit. There isn't any game with guns and
balls both, is there?"
"Oh, yes, yes indeed," replied Mr. Bailey, promptly. "The old, old game
in which there is brought to bear a battery of eyes."
"Oh, don't," said Cuthbert. "I am not equal to it! But after all, I
can't see that you are well out of this, Ned. Where do the balls come
in?"
"What have you against eyeballs that roll in a fine frenzy when a
battery of handsome eyes is trained upon a bashful fellow like me?" he
asked quite gravely, and then all three laughed and Cuthbert pretended
to faint.
"I shall really have to protest, myself, if you go any farther, Mr.
Bailey," said Nora.
"You are getting into deep water, and if you are to be on my side in the
coming contest, I want you to have a cool head and--"
"A clean heart;" put in Cuthbert.
"Mrs. Wagner never asks for impossibilities, I am sure," said Mr.
Bailey, dryly.
"But she does. That is just it. She wants to make me believe that a girl
who traduced her and acted like a little fiend generally, is an adorable
creature--a natural production which couldn't help itself--had to behave
that way. We--"
"I believe I started in by saying that I should be on your side, Mrs.
Wagner," said their guest, assuming a judicial attitude and bracing
himself behind an imaginary pile of accumulated evidence, "but I'm
beginning to wobble already. If Bert makes another home run like that, I
warn you, madam, that while I shall endeavor to be a fair and impartial
judge, I shall decide against you."
Nora's eyes had a twinkle in their depths for an instant, but her face
had grown grave.
"Wait. Let me tell you." she said. "Even Cuthbert does not know just
how it was--what went to make my old school-friend's character precisely
what it became. It was like this: When she was a very little girl her
father died, and the poor little mother went back home with her four
young children, and her crushed pride, to be an additional burden to
the already overburdened father, who was growing old and who had small
children of his own still to educate and pilot through society.
He had lost his hold on business when he went into the army; and
although he came home a general, quite covered with glory, a large
family cannot live on glory, you know, and fame will not buy party
dresses for three daughters and a grandchild."
"I've noticed that," remarked Mr. Bailey, dryly.
"The added importance of his position and the consequent publicity made
the handsome party gowns all the more necessary, however," said Nora,
not heeding the interruption, "and so the family had to do a great many
things that were not pleasant to make even one end meet, as poor Midge
used to say. The General loved brains and his granddaughter was very
bright."
Cuthbert gave a low whistle. He would not compromise. If he found one
thing wrong in an acquaintance all things were wrong. It followed,
therefore, in his mind, that since Margaret Min-tern had been guilty of
envy, she was altogether unlikely to possess fine mental capabilities.
He would not even allow that she was stylish and sang well.
His wife took no notice of his outburst, but her color deepened a little
as she went on.
"She was the most clever girl mentally that I have ever known and she
was a vast deal of service to me in the years we were together. She
sharpened my wits and stimulated my thoughts in a thousand ways, for
which I am her debtor still. But I am getting ahead of my story. As I
say, the old General worshipped brains, but he also adored beauty; and,
alas, his granddaughter was quite plain--"
"Ugly as a hedge-fence, and I never could see that she was so
superhumanly brilliant or stylish, as you claim, either," put in
Cuthbert Wagner, as he leaned back in his deep chair with his eyes drawn
to a narrow line.
"She was almost exactly the same age of her Aunt Julia, the General's
youngest daughter; but Julia was a dream of beauty and of stupidity."
"Situation is now quite plain," said Mr. Bailey. "The lovely Julie got
there. She always does, and--"
"Ah, but you must remember that in this case 'there' was the heart of
the father of one and the grandfather of the other," said Nora, smiling.
Her husband laughed outright and faced Mr. Bailey.
"I rather think she has got you now, old man. In a case like that
I'm hanged if I know how it would turn out--who would get there. The
elements won't mix. It is not the usual thing.
"The beautiful stupid and the brilliant but plain are all
right,--regular stage properties, so to speak,--but the grandfather!
I'll wager if we tossed up for it, and you got heads and I got tails
we'd both be wrong.
"There is something actually uncanny in the aged grandparent ingredient
in a conundrum like that. Now if it were a young fellow,--only the
average donkey,--why of course the lovely Julia would bear off the
palm and leave Midge, as Nora calls her, to pine away. But if it were a
level-headed, middle-aged chap like me, brains would take precedence."
He waved his hand lightly toward his wife, who parted her lips over a
set of little white teeth and a radiant smile burst forth.
"You are a bold hypocrite, Bert," said Mr. Bailey. "You did not have to
make any such choice, and you are not entitled to the least credit in
the premises. You got both."
"This is really quite overwhelming," laughed Nora; "but--"
"Why on earth did you call her attention to it, Ned," exclaimed Mr.
Wagner, with great pretence of annoyance. "She would have swallowed it
whole. I wonder why it is a woman so loves to be told that you married
her for her intellect, when in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out
of eight hundred and forty you did nothing of the kind, and she knows
it perfectly well. You married her because you loved her, brains or no
brains, beauty or no beauty, and that's an end of it. Isn't that so,
Ned?"
"Well, I'm not prepared to say, yet. I am umpire. I have not made up my
mind which I shall marry--the lovely Julia, or the brilliant niece; but
I think I shall in the long run."
"God help you if you do!" said Cuthbert, dramatically. "I don't know
Julia, the beautiful; but I'd hate to see you married to a cat with
uncut claws, Ned, much as I think you need dressing down from time to
time."
"Mrs. Wagner," said Mr. Bailey, turning to her, gravely, "I'm not paying
the least attention to him, and I am eager to hear how the grandfather
got out of it."
"The _grandfather!_" exclaimed Nora, "why I had no idea of telling his
story. It was the two girls I was interested in--or at least, in one of
them; but that is just like a man. He--"
She allowed her feather fan to fall in her lap and looked up helplessly.
"But come to think of the other side, his story _would_ be worth
telling, wouldn't it? It must have been a rather trying situation for
him, too."
She took the fan up again, and waved it before her, thoughtfully. "I
wonder why I never thought of that before. I have always rather blamed
him for developing his granddaughter's one sad defect. I thought he
should have guarded her against it. And--I do wonder if it is because I
am a woman that I never before thought how very difficult it must have
been for him?"
"No doubt, no doubt," said her husband, dryly. "But now that we have
shed a few tears over our mental shortcomings and lack of breadth of
sympathy in overlooking the sad predicament of the doughty General,
proceed. The umpire sleepeth apace, and I've got to have my shy at the
charming Midge before we've done with her," and he shut his paper-knife
with a wicked little click.
"You can see how it would be," Nora began again, quite gravely, and the
gentlemen both smiled. "You can see how it would be. The granddaughter
was made to feel that she was in the way--was a burden. Her mother
would urge her to become indispensable to the old General. To read to
him, talk brightly to him, sing and play for him, watch his moods and
meet them cleverly. It was all done as a race for his affections. Julia
raced with her, setting her beauty and the other great fact that she was
the child of his old age over against the entertaining qualities of her
rival."
Mr. Bailey drew his handkerchief across his brow and looked helplessly
perplexed, while Cuthbert responded with a dreary shake of the head.
"It is a clear case of 'The Lady or the Tiger,' yet, so far as I can
see," said he. "Who got there, Bailey?"
Mr. Bailey smiled despairingly, and shook his head, but said nothing.
"It went on like that day after day, week after week, month after month,
year after year," continued Nora, looking steadily in front of her and
shivering a little, "until they were both young ladies. The General
gave a party to present them both to society at the same time. His
granddaughter tried to make him feel that he was repaid for the
expense and trouble by the display of her exceptional powers as a
conversationalist--Julia, by the display of her neck and shoulders, her
exquisite rose-leaf face, and her childishly pretty manners. This sort
of rivalry would have been well enough, no doubt, if it had not been
for the fact that from childhood up to this culmination there had been
a dash of bitterness in it, an un-der-current of antagonism; and poor
Midge had always been the main sufferer, because she was very sensitive
and she was made to feel that all she received was taken from her aunt
Julia. To stand first with her father, Julia would do almost anything;
and the ingenuity with which she devised cruel little stabs at Midge was
simply phenomenal. To be absolutely necessary to him became almost a
mania with his granddaughter."
"If this thing goes on much longer, I am going to have a fit," Cuthbert
announced, placidly.
"The girl you judge so harshly, poor child, had a great many of them,"
said Nora, with an inflection in her voice that checked a laugh on Mr.
Bailey's lips. "Fits of depression, fits of anger, fits of sorrow, fits
of shame and of indignation with herself and with others. For there were
times when she stooped to little meannesses which her sensitive soul
abhorred. If intense effort resulted, after all, in failure, envy of
her successful rival grew up in her heart; and, sometimes, if it were
carefully cultivated by the pruning hook of sarcasm or an unkind look of
triumph, she would say or do a mean or underhand thing, and then regret
it passionately when it was too late."
Cuthbert gave a grunt of utter incredulity.
"Regretted it so little she'd do it again next day," he grumbled. Nora
went steadily on.
"It grew to be the one spring and impulse of her whole nature--the
necessity of her existence--to stand _first_ with the ruling spirit
wherever she was, whoever it might be. At school I have known her to
sit up all night to make sure that she would be letter-perfect in her
lessons the following morning. Not because she cared for her studies so
much as because she _must_ feel that she stood first in the estimation
of her teachers. And then, too, her grandfather would know and be proud
of her. It got to be nature with her (I do not know how much of the
tendency may have been born in her) to need to stand on the top wherever
she was. (It has always seemed to me that the conditions surrounding her
were quite enough to explain this characteristic without an appeal to a
possible heredity of which I can know nothing.) Even where we boarded,
although she disliked the women and looked down upon the young men, she
made them all like her, and even went the length of allowing one young
fellow to ask her to marry him simply because she saw that he was
interested in me."
"Humph! She--" began Cuthbert, but his wife held up her hand to check
him, and did not pause in her story.
"Up to that time she had not given him a thought, and she was very angry
when he finally asked the great question. She thought that he should
have known that such a girl as she was could not be for a man of his
limitations. She felt insulted. She flew up stairs and cried with
indignation. 'The mere idea!' she said to me. 'How dared he! The common
little biped!' I told her that she had encouraged him, and had brought
unnecessary pain upon him as well as regret upon herself. Then she was
angry with me. By and by she put her hand out in the darkness and
took mine and pressed it. Then she said, 'Nora, it _was_ my
fault; but--but--' and then she began to sob again. 'But, Nora, I
don't--know--why--I--did--it--and,' there was a long pause. 'And,
beside, I _thought_ he was in love with you,'" she sobbed out.
"That was the whole story," said Cuthbert, resentfully. "She simply
wanted to supplant you and--"
"Yes, that _was_ the whole story, as you say, dear," said his wife,
gently; "but the poor girl could not help it. And--and she did not
understand it herself at all."
"You make me provoked, Nora," said Cuthbert, almost sharply. "She wasn't
a fool. She tried the same game on me a year or two later; but that
time it didn't work. She even went the length of talking ill of you to
me--saying little cutting things--when she found I had utterly succumbed
to your attractions. I have to laugh yet when I think of it,--that is,
when it don't make me too angry to laugh,--how I gave her a good round
talking to." He laughed now at the recollection.
"She must have taken me for her delightful old grandparent the way I
lectured her. But when I remembered how loyal you were to her, it just
made my blood boil and I told her so."
Mr. Bailey shifted his position and began to contemplate giving a
verdict emphatically against the absent lady, when Nora checked him by a
wave of her fan.
"Yes, I know she did, Cuthbert, and I know everything you said to her.
You were very cruel--if you had understood, as you did not and do not
yet. She came and told me all about it." Cuthbert Wagner gave a low,
incredulous whistle, and even Mr. Bailey looked sceptical.
"She came back from that drive with you the most wretched girl you ever
saw. Her humiliation was pitiful to see. Her self-reproach was touching
and real. I believe she would have killed herself if I had seemed to
blame her."
Cuthbert snapped out:
"Humph! Very likely; and gone and done the same thing again the next
day."
"Possibly that is true--if there had been a next day with a new
temptation that was too strong for her on the shore where she landed
after death If--"
"If the Almighty had shown a preference for some one else, hey?" asked
Mr. Bailey, flippantly.
"No doubt, no doubt," acquiesced Nora. "But suppose you had a weak leg
and it gave way at a critical moment--say just when you were entering
an opera box to greet a lady. Suppose it dropped you in a ridiculous or
humiliating manner. You would rage and be distressed, and make up your
mind not to let it occur again, except in the seclusion of your own
apartments; but--well, it would be quite as likely to serve you the same
trick the following week, in church."
"The illustration does not strike me as quite fair," said Mr. Bailey,
judicially.
"Good, Ned! Don't let her argue you into an interest in that little cat.
She was simply a malicious little--"
"Wait, then," said Nora, ignoring her husband's outburst and looking
steadily at Margaret Mintem's new judge, who was showing signs of
passing a sentence no less severe than if it were delivered by Cuthbert
Wagner himself.
"Suppose we take your memory. Are there not some names or dates that
_will_ drop out at times and leave you awkwardly in the lurch?"
"Well, rather," said Mr. Bailey, disgustedly. This was his weak spot.
"Now, don't you see that a person who has a perfect memory might be as
unfair to you as you are to my old school friend in her little moral
weakness--if we may call it by so harsh a term as that? That was her one
vulnerable spot. It may have been born in her. That I do not know; but
I insist that it _was_ trained and drilled into her as much as her
arithmetic or her catechism were, and with a result as inevitable. She
loathed her fault, but it was too strong for her. Her resolution to
conquer it dropped just short of success very often, indeed; and oh! how
it did hurt her when she realized it and thought it all over, for her
motives were unusually pure, and her moral sense was really very high
indeed."
"Moral sense was a little frayed at the edges, I think."
"Don't, Cuthbert. You are such a cruelly severe judge. I know Mr. Bailey
is on my side, now, and will think you very unfair. He does not mean
to be, I assure you, Mr. Bailey, and if she had not spoken ill of me he
would see the case fairly. But what _are_ you thinking?"
"That it is a rather big question. That I--that I have overstayed my
time. I just came over to ask you to dine with us next Thursday. My
mother has some friends and wants you to meet them. May I leave my
judicial decision open until then?"
"Certainly. Pray over it," said Cuthbert, rising; "and if you don't come
out on my side, openly,--as I know you are in your mind,--buy a wire
mask. I won't have any dodging."
"Come early. There is a secret to tell," laughed Mr. Bailey as he
withdrew, and then he blushed furiously. "Mother's secret," he added, as
he closed the door behind him.
The evening of the dinner the Wagners were later than they had intended
to be, and Mrs. Bailey took Nora aside and said quite abruptly:
"I've got to pop it at you rather suddenly. Why didn't you come earlier?
The lady whom Ned is to marry is here, and it is for her I have given
the dinner. Ned went to your house to tell you last week, but his heart
failed him. He said you were all in such a gale of nonsense that he
concluded to wait. It is a very tender subject with him, I assure you.
His case is quite hopeless. He is madly in love, and I am very much
pleased with his choice. She seems as nearly perfect as they ever are,
and she is unusually talented. But here is Ned now. I have told her all
about it, my son, come and be congratulated."
He came forward shyly enough for a man of his years and experience, and
took Nora's hand in a helpless way. But Cuthbert relieved matters at
once by a hearty "Well, it is splendid, old fellow. I'm delighted. I--"
"But before the others come down," broke in Mr. Bailey, as if to get
away from the subject, "I want to get my discharge papers in that case
you plead before me last week. It lies heavy on my soul, for I am very
sorry to say, Mrs. Wagner, that I am compelled to give judgment against
you and your client. I think she was--I'm with Cuthbert this time. She
impresses me as almost without redeeming qualities. I do not wish to
make her acquaintance. I am sure that I could never force myself to take
even a passing interest in that sort of a moral acrobat. Really, the
lovely but selfish Julia would be my choice in a team of vicious little
pacers like that. I'm sure I should detect your friend's fatal weakness
in her every action. I should be unable to see anything but the hideous
green-eyed monster even in the folds of her lace gowns or the coils of
her shining hair. He would appear to me, ghost-like, peering over her
shoulder in the midst of her most fascinating conversation. I should
feel his fangs and see the glitter of his wicked eyes while I tried to
say small nothings to her, and--"
"Oh, not at all," protested Nora. "You would never detect it at all
unless she happened to be fighting for your esteem or admiration where
she felt that odds were against her. She--"
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wagner, but I am quite sure that I should.
Envy is to me the very worst trait in the human character. I could more
easily excuse or be blinded to anything else. I _know_ that I should
detect it at once. I always do--especially in a woman."
"Certainly. Anybody could. You know very well, Nora, that I saw--" began
Cuthbert quite gleefully; but as a salve to her wounded feelings Mr.
Bailey added in a tone of conciliation to Nora:
"However, I shall agree to let you test me some day. Present your friend
to me, _incog._, and I'll wager--oh, _anything_ that I shall read her
like a book on sight. I'm a splendid judge of a woman. Always was from
childhood. I'm sure that I should feel creepy the moment I saw the
brilliant but envious granddaughter of the unfortunate old warrior. And
by the way, _he_ continues to be the one for whom you have enlisted my
sympathy. I wonder that he was able to live two weeks in the same house
with such a--"
"Cat," said Cuthbert, with a vicious jab at a paper-weight which
represented a solemn-looking Chinese god in brocade trousers. He was
just turning to enter into a cheerful and elaborate statement of his
side of the controversy, as Mrs. Bailey swept down the room with her
son's betrothed upon her arm, smiling and happy.
"Margaret Mintern!" exclaimed Nora, in dismay, and then--
"I am so glad to see you again, dear, and to be able to congratulate
you, instead of some fair unknown, upon the fact that you are to have so
dear a friend of ours for a husband. We think everything of Mr. Bailey.
He is Bert's best friend and--"
Cuthbert had turned half away in utter confusion when he saw the ladies
coming down the room, and feigned an absorption in the rotund Chinese
deity which he had never displayed for the one of his own nation. But he
bowed now, and mumbled some inarticulate sounds as he looked, not at
the future Mrs. Bailey, but at the ridiculously happy face of her lover,
whose usually ready tongue was silent as he hung upon the lightest tone
of the brilliant woman beside him. As they passed into the dining-room,
Nora managed to say to her husband:
"Thank heaven we did not mention her name to him, and he evidently does
not suspect. Pull yourself together and stumble through your part the
best you can, dear, without attracting his attention. And then you know
that he and you agree perfectly about the--cat," she added wickedly, and
then she smiled quietly as she took her seat next to the blissful lover
and the relentless judge of the school friend of her youth.