Kitabı oku: «The Widow [To Say Nothing of the Man]», sayfa 2

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III
Why?

"WHY is a woman?" snapped the bachelor, flinging himself into the big armchair opposite the widow with a challenging glance.

"Why – why, because," stammered the widow; startled at his sudden appearance.

"I knew it!" said the bachelor with conviction.

"And there are lots of other reasons, Mr. Travers."

"But they aren't reasonable," declared the bachelor doggedly.

The widow closed her book with a sigh and laid it on the table beside her.

"Who said they were?" she asked witheringly. "Neither is a woman. Being reasonable is so stupid. It's worse than being suitable or sensible, or – or proper."

The bachelor lifted his eyebrows in mild astonishment.

"I thought those were virtues," he protested.

"They are, Mr. Travers," returned the widow crushingly, "and that's why they're so uninteresting. You might as well ask why is music, or painting, or pâté de foie gras, or champagne, or ice cream, or anything else charming and delicious – "

"And utterly useless."

"Of course," agreed the widow, leaning back and thoughtfully twisting the bit of lace she called a handkerchief. "It's the utterly useless things that make the world attractive and pleasant to live in – like flowers and bonbons and politics and love – "

"And tobacco," added the bachelor reflectively.

"Woman is the dessert to the feast," went on the widow, "the trimmings on the garment of life, the spice in the pudding. Of course, a man can eat his dinner without dessert or champagne and live his life without kisses or a woman – but somehow he never does."

"And that's just where he gets into trouble," retorted the bachelor promptly. "If you could only tell," he went on pathetically, "what any one of them was going to do or why she was going to do it, or – "

"Then it isn't 'Why is a woman?' but 'Why does a woman?' that you wanted to know," interrupted the widow helpfully.

"That's it!" cried the bachelor, "why does she get off a car backward? Why does she wear a skirt four yards long and then get furious if you step on it? Why does she make a solemn and important engagement without the slightest intention of keeping it? Why does she put on open-work stockings and gaudy shoes and hold her frock as high as she dares – and then annihilate you if you stare at her? Why does she use everything as it was not intended to be used – a hairpin to pick a lock, a buttonhook to open a can, a hairbrush to hammer a nail, a hatpin to rob a letter box, a razor to sharpen a pencil and a cup and saucer to decorate the mantelpiece? Why does she gush over the woman she hates worst and snub the man she is dying to marry? Why does she lick all the glue off a postage stamp and then try to make it stick? Why does she cry at a wedding and act frivolous at a funeral? Why does she put a new feather on her hat and a new kink in her hair, and expect a man to notice it as quickly and be as astonished as he would if she had shaved her head or lost a limb? Why does she seem offended if you don't make love to her, and then get angry if you do? Why does she act kittenish when she's big and dignified, when she's little and old, when she's young and silly, when she's old? And why, oh, why, did you inveigle me into coming down to this miserable pink-and-white house party with the hope of being near you and then utterly ignore me and spend your time flirting with Bobby Taylor, while I sulk about like a lost sheep or run errands – "

"For Miss Manners?" suggested the widow cuttingly.

"Miss Manners!" exclaimed the bachelor scornfully.

"You once thought her very beautiful, Mr. Travers."

"That's just it!" retorted the bachelor. "Why didn't you let me go on thinking her beautiful – "

"'As delicate as a sea shell,' wasn't it?"

"Yes," snapped the bachelor, "and as – hollow!"

The widow smiled enigmatically.

"Tell me," she said sympathetically, "what she has done to you."

"Well, for one thing," complained the bachelor, "she coaxed me out on the piazza last night in the moonlight, and then, when she had talked sentiment for half an hour and lured me to a dark spot and simply goaded me into taking her hand – "

The widow sat up straight.

"But you didn't do it, Billy Travers!"

"Of course I did. It seemed almost an insult not to. And what did she do? She jerked it away, flung herself from me, rose like an outraged queen, turned on me with that 'I-thought-you-were-a-gentleman' air and said – "

The widow lay back in her chair and laughed.

"Oh, mercy!" she said, wiping the tears from her eyes when she was able. "Excuse me but – but – how did she look when she did it?"

"Well," confessed the bachelor, "she did look rather stunning."

"That's why she did it," explained the widow between laughs. "A woman's reason for doing most things is because she thinks she will look well doing them."

"Or because she thinks you will look surprised if she does them."

"Or because she wants to attract your attention."

"Or to make you feel uncomfortable."

"Or to astonish you or amuse you or – "

"Work on your sensibilities, or get on your nerves, or play on your sympathies. But," he went on growing wroth at the recollection, "the idea of a little chit like that – and that isn't the worst. This morning she dragged me out of bed at half-past five to go fishing. Fishing! At this season! I never saw a girl so crazy for fish in my life; and when we had walked four miles to find the right spot and she had been silent long enough for me to feel a nibble at the bait and had helped me with all her might and main to haul in that blessed little fish, do you know what she did?"

The widow looked up questioningly.

"She cried because I wanted to bring it home and made me throw it back into the water. That's what she did!"

The widow sat up straight, with horrified eyes.

"Well, of course she did!" she exclaimed heatedly. "She only asked you to catch the fish didn't she – not to kill it?"

The bachelor stared at her for a moment without speaking. Then he got up silently and walked over to the window.

"I suppose," he remarked after a long pause, apparently addressing the front lawn or the blue heavens, "that it's that same sort of logic that incites a woman to play for a man until she catches him – and then throw him overboard. O Lord," he continued, glancing at the sky devoutly, "why couldn't you have made them nice and sensible?"

The widow took up her book with disdain.

"'Nice and sensible'" she repeated witheringly. "Just think how it would feel to be called 'nice and sensible!' I wish," she added, turning to her novel with an air of boredom, "that you would go and – talk to Ethel Manners."

The bachelor eyed her narrowly.

"I guess I will," he said finally. "She seems more interesting – now that you've explained her."

The widow stopped in the middle of a paragraph and looked up.

"And by Jove!" went on the bachelor reminiscently, turning to the window again, "she did look dreamy in a sunbonnet and that little short skirt this morning. She has adorable feet, you know."

The widow closed her book with a sharp snap, keeping her fingers between the pages.

"I know, Mr. Travers; but how did you know?"

"I looked at them," confessed the bachelor frankly, "and her ankles – "

The widow's mouth closed in a straight line.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Travers," she remarked frigidly, "that you are not a fit companion for a young girl like Ethel."

"I'm not equal to her," grinned the bachelor.

"No, you're not. She's a nice, sensible girl and – "

"Do you hate her very much?"

"Hate her?" The widow's eyes opened with astonishment.

"You called her 'nice and sensible.'"

"Bobby Taylor's looking for you, Marion," called Miss Manners, glancing in at the door suddenly.

"Well, goodby. I'm off," said the bachelor, following the swish of Miss Manners's skirts with his eyes, as she hurried away down the hall.

"Sit down, Mr. Travers!" commanded the widow in an awful tone.

At that moment a buoyant young man poked his head in at the door.

"Go way, Bobby," said the widow. "Mr. Travers and I are discussing – er – psychology."

"Ugh!" remarked Bobby, dutifully withdrawing, "why do you do it, if it hurts?"

The bachelor looked up at the widow under the tail of his eyelid.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

But the widow's underlip was curled into a distinct pout and her eyes met his reproachfully. She dabbed them effectively with the end of her lace handkerchief.

"Of c-course it does," she said with a little choke in her voice, "when you have been here three whole days and have never noticed me and have spent every minute of your time trailing around after that – that – little – "

"But wasn't that what you invited me for?" exclaimed the bachelor helplessly.

"Of course it was," acknowledged the widow, "but – but I didn't think you'd do it."

The bachelor gazed at her a moment in blank amazement. Then a gleam of enlightenment came into his eyes and he leaned over and caught her fingers.

"Look here, Marion," he said gently, "you invited me down here to fling that girl at my head. If you didn't want me to fall in love with her, what did you want?"

"I wanted you to get enough of her!" explained the widow, smiling through her lace handkerchief.

"Well – I have. I've got too much!" vowed the bachelor fervently.

The widow laughed softly and complacently.

"That's just what I knew would happen," she said, closing her novel and flinging it onto the couch.

Then she added, looking up quizzically:

"A woman always has a reason – if you can only find out what it is."

IV
The Widow's Rival

"WHY," said the widow, gazing thoughtfully at the ruby-faced woman with the gigantic waist-line, who sat beside the meek little man on the bench opposite, "do men marry – those?"

The bachelor glanced into the violet eyes beneath the violet hat.

"Perhaps," he said insinuatingly, "because they can't get – somebody else."

"Nonsense," replied the widow poking her parasol emphatically into the sand. "With all the chance a man has – "

"Chance!" cried the bachelor scoffingly. "Chance! What chance has a man got after a woman makes up her mind to marry him?"

The widow dug the sand spitefully with the point of her violet sunshade.

"I didn't refer to the chance of escape," she replied, icily. "I was speaking of the chance of a choice."

"That's it!" cried the bachelor. "The selection is so great – the choice is so varied! Don't you know how it is when you have too many dress patterns or hats or rings to choose from? You find it difficult to settle on any one – so difficult, in fact, that you decide not to choose at all, but to keep them all dangling – "

"Or else just shut your eyes," interrupted the widow, "and put out your hand and grab something."

"Of course, you shut your eyes!" acquiesced the bachelor. "Whoever went into matrimony with his eyes open?"

"A woman does," declared the widow tentatively. "She knows exactly what she wants, and if it is possible, she gets it. It is only after she has tried and failed many times that she puts her hand into the matrimonial grab-bag, and accepts anything she happens to pull out. But a man never employs any reason at all in picking out a wife – "

"Naturally!" scoffed the bachelor. "By that time, he's lost his reason!"

The widow rested her elbow on the handle of her sunshade, put her chin in her hand and smiled out at the sea.

"Yes," she said, "he has. He has reached the marrying mood."

"The – what?"

"The marrying mood. A man never decides to marry a girl just simply because he loves her, or because she is suitable, or because he ought to marry her, or because she is irresistible or fascinating or in love with him. He never marries at all until he gets the marrying mood, the matrimonial fever – and then he marries the first girl who comes along and wants him, young or old, pretty or ugly, good or bad. And that explains why a lot of men are tied up to women that you cannot possibly see any reason for having been married at all, much less married to those particular men."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the bachelor, "I'm glad I've got past the age – "

"But you haven't!" declared the widow emphatically. "The marrying fever is, like the measles or the appendicitis, liable to catch you at any age or stage, and you never know when or why or how you got it. Sometimes a man takes it when he is very young and rushes into a fool marriage with a woman twice his age, and sometimes he goes all his life up to sixty without catching the contagion and then gets it horribly and marries his cook or a chorus girl young enough to be his granddaughter. Haven't you seen confirmed bachelors successfully resist the wiles of the most fascinating women and turn down a dozen suitable girls – and then, just when you thought they were quite safe and entirely past the chance of marriage as well as their first youth, turn around and tie themselves to some little fool thing without a penny to her name or a thought worth half that amount? That was a late attack of the matrimonial fever – and the older you get it the harder it goes. Let me see," added the widow thoughtfully, "how old are you?"

"I haven't lost my ideals – nor my teeth!" declared the bachelor defensively.

"What is your ideal?" asked the widow leaning over and peeping up under the bachelor's hat brim.

The bachelor stared back at her through lowered lashes.

"It's got on a violet hat," he began, "and violet – "

"Is that a ship out there?" asked the widow, suddenly becoming interested in the sea.

"And violet – "

"Oh, dear!" she interrupted petulantly. "Of course, you've got ideals. All men have ideals – but they don't often marry them. The trouble is that when a man has the marrying fever he can clothe anything in curls and petticoats with the illusions he has built around that ideal, and put the ideal's halo on her head and imagine she is the real thing. He can look at a red-headed, pug-nosed girl from an angle that will make her hair seem pure gold and her pug look Greek. By some mental feat, he can transform a girl six feet tall with no waist line and an acute elbow into a kittenish, plump little thing that he has always had in mind – and marry her. Or, if his ideal is tall and willowy and ethereal, and he happens to meet a woman weighing 200 pounds whose first thought in the morning is her breakfast and whole last thought at night is her dinner, he will picture her merely attractively plump and a marvel of intellect and imagination. And," the widow sank her chin in her hand and gazed out to sea reflectively, "it is all so pitiful, when you think how happy men could make marriage, if they would only go about it scientifically!"

"Then what," inquired the bachelor flinging away his cigar and folding his arms dramatically, "is the science of choosing a wife?"

"Well," said the widow, counting off on the tips of her lilac silk gloves, "first of all a man should never choose a wife when he finds himself feeling lonesome and dreaming of furnished flats and stopping to talk to babies in the street. He has the marrying fever then, and is in no fit condition to pick out a wife and unless he is very careful he is liable to marry the first girl who smiles at him. He should shut his eyes tight and flee to the wilderness and not come back until he is prepared to see women in their proper lights and their right proportions."

"And then?" suggested the bachelor.

"Then," announced the widow oratorically, "he should choose a wife as he would a dish at the table – not because he finds her attractive or delicious or spicy, but – because he thinks she will agree with him."

"I see," added the bachelor, "and won't keep him awake nights," he added.

The widow nodded.

"Nor give him a bitter taste in the mouth in the morning. A good wife is like a dose of medicine – hard to swallow, but truly helpful. The girls who wear frills and high heels and curly pompadours are like the salad with the most dressing and garnishing, likely to be too rich and spicy, while the plain little thing in the serge skirt, who never powders her nose, may prove as sweet and wholesome – as – as home-made pudding."

"Or – home-made pickles," suggested the bachelor with wry face.

The widow shook her parasol at him admonishingly.

"Don't do that!" cried the bachelor.

"Do what?" inquired the widow in astonishment.

"Wave your frills in my eyes! I had just made up my mind to propose to Miss Gunning and – "

The widow sat up perfectly straight.

"Do you really admire – a marble slab, Mr. Travers?"

"And your frills," pursued the bachelor, unmoved, "like salad dressing – "

"I beg your pardon."

"Or garnishings – "

"Mr. Travers!"

"Might be merely a lure to make me take something which would disagree with me."