"By the way, Nelson," said De Castro, "what is there in this story in
the afternoon papers about Doane and Dora Morgan?"
"It is substantially true, I fancy. They have eloped."
"From whom could they possibly be eloping?" asked Lottie.
"Why, you must know Doane has a wife and two little girls," exclaimed
Dolly indignantly.
"I supposed his wife was divorced," returned Lottie helplessly. "Why
wasn't she?"
"Perhaps," suggested Fritzie, "there wasn't time."
"I don't care; Dora's life has been a very unhappy one," persisted
Lottie, "and frankly I am sorry for her."
"Even though she has run away with another woman's husband," said
Imogene.
"Don't _you_ think she deserves a great deal of sympathy, Robert?" asked
Lottie, appealing to Kimberly.
"I can't say that I do," he answered slowly. "What moves one in any
consideration of a situation of that kind is, in the first place, the
standards of those that fall into it. Who, for instance, can scrape up
any interest in the affairs of the abandoned? Or of those who look on
irregular relations pretty much as they do on regular? People to enlist
sympathy in their troubles must respect themselves."
The conversation drifted and Alice, within range of both tables, caught
snatches of the talk at each. She presently heard Lottie Nelson
speaking petulantly, and as if repeating a question to Kimberly. "What
_do_ men most like, Robert?" Alice could not see Kimberly's face, but
she understood its expression so well that she could imagine the brows
either luminously raised if Kimberly were interested, or patiently flat
if he were not.
"You ought to know," she heard Kimberly answer. "You have been very
successful in pleasing them."
"And failed where I have most wanted to succeed. Oh, no. I am asking
you. What _do_ they like?"
The answer halted. "I can't tell you. To me, of course, few men seem
worth pleasing."
"What should you do to please a man, if you were a woman?"
"Nonsense."
"I'm asking purely out of curiosity," persisted Lottie. "I have failed.
I realize it and I shall never try again. But at the end--I'd like to
know."
"You probably would not agree with me," answered Kimberly after a
silence, "most women would not. Perhaps it would fail with most
men--but as I say, most men wouldn't interest me, anyway. If I had it
to try, I would appeal to a man's highest nature."
"What is his highest nature?"
"Whatever his best instincts are,"
"And then?"
"That's all."
"Oh, nonsense!"
"No, it isn't nonsense. Only I am not good at analyzing. If I once
caught a man in that way I should know I had him fast forever. There is
absolutely no use in flinging your mere temptations at him. Keep those
quietly in the background. He will go after them fast enough when you
have made sure of him on the higher plane. If you are compelled to
display your temptations at the start, the case is hopeless. You have
surrendered your advantage of the high appeal. Trust him to think about
the other side of it, Lottie. You can't suggest to him anything he
doesn't know, and perhaps--I'm not sure--he prefers to turn to that side
when he thinks you are not looking. The difficulty is," he concluded,
speaking slowly, "even if you get him from the lower side, he won't stay
hooked. You know how a salmon strikes at a fly? All human experience
shows that a man hooked from the side of his lower instincts, will
sooner or later shake the bait."
"It must be something even to have him on the hook for a while, Robert."
"But you don't agree with me."
"No."
"No doubt, I'm wrong. And it isn't, I suppose, of much consequence
whether the men stay caught or not. I look at it, probably, with a
business instinct. When I do anything, I want it to stay done forever.
When I make a deal or fasten a point I want it to stay fastened for all
time. That is my nature. Now, that may not be a woman's nature. You
shouldn't have asked me, don't you see, because we 'begin' differently."
"I fancy that's it, Robert. We 'begin' differently."
"Try another seer--there is De Castro. Here is Mrs. MacBirney. Mrs.
MacBirney," Kimberly moved so he could command Alice's attention, "Mrs.
Nelson is trying to find out what a man likes in a woman. I haven't
been able to tell her----"
"It isn't that at all," smiled Lottie, wearily. "Mr. Kimberly can tell.
He won't."
Kimberly appealed to Alice. "It is a great mistake not to trust your
oracle when he is doing his best--don't you think so, Mrs. MacBirney?"
"I suppose an oracle is consulted on his reputation--and it is on his
reputation that his clients should rely," suggested Alice.
"Anyway," declared Lottie, rising, "I am going to try another."
Kimberly turned his chair as she walked away so that he could speak to
Alice. "Giving advice is not my forte. Whenever I attempt it I
disappoint somebody; and this time I had a difficult subject. Mrs.
Nelson wants to know what men like in women. A much more interesting
subject would be, what women like in men. I should suppose, in my
blundering way, that sincerity would come before everything else, Mrs.
MacBirney. What do you think?"
"Sincerity ought to be of value."
"But there is a great deal else, you imply."
"Necessarily, I should think."
"As, for instance?"
"Unselfishness among other things," said Alice.
He objected frankly to her suggestion. "I don't know about
unselfishness. I have my doubts about unselfishness. Are you sure?"
"Most ideals include it, I believe."
"I don't know that I have any ideals--abstract ideals, that is. Though
I once took quite an interest in the Catholic Church."
"An academic interest."
"No, no; a real and concrete interest. I admire it greatly. I tried
once to look into its claims. What in part discouraged me was the
unpleasant things Catholics themselves told me about their church."
"They must have been bad Catholics."
"I don't know enough about them to discriminate between the good and the
bad. What, by the way," he asked bluntly, "are you--a good Catholic or
a bad one?"
She was taken for an instant aback; then she regarded him with an
expression he did not often see in her eyes. "I am a bad one, I am
ashamed to say."
"Then these I speak of must have been good ones," he remarked at once,
"because they were not in the least like you."
If he thought he had perplexed her he was soon undeceived. "There are
varying degrees even of badness," she returned steadily. "I hope I
shall never fall low enough to speak slightingly of my faith."
"I don't understand," he persisted, musing, "why you should fall at all.
Now, if I were a Catholic I should be a good one."
"Suppose you become one."
He disregarded her irony. "I may sometime. To be perfectly frank, what
I found most lacking when I looked into the question was some sufficient
inducement. Of what use? I asked myself. If by following Christianity
and its precepts a man could make himself anything more than he
is--prolong his years, or recall his youth. If he could achieve the
Titanic, raise himself to the power of a demigod!" Kimberly's eyes
shone wide at the thought, then they closed to a contrasting torpor.
"Will religion do this for any one? I think not. But fancy what that
would mean; never to grow old, never to fall ill, never to long for
without possessing!" A disdainful pride was manifest in every word of
his utterance, but he spoke with the easy-mannered good-nature that was
his characteristic.
"A man that follows the dreams of religion," he resumed but with
lessening assurance, for Alice maintained a silence almost contemptuous
and he began to feel it, "is he not subject to the same failures, the
same pains, the same misfortunes that we are subject to? Even as the
rest of us, he must grow old and fail and die."
"Some men, of course," she suggested with scant patience, "should have a
different dispensation from the average mortal."
Kimberly squirmed dissentingly. "I don't like that phrase, 'the average
mortal.' It has a villainously hackneyed sound, don't you think? No,
for my part I should be willing to let everybody in on the greater, the
splendid dispensation."
"You might be sorry if you did."
"You mean, there are men that should die--some that should die early?"
"There are many reasons why it might not work."
He stopped. "That is true--it might not work, if universally applied.
It would do better restricted to a few of us. But no matter; since we
can't have it at all, we must do the best we can. And the way to beat
the game as it must be played in this world at present," he continued
with contained energy, "is to fight for what we want and defend it when
won, against all comers. Won't you wish me success in such an effort,
Alice?"
"I have asked you not to call me Alice."
"But wish me the success, won't you? It's awfully up-hill work fighting
alone. Two together can do so much better. With two the power is
raised almost to the infinite. Together we could be gods--or at least
make the gods envy us."
She looked at him an instant without a word, and rising, walked to an
anteroom whither MacBirney, Lottie Nelson, De Castro, and Fritzie had
gone to play at cards.