A few weeks after her arrival, Helen and Mary were walking to the
post-office. Helen had a number of letters to mail, her correspondents
being active and her answers prompt.
They hadn't gone far when a young man appeared in the distance,
approaching them. Mary gave him a look to see who it was, and after
saying to Helen, "This is Bob McAllister--one of our neighbours. He's
home from school," she continued the conversation and failed to give Sir
Robert another thought.
Not so Helen, however.
One hand went to the back of her hair with a graceful gesture, and next
she touched her nose with a powdered handkerchief.
A moment before, she had been looking straight ahead with a rather
thoughtful expression, but now she half turned to Mary, smiling and
nodding. In some manner her carriage, even her walk, underwent a change.
But when I try to tell you what I mean I feel as tongue-tied as a boy who
is searching for a word which doesn't exist. As nearly as I can express
it, she seemed to "wiggle" a little, although that isn't the word. She
seemed to hang out a sign "Oh, look--look at me!"--and that doesn't quite
describe it, either.
Just as Master McAllister reached them, raising his hat and bowing to
Mary and her friend--Helen's eyes and Helen's smile unconsciously
lingered on him for a second or two until, apparently recollecting that
she was looking at another, she lowered her glance and peeped at him
through her eyelashes instead.
Mary meanwhile was calmly continuing her conversation, never even
suspecting the comedy which was going on by her side, but when Helen shot
a glance over her shoulder and whispered with satisfaction "He turned to
look!" even Mary began to have some slight idea of what was going on.
"Helen," she demurred, "you should never turn around to look at a young
man."
"Why not?" laughed Helen, her arm going around her cousin's waist. And
speaking in the voice of one who has just achieved a triumph, she added,
"They're all such fo-oo-ools!"
Mary thought that over.
Helen's correspondents continued active, and as each letter arrived she
read parts of it to her cousin. She was a mimic, and two of the letters
she read in character one afternoon when Mary was changing her dress for
dinner.
"Oh, Helen, you shouldn't," said Mary, laughing in spite of herself and
feeling ashamed of it the same moment. "I think it's awful to make fun of
people who write you like that."
"Pooh!" laughed Helen. "They're all such fo-oo-ools!"
"You don't think that of all men, do you!"
"Why not?" laughed Helen again, and tucking the letters into her waist
she started humming. Unobserved Ma'm Maynard had entered to straighten
the room and, through the mirror, Mary saw her grimly nodding her head.
"Why, Ma'm Maynard," said Mary, "you don't think that all men are fools,
too, do you?"
"Eet is not halways safe to say what one believes," said Ma'm, pursing
her lips with mystery. "Eef mademoiselles, your aunts, should get to
hear--"
"Oh, I won't tell."
"Then, yes, ma cherie, I think at times all men are fools ... and I think
it is also good at times to make a fool of man. For why? Because it is
revenge.
"Ah, ma cherie, I who have been three times wed--I tell you I often think
the old-world view is right. Man is the natural enemy of a woman.
"He is not to be trus'.
"I have heard it discuss' by great minds--things I cannot tell you
yet--but you will learn them as you live. And halways the same conclusion
arrives: Man is the natural enemy of a woman, and the one best way to
keep him from making a fool of you, is to turn 'round queeck and make it
a fool of him!"
"Oh, Ma'm Maynard, no!" protested Mary, who had turned from the mirror
and was staring with wide eyes. "I can't believe it--never!"
"What is it, ma cherie, which you cannot believe?"
"That man is woman's natural enemy."
"But I tell you, yes, yes.... It has halways been so and it halways will.
Everything that lives has its own natural enemy--and a woman's natural
enemy--it is man!
"Think just for a moment, ma cherie," she continued. "Why are parents so
careful? Mon Dieu, you would think it at times that a tiger is out in the
streets at night--such precautions are made if the girl she is out after
dark. And yes, but the parents are right. There is truly a tiger who
roams in the black, but his name--eet is Man!
"Think just for a moment, ma cherie. Why are chaperons require'--even in
the highest, most culture' society? Why is marriage require'? Is it not
because all the world knows well that a man cannot be left to his own
promise, but has to be bound by the law as a lion is held in a cage?"
"No," said Mary, shaking her head, "I'm sure it isn't that way. You're
simply turning things around and making everything seem horrid."
"You think so, ma cherie? Eh, bien. Three husbands I've had. I am not
without experience."
"But you might as well say that woman is man's natural enemy--"
"And some say that," said Ma'm nodding darkly. "Left to himself, they
say, man might aspire to be as the gods; but halways at his helbow is a
woman like a figure of fate--and she--she keeps him down where he
belongs--"
"I hate all that," said Mary quietly. "Every once in a while I read
something like it in a book or a magazine, and whenever I do, I put the
book down and open the window and breathe the fresh air. Of course I know
some married people aren't happy. But it isn't always because they are
married. Single people are unhappy, too. Aunt Patty has indigestion
sometimes, and I suppose a lot of people do. But you wouldn't call food a
natural enemy; would you? And some children are just as bad as they can
be. But you wouldn't call children natural enemies, would you--or try to
get along without them?"
But Ma'm Maynard would only shrug her shoulders.
"Eh, bien," she said. "When you have live' as long as me--"
Through the open window a clock could be heard.
"Six o'clock!" squealed Helen, "and I'm not changed yet." As she hurried
to the door she said, "I heard Aunt Patty say that Uncle Stanley was
coming to dinner again tonight. I hope he brings his handsome son
again--don't you?"