WHO CAN ANALYZE A COQUETTE?
Cleo Ballard was a coquette; such an alluring, bright, sweet, dangerous
coquette. She could not have counted her adorers, because they would
have included every one who knew her. Such a gay, happy girl as she was;
always looking about her for happiness, and finding it only in the
admiration and adoration of her victims; for they _were_ victims, after
all, because, though they were generally willing to adore in the
beginning, she nevertheless crushed their hopes in the end; for that is
the nature of coquettes. Hers was a strange, paradoxical nature. She
would put herself out, perhaps go miles out of her way, for the sake of
a new adorer, one whose heart she knew she would storm, and then perhaps
break. She would do this gayly, thoughtlessly, as unscrupulously and
impetuously as she tore the little silk gloves from her hands because
they came not off easily. And yet, in spite of this, it broke her heart
(and, after all, she had a heart) to see the meanest, the most
insignificant of creatures in pain or trouble. With a laugh she pulled
the heart-strings till they ached with pain and pleasure commingled; but
when the poor heart burst with the tension, then she would run shivering
away, and hide herself, because so long as she did not see the pain she
did not feel it. Who can analyze a coquette?
Then, too, she was very beautiful, as all coquettes are. She had
sun-kissed, golden-brown hair,--dark brown at night and in the shadow,
bright gold in the daytime and in the light. Her eyes were dark blue,
sombre, gentle eyes at times, wicked, mischievous, mocking eyes at
others. Of the rest of her face, you do not need to know, for when one
is young and has wonderful eyes, shiny, wavy hair and even features, be
sure that one is very beautiful.
Cleo Ballard _was_ beautiful, with the charming, versatile, changeable,
wholly fascinating beauty of an American girl--an American beauty.
And now she had a new admirer, perhaps a new--lover. He was so different
from the rest. It had been an easy matter for her to play with and turn
off her many American adorers, because most of them went into the game
of hearts with their eyes open, and knew from the first that the girl
was but playing with them. But how was she to treat one who believed
every word she said, whether uttered gayly or otherwise, and who, in his
gentle, undisguised way, did not attempt, even from the beginning, to
hide from her the fact that he admired her so intensely?
Ever since the day Tom Ballard had introduced Takashima to her, he had
been with her almost constantly. Among all the men, young and old, who
paid her court on the steamer, she openly favored the Japanese. Most
Japanese have their full share of conceit. Takashima was not lacking in
this. It was pleasant for him to be singled out each day as the one the
beautiful American girl preferred to have by her. It pleased him that
she did not laugh or joke so much when with him, but often became even
as serious as he, and he even enjoyed hearing her snub some of her
admirers for his sake.
"Cleo," Tom Ballard said to her one day, as the Japanese left her side
for a moment, "have mercy on Takashima; spare him, as thou wouldst be
spared."
She flushed a trifle at the bantering words, and looked out across the
sea.
"Why, Tom! he understands. Didn't you say he had lived eight years in
America?"
Tom sighed. "Woman! woman! incorrigible, unanswerable creature!"
After a time Cleo said, almost pleadingly, as if she were trying to
defend herself against some accusation:
"Really, Tom, he _is_ so nice. I can't help myself. You haven't the
slightest idea how it feels to have any one--any one like that--on the
verge of being in love with you."
Takashima returned to them, and took his seat by the girl's side.
"To-night," he told her, "they are going to dance on deck. The band will
play a concert for us."
Cleo smiled whimsically at his broken English, for, in spite of his long
residence in America, he still tripped in his speech.
"Do you dance?" she asked, curiously.
"No! I like better to watch with you."
"But I dance," she put in, hastily.
Takashima's face fell. He looked at her so dejectedly that she laughed.
"Life is so serious to you, is it not, Mr. Takashima? Every little thing
is of moment."
He gravely agreed with her, looking almost surprised that she should
consider this strange.
"We are always taught," he said, gently, "that it is the little things
of life which produce the big; that without the little we may not have
the big. So, therefore, we Japanese measure even the smallest of things
just as we do the large things."
Cleo repeated this speech later to Tom, and an Englishman who had been
paying her a good deal of attention. They both laughed, but she felt
somewhat ashamed of herself for repeating it.
"I suppose, then, you will not dance," said the Englishman. Cleo did not
specially like him. She intended fully to dance, that night, but a
contrary spirit made her reply, "No; I guess I will not."
She glanced over to where the young Japanese sat, a little apart from
the others. His cap was pulled over his eyes, but the girl felt he had
been watching her. She recrossed the deck and sat down beside him.
"Will you be glad," she asked him, "when we reach Japan?"
A shadow flitted for a moment across his face before he replied.
"Yes, Miss Ballard, most glad. My country is very beautiful, and I wish
very much to see my home and my relations again."
"You do not look like most Japanese I have met," she said, slowly,
studying his face with interest. "Your eyes are larger and your features
more regular."
"That is very polite that you say," he said.
The girl laughed. "No! I didn't say it for politeness," she protested,
"but because it is true. You are really very fine looking, as Tom would
say;" she halted shyly for a moment, and then added, "for--for a
Japanese."
Takashima smiled. "Some of the Japanese do not have very small eyes.
Very few of the Kazoku class have them. That it is more pretty to have
them large we do not say in Japan."
"Then," said the girl, mischievously, "you are not handsome in Japan."
This time Takashima laughed outright.
"I will try and be modest," he said. "Therefore, I will let _you_ be the
judge when we arrive there. If you think I am, as you say, handsome,
then shall I surely be."