was unpopular in another. They gave the varsity yell with his name
at the end.
The day came when Mrs. Todd risked her life in our sportive company.
She made it clear to us that she went protesting. She began her
pleasantries by complaining that my doors were trivial.
Straightening her hat, she remarked that the John Quincy Burtons'
car top never took a woman's scalp off.
"But theirs is only a one-man top," Todd hinted vaguely.
"Whatever you mean by that is too deep for me," she said, adding
bitterly, "Yours is a one-boy top, I presume."
He waived the point and asked where she preferred to make her début
as an automobilist.
"Back roads, by all means," she answered.
As we gained the street a pea-green Mammoth purred past, the
passengers putting out their heads to look at us.
"Goodness!" she sighed. "There go the John Quincy Burtons now."
"We can soon join them," said Todd confidently.
She expostulated. "Do you think I have no pride?" Yet we went in
pursuit of the John Quincy Burton dust-cloud as it moved toward the
park.
"Since you have no regard for my feelings," said she, "you may let
me out."
"Oh, no, Amanda, my dear. Why, I'm going to give you a spin to
Mountaindale!"
"I do not care to be dragged there," she declared. "That is where
the John Quincy Burtons ride."
"Aren't they nice people? It seems to me I've heard you sing
hosannas to their name these last twenty years."
They were nice people indeed. That was just it, she said. Did he
suspect her of yearning to throw herself in the way of nice people
on the day of her abasement? If he chose to ignore her sentiments in
the matter, he might at least consider his own interests. Had he
forgotten that John Quincy Burton was chairman of the board of
trustees of the college? Would the head of the department of
classical languages acquire merit in Mr. Burton's eyes through
dashing about under Mr. Burton's nose in a pitiable little
last-century used car that squeaked?
Todd gripped the wheel tighter and gave me gas.
"You missed that storm sewer by an inch!" she exclaimed.
"My aim is somewhat wild yet," he admitted. "Perhaps I'll get the
next one."
"Jay-eems!"
"My dear, we have a horn, remember."
"You did not see that baby carriage until we were right upon it!
Don't tell me you did, sir, for I know better."
"I saw it," said Todd, "and I was sure it wouldn't run over us. As
you see, it didn't. Trust a baby carriage my love."
His humour, she informed him, was on a par with his driving. Also it
was in poor taste at such a moment.
In time of danger, he replied, the brave man jests.
We were now in the park. We clipped a spray of leaves off a syringia
bush. On a curve we slid in loose gravel to the wrong side.
"James Todd!"
"Yes, my dear?"
"Let me out! I decline to be butchered to make a holiday for a
motormaniac."
"Don't talk to the motormaniac," said Todd.
She clutched a top support and gasped for breath, appalled at his
audacity, or my speed, or both. In the straight reaches I could see
the Burton Mammoth a quarter of a mile ahead. When it swung into the
broad avenue that leads to the mountain, we were holding our own.
"You are following them--deliberately," said Mrs. Todd.
"Yet not so deliberately, at that. Do you feel us pick up my dear,
when I give her gas? Aha!" he laughed. "I agree with you, however,
that the order of precedence is unsatisfactory. Why should we follow
the Burtons, indeed?"
We went after them; we gave them the horn and overtook and passed
them on a stiff grade, amid cheers from both cars. But all of our
cheering was done by Todd.
"Now they are following us," said he. "Do you feel better, my dear?"
"Better!" she lamented. "How can I ever look them in the face again?"
"Turn around," he suggested, "and direct your gaze through the
little window in the back curtain."
She bade him stop at the next corner. She would walk home. She was
humiliated. Never had she felt so ashamed.
"Isn't that an odd way to feel when we have beaten the shoes off them?"
"But they will think we tried to."
"So we did," he chuckled; "and we walked right past them, in high,
while Burton was fussing with his gear shift. Give our little engine
a fair go at a hill, my dear----"
"I am not in the least interested in engines, sir. I am only
mortified beyond words."
She had words a-plenty, however.
"Isn't it bad enough for you to drive your little rattletrap to
college and get into the paper about it? No; you have to show it off
in a fashionable avenue, and run races with the best people in
Ashland, and scream at them like a freshman, and make an exhibition
of me!"
His attention was absorbed in hopping out from under a truck coming
in from a side street. A foolish driver would have slowed and crashed.
I was proud of Todd. But his lady was not.
"You have no right to go like this. You don't know enough. You will
break something."
He had already broken the speed law. Unknown to him, a motor-cycle
cop was tagging close behind us on our blind side.
"If you think this is going, my dear," said Todd reassuringly,
"wait till we strike the turnpike. Then I'll show you what little
Hilaritas can really do."
"Stop at the car barns," she commanded.
We crossed the car-barn tracks at a gallop. The cop rode abreast of
us now. "Cut it out, Bill," he warned.
"You see?" she crowed. "You will wind up in jail and give the papers
another scandal. Why didn't you stop at the car barns?"
"Because we are going to Mountaindale," he explained cheerily;
"where the nice people drive. Perhaps we shall see the John Quincy
Burtons again--as we come back."
"If we ever do come back!"
"Or how would you like to have supper with them up there?"
She had gone into one of her silences.
Ill
We settled down for the long pull over First Mountain. Todd slowed
my spark and gave me my head. Then he addressed the partner of his
joy-ride in a new voice: "Amanda, my dear, you and I need to have a
frank little understanding."
She agreed.
"For some years past," he began, "I have borne without complaint,
even without resentment, a certain attitude that you have seen fit
to adopt toward me. I have borne it patiently because I felt that to
an extent I deserved it."
My floor boards creaked as she gathered her forces for the counter
attack. He went on recklessly:
"In the beginning of our life together, Amanda, you were ambitious.
You longed for wealth and position and that sort of thing, in which
respect you were like the rest of men and women. Like most people,
my dear, you have been disappointed; but unlike most of them you
persist in quarrelling with the awards of fortune, just as to-day
you are quarrelling with this plebeian car of ours. As you speak of
Hilaritas, so you speak of me. At breakfast this morning, for example,
you reminded me, for perhaps the tenth time since Sunday, that you
are chained to a failure. Those were your words, my dear--chained to
a failure."
"Do you call yourself a dazzling success?" she asked.
"Not dazzling, perhaps," he replied, "and yet--yes--yes, I believe I
do."
"What I told you at breakfast was that Freddy Burton makes one
hundred dollars a week, and he is only twenty-four--not half as old
as you."
"Freddy Burton is engaged in the important occupation of selling
pickles," Todd answered, "and I am only an educator of youth. Long
ago I reached my maximum--three thousand dollars. From one point of
view I don't blame you for looking upon me as a futility. I presume
I am. Nor will I chide you for not taking the luck of life in a
sportsmanlike spirit. But I do insist----"
"At last!" she broke in. "At last I understand some pencil notes
that I found yesterday when I cleaned out your desk. A minute ago I
thought you were out of your head. Now I see that this--this
frightfulness of yours is premeditated. Premeditated, James Todd!
You prepared this speech in advance!"
Between you and me, she was right. I had heard him practise it in
the barn.
He took her arraignment calmly, "Hereafter," said he, "please
refrain from cleaning out my desk."
I heard her catch her breath. "You have never talked to me like this
before; never!" she said. "You have never dared. And that is
precisely the trouble with you, James Todd. You won't talk back; you
won't speak up for your rights. It is the cross of my life."
From the sound, I think she wept.
"You are the same in the outside world as you are at home. You let
the college trustees pay you what they please. You slave and slave
and wear yourself out for three thousand a year when we might have
twenty if you went into something else. And when your building-loan
stock matures and you do get a little money, you spend it for
this--this underbred little sewing-machine, and lure me out in it,
and lecture me, as if I--as if I were to blame. I don't know what
has come over you."
I knew what had come over him. I knew the secret of the new spirit
animating the frail personality of Professor Todd. And Willie knew.
I recalled that boy's prophetic words: "The quickest way to get
nerve is to grab hold here and drive." I worried, nevertheless. I
wondered if my little man could finish what he had started.
He could. As we rolled down the mountain into the ten-mile turnpike
where he and I had rediscovered our youth, he concluded his
discourse without missing an explosion. I knew his peroration by
heart.
"To end this painful matter, my dear, I shall ask you in future to
accord me at least the civility, if not the respect, to which a
hard-working man and a faithful husband is entitled. I speak in all
kindliness when I say that I have decided to endure no more hazing.
I hope you understand that I have made this decision for your sake
as well as for mine, for the psychological effect of hazing is quite
as harmful to the hazer as to the hazed. Please govern yourself
accordingly."
He opened the throttle wide, and we touched thirty-five miles. I
felt a wild wabble in my steering-gear. I heard Todd's sharp
command--"Kindly keep your hands off the wheel while I am driving."
At the Mountain Dale Club Todd descended.
"Will you come in and have a lemonade, my dear?" he asked. There was
a heartbroken little squeak in his voice.
"Thank you," she replied frigidly. "I have had all the acid I can
assimilate in one pleasant day."
"May I remind you," said he, stiffening with the gentle insistence
of a steel spring, "that I am not to be addressed in sarcastic tones
any longer?"
The Mammoth slid up beside us. The stout John Quincy Burton at the
wheel shouted jovially: "I tell you what, Todd, when our soberest
university professors get the speed bug, I tremble for civilization!"
My owner grinned with pleasure.
"Mrs. Todd," said Burton, "after that trimming from your
road-burning husband, I'll stand treat. Won't you join us?"
"Yes, Mrs. Todd, do be persuaded," Mrs. Burton chimed in. "After
twenty miles with your Barney Oldfield you need nourishment, I'm sure.
You and I can talk about his recklessness while he and Mr. Burton
have their little conference."
If Todd had an appointment for a conference there at that hour with
Burton, I am positive it was news to Mrs. Todd and me. I could feel
her weight growing heavier on my cushion springs.
"Thank you for the invitation," she replied, "but I am so badly
shaken up, I prefer to sit out here."
To which her husband added, laughingly: "She wouldn't risk having
her new car stolen for anything."
It was twilight before we started for home, the Burtons pulling out
ahead of us. At the beginning of the climb over the mountain I saw
the Mammoth stop. We drew alongside.
"Out of gas, confound it," growled Burton, "and five miles from a
service station!"
"I'd lend you some, only I haven't much myself," said Todd.
"Got a rope?"
"Yes, but----"
"Oh, we can. We can pull you and never know it. Hitch on behind. We
like to travel in stylish company, Mrs. Todd and I."
So we towed them over the mountain and left them at a red pump. John
Quincy Burton's gratitude was immense.
"The pleasure is all ours," Todd assured him. "But, say, old man!"
"Well?"
"You ought to buy a little old used car like this some time to carry
in your tool-box."
They were still laughing when we drove away.
Not a word did Mrs. Todd utter on the homeward journey; but in the
privacy of our humble barn--
"Oh!" she cried. "I could _die_! Why did you have to say that to
Mr. Burton?"
"Amanda!"
She subsided, but she had not surrendered.
"You didn't tell me you had an engagement with him. What----"
Todd laughed. "I was chosen this week, my dear, as a grievance
committee of one, representing the teaching staff at the college, to
put a few cold facts into John Quincy Burton's ear."
"You?"
"Precisely, my dear. I was the only man in the faculty who seemed to
have the--the self-confidence necessary. And I made Burton see the
point. I have his promise that the college trustees will campaign
the state this summer for a half-million-dollar emergency fund, a
good slice of which will go toward salary increases."
"Well! I must say----"
She did not say it. Silently she left us.
He lingered a while in the barn. He opened my hood, for I was quite
warm from the towing job. He examined a new cut in one of my tires
and loosened my hand-brake a notch. He couldn't seem to find enough
to do for me.
From the house came a hail. I am not sure that he did not hold his
breath as he listened.
"James, dear!" again.
"Hello!" he answered.
"James, dear, won't you bring your automobile pliers, please, and
see if you can open this jar of marmalade?"
My little man went in whistling.
THE THING THEY LOVED
BY MARICE RUTLEDGE
From _The Century Magazine_
"_They had vowed to live only for one another. The theme of their
love was sublime enough, but the instruments were fallible. Human
beings can rarely sustain a lofty note beyond the measure of a
supreme moment_."
When she told her husband that David Cannon had arranged for her a
series of recitals in South America, she looked to him for swift
response. She was confident that anything touching on her
professional life would kindle his eye and warm his voice. It was,
in fact, that professional life as she interpreted it with the mind
of an artist, the heart of a child, which had first drawn him to her;
he had often admitted as much. During one year of rare comradeship
he had never failed in his consideration for her work. He would know,
she felt sure, that to go on a concert tour with David Cannon, to
sing David Cannon's songs under such conditions, presented good
fortune in more than one way. He would rejoice accordingly.
But his "Why, my dear, South America!" came flatly upon her
announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle,
his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection,
for he added hastily, with happier effect: "It's a wonderful chance,
dearest, isn't it?" His voice by then had gained in heartiness, and
his smile, always worshipful when turned on her, contained this time
something of apology. So close were they, though, in thought, spoken
or unspoken, that he had sounded a tiny alarm. Her radiance
perceptibly waned. A moment before she had stood, a glowing, vital
creature, beside him, eyes and lips singing a duet of delight; now
with questioning heart she leaned toward her loved one.
"What is it? Don't you want me to go? I thought you liked David.
Can't you come, too, Oliver?"
"You know I can't, dear," she heard him say with an attempt at
lightness. Then he added: "But it's a great chance for you. You'll
take it, of course. It was only the thought of losing you even for a
little while. What selfish brutes we men are!" He had recovered
himself, had defined his passing reserve in loverlike terms, and was
newly aware of unworthiness. The luxury of tender persuasion, of
arguing her into a sense of sweet security, concerned him next. He
could not say enough, and said too much.
They were mellow against an intimate background of yellow walls lit
by fire and lamps. Myra's grand piano projected sleek and dark from
a corner of warm shadow. The silver tea-set gleamed pale on a
slender-legged table; a fragrance of narcissus spread dreamily.
Oliver sank on the couch, drawing her down where she could become
all feminine. She was that, and most adorably, her bright hair soft
about lax brows, her full lips parted, her strong white hands lying
in his like brooding birds. He talked on, and she played content for
a while; but a moment came when with a sudden maternal gesture she
drew his dark, willing head to her shoulder.
"Let's forget South America for to-night," she said.
He would not, could not, drop the subject. He had been so clumsy in
not realizing what it all meant to her; but her news had come as
such a surprise. She had seen David Cannon, then, that afternoon?
Yes, he was on his way down to her to settle the date of their
concert and to propose this South American scheme. But she need not
decide immediately.
He protested that her triumph there would crown him. If he were not
a poor young architect attached to his blue prints, he would follow
her. As it was, his duller duty lay at home. She caught a flatness
of tone, and met it with a vigorous profession of faith in his work.
His art was more useful than hers, more enduring. His music was in
stone; hers was no greater than the trilling of a bird. He thought
this over, moved from her embrace, sat erect, and patted his tie.
Well, he summed up, each had a working life converging to a common
end. Let her sing Cannon's songs to South America. Her voice would
reach him. Then let her come back quickly. He could not conceive of
life without her. It would seem strange to be a bachelor again, he
went on, with a sigh meant to be comical. He supposed he would eat at
his club when he was not invited out. He hoped her friends would
take pity on him.
"You mean our friends," she corrected.
"You're the magnet, dear."
"I attracted you," she conceded happily. Then, with a start, she said:
"Do you know what time it is? And we're dining with the Wickeses at
seven."
"I never have you to myself any more," he objected. "If I were an
old-fashioned husband, I should be jealous of every one who sees or
talks to you."
"But you're not an old-fashioned husband," she reminded him.
"I try not to be." He had risen from the couch, and was making his
way to the door, where he paused to look back at her. "Wear the blue
brocade to-night, dear, and do your hair that new way."
"The way Martigues suggested? I thought you didn't like it."
He hesitated only a second.
"It's a bit extreme," he had to confess, "but it suits you."
She came toward him then, laughing.
"You see, you give me over to them."
"I can afford to," he said.
They were late, of course, to the dinner. Despite her effort at
brightness, Oliver felt her graver mood. He watched her with a
shadowy anxiety. Her smile, when her glance sought him out among the
chattering guests, did not entirely reassure him. He had never loved
her more than this evening when she seemed so removed from him, so
easily and brilliantly a guest of honor. What hold had these
strangers on her? They could only misread the superficial sparkle of
her eyes, the gracious movements of her uncovered neck and arms. He
decided then that the blue brocade was too conspicuous. She must not
wear it in South America. And her honey-coloured hair, piled high,
with a fantastic Spanish comb flaring above the topmost curls,
struck him as needlessly theatrical. He blamed Martigues for that.
His humour was not improved by the Basque painter's voluble
compliments on the success of a coiffure he felt to be his own
creation. The fellow was too familiar, thought Oliver, with
increasing irritation. He darkened, grew glum and silent; and when,
after dinner, Martigues approached him with a luckless tribute to
Madame Shaw's superlative loveliness, he answered curtly, and turned
on his heel. Myra witnessed the brief discourtesy, and later very
gently taxed him with it. What had the unfortunate artist done? He
faced her like a sulky boy and would not answer; but she was quick
to penetrate his grievance. She laughed then, as a woman laughs who
has nothing to conceal, declaring that Martigues's taste was not
infallible, and that Oliver knew best what became his Myra. She soon
wooed him back to his old charming self, and the incident passed.
But there were others on the following days, and Myra grew thoughtful.
She and Oliver were seldom alone. Her joy of life, her vitality, her
very talent, depended on a multitude of impressions, on innumerable
personal contacts. She belonged to a rich, throbbing world of
emotions; she gathered passion for her song from the yearnings, the
anonymous aspirations, even the crudities of the human forces about
her.
She was Oliver's most gloriously when most surrounded. His pride was
centred on her; it was centred, however, on the brilliant returns of
her actual presence--a presence which was never too far removed in
flesh or spirit to deprive him of a certain naive assumption of
ownership. That she should continue all the dear, familiar
fascinations beyond his sight or touch, in a far-away land, with
David Cannon as a daily companion, was another matter. Not that he
was jealous of David. No one man stood out as a rival. But Cannon
travelling with Myra, sharing artistic triumphs with her, escorting
her to entertainments given in her honour, Cannon, in fact,
associated in foreign minds with the beautiful cantatrice, offended
the inviolable rights of his lover's vanity. He would have her less
beautiful, less gifted, not more faithful.
Exquisitely sensitive where he was concerned, Myra detected this
subtle change in his attitude toward her and her work. The origins
of the change, she knew, were obscurely lodged in the male egoism.
He himself was not aware of them. He seemed nearer and dearer than
ever, even more ardent. He wanted her constantly within range of his
eyes and hands that he might in a thousand coaxing or, often,
petulant ways assert a fond dominion. She yielded gladly to that
sweet pressure. Strangely enough for a woman of her independent
habits, to be so loved, roused elemental instincts the more powerful
since she had never before given them outlet. So she allowed his
illusions of mastery full play, which was dangerous, as gradually
she altered the delicate balance of their relationship.
A restless month went by. It was February.
Unfortunately, Oliver's work failed to engross him. He grew moodier,
more exacting. If Myra arrived home late, he wanted to know where
she had been, whom she had seen. Were they dining out, he muttered
unsociable objections; were people coming to the house, he
complained of the lack of privacy. What a whirl they lived in! So
they did, but what was the remedy? Myra herself felt helpless in a
tangle of engagements. They overpowered her. She could not seem to
cut her way through them. Then there were rehearsals for the concert.
David Cannon came to her or she went to him nearly every day.
Usually Oliver was present, putting in his opinion between each song.
Did David think the South Americans would appreciate that kind of
music? How did he think they would like Myra? And so on and on.
David Cannon, never patient, a rough-tongued, self-absorbed genius,
resented these interruptions, and was brief in his methods of
expressing as much. Even Myra, the most tactful of diplomatists,
could not smooth over occasional ugly moments between the two men.
She understood Oliver better than he understood himself. His
unreasoning love, his apprehensive vanity, would have unsettled a
less maternal spirit; but she found a kind of mystic wonder in it, he
battled so blindly for possession of her. He was in her way, and she
could not advance without pushing him aside. Had he come to her and
blustered, "You shall not leave me for any purpose whatsoever," she
would have denied him the right of dictation; but there was no such
conflict of wills.
They were both involved in this love of their making--a love whose
demands were treacherous. Each day brought up trivial attacks,
fancied grievances, little fears unavowed; but when she sought to
meet the issue squarely, it eluded her. Oliver's nightly repentance
for his daily whims and suspicions drew her nightly into his arms.
Enfolded there, she felt moored to his love; and, sleepless, she
questioned any life apart.