The Widow [To Say Nothing of the Man]

"Or opinions on the equality of the sexes," added the bachelor.

"Or on politics."

"Or the higher life."

"Or on anything but the latest way to curl her hair and make over a hat," finished the widow. "Isn't it funny," she added thoughtfully twisting a French knot into the centre of the sickly green rose, "how many men idealize a fool?"

The bachelor started.

"I – I beg your pardon," he stammered.

"All a woman has got to know in order to wear a halo," went on the widow, calmly fastening the French knot with a jerk of her needle, "is how to keep it on straight. All a man demands of her is the negative virtues and the knowledge of how not to do things; how not to think, how not to argue, how not to nag, how not to theorize, how not to be athletic, how not to spend money, how not to take care of herself, how not – "

"You've got your ideas into a French knot!" broke in the bachelor desperately. "You're all tangled up in the thread of your argument. It isn't how not to do things but how to do them that is important to a woman. It isn't what she does but how she does it that matters. She may commit a highway murder or low down burglary; and if she does it in a ruffled skirt and a picture hat any man will forgive her. Her morals may be as crooked and dark as a lane at midnight; but if her manners are smooth and gentle and guileless and tender she can deceive the cleverest man alive into believing her a nun. It isn't what she says but how she says it that counts. There are some women who could read your death warrant or repeat the multiplication table in such a confiding voice and with such a tender glance that you would want to take them in your arms and thank them for it. It isn't what a woman wears but how she wears it; it's not her beauty nor her talents nor her frocks that make her fascinating, but her ways, the little earmarks of femininity that God put on every creature born to wear petticoats; and if she's got those she may be a Lucretia Borgia or a Bloody Mary at heart; she may be brown or yellow or pale green; she may be old or young, big or little, stupid or clever, and still wear a beautiful halo. The trouble," he added, flicking the end of his cigar thoughtfully, "is not with man's ideal but with woman's deal. She holds all the cards, but she plays them badly. When a two-spot of flattery would win her point, she deals a chap the queen of arguments; when the five of smiles would take the trick for her, she plays the deuce of a pout. When the ace of sympathy or the ten of tact would put the whole game of love into her hands, she thinks it is time to be funny and flings a man the joker."

The widow laid her work on the table beside her, folded her hands in her lap and smiled at the bachelor sweetly.

"That's just what I said," she remarked, gently.

"What you said!"

The widow nodded and rubbed her nose reminiscently with the end of her handkerchief.

"Yes," she replied, "it isn't putting powder on your nose or rouge on your cheeks or perfume on your petticoats or a broad 'A' on your accent that shocks a man, but putting them on inartistically. It isn't the things you do but the things you overdo that offend masculine taste. It's the 'over-done' woman that a man hates – the woman who is over-dressed or overly made-up, or overly cordial or overly flattering, or overly clever, or overly good, or overly anything. He doesn't want to see how the wheels go around at the toilet table or in a woman's head or her heart; and it's the subtle, illusive little thing that he doesn't notice until he steps on her and finds her looking up adoringly at him under his nose that he idealizes."

"And marries," added the bachelor conclusively.

"And then forgets," sighed the widow, "while he goes off to amuse himself with the obvious person with peroxide hair and a straight-front figure. I don't know," she added tentatively, "that it's much fun being an ideal woman."

"Who said you were?" demanded the bachelor suddenly.

The widow started and turned pink to her chin.

"Oh – nobody – that is, several people, Mr. Travers."

"Had you refused them?" asked the bachelor thoughtfully.

The widow blushed a deeper pink and bent over her pale green rose so low that the bachelor could not see her eyes.

"Why – that is – I don't see what that has to do with it."

"It has everything to do with," replied the bachelor positively.

"And you haven't told me yet," continued the widow, suddenly changing the subject, "whom you consider the ideal woman."

"Don't you know?" asked the bachelor insinuatingly.

The widow shook her head without lifting her eyes.

"Well, then, she is – but so many of them have told you."

"You haven't," persisted the widow.

The bachelor sighed and rose to go.

"The ideal woman," he said, as he slipped on his gloves, "is – the woman you can't get. Is that the firelight playing on your pompadour?" he added, looking down upon the widow through half-closed eyes. "Do you know – for a moment – I thought it was a halo."

XII

New Year's Irresolutions

"ISN'T it hard," said the widow, glancing ruefully at the holly-wreathed clock above the mantel-piece, "to know where to begin reforming yourself?"

"Great heavens!" exclaimed the bachelor, "you are not going to do anything like that, are you?"

The widow pointed solemnly to the hands of the clock, which indicated 11.30, and then to the calendar, on which hung one fluttering leaf marked December 31.

"It is time," she sighed, "to begin our mental housecleaning, to sweep out our collection of last year's follies, and dust off our petty sins and fling away our old vices and – "

"That's the trouble!" broke in the bachelor. "It's so hard to know just what to throw away and what to keep. Making New Year's resolutions is like doing the spring housecleaning or clearing out a drawer full of old letters and sentimental rubbish. You know that there are lots of things you ought to get rid of, and that are just in the way, and that you would be better off without, but the minute you make up your mind to part with anything, even a tiny, insignificant vice, it suddenly becomes so dear and attractive that you repent and begin to take a new interest in it. The only time I ever had to be taken home in a cab was the day after I promised to sign the pledge," and the bachelor sighed reminiscently.

"And the only time I ever overdrew my bank account," declared the widow, "was the day after I had resolved to economize. I suppose," she added pensively, "that the best way to begin would be to pick out the worst vice and discard that."

"And that will leave heaps of room for the others and for a lot of new little sins, besides, won't it?" agreed the bachelor cheerfully. "Well," he added philosophically, "I'll give up murdering."

"What!" The widow started.

"Don't you want me to?" asked the bachelor plaintively, rubbing his bald spot. "Or perhaps I might resolve not to commit highway robbery any more, or to stop forging, or – "

"All of which is so easy!" broke in the widow sarcastically.

"There'd be some glory and some reason in giving up a big vice," sighed the bachelor, "if a fellow had one. But the trouble is that most of us men haven't any big criminal tendencies, merely a heap of little follies and weaknesses that there isn't any particular virtue in sacrificing or any particular harm in keeping."

"And which you always do keep, in spite of all your New Year's vows," remarked the widow ironically.

"Huh!" The bachelor laughed cynically. "It's our New Year's vows that help us to keep 'em. The very fact that a fellow has sworn to forego anything, whether it's a habit or a girl, makes it more attractive. I've thrown away a whole box of cigars with the finest intentions in the world and then gotten up in the middle of the night to fish the pieces out of the waste basket. And that midnight smoke was the sweetest I ever had. It was sweeter than the apples I stole when I was a kid and than the kisses I stole when – "

"If you came here to dilate on the joys of sin, Mr. Travers," began the widow coldly.

"And," proceeded the bachelor, "I've made up my mind to stop flirting with a girl, because I found out that she was beginning to – to – "

"I understand," interrupted the widow sympathetically.

"And by jove!" finished the bachelor, "I had to restrain myself to keep from going back and proposing to her!"

"How lucky you did!" commented the widow witheringly.

"But I wouldn't have," explained the bachelor ruefully, "if the girl had restrained herself."

"Nevertheless," repeated the widow, "is was lucky – for the girl."

"Which girl?" asked the bachelor. "The girl I broke off with or the girl that came afterward?"

"I suppose," mused the widow, ignoring the levity and leaning over to arrange a bunch of violets at her belt, "that is why it is so difficult for a man to keep a promise or a vow – even a marriage vow."

"Oh, I don't know." The bachelor leaned back and regarded the widow's coronet braid through the smoke from his cigar. "It isn't the marriage vows that are so difficult to keep. It's the fool vows a man makes before marriage and the fool promises he makes afterward that he stumbles over and falls down on. The marriage vows are so big and vague that you can get all around them without actually breaking them, but if they should interpolate concrete questions into the service such as, 'Do you, William, promise not to growl at the coffee' – "

"Or 'Do you, Mary, promise never to put a daub of powder on your nose again?'" broke in the widow.

"Nor to look twice at your pretty stenographer," continued the bachelor.

"Nor to lie about your age, or your foot or your waist measure."

"Nor to juggle with the truth whenever you stay out after half past ten."

"Nor to listen to things that – that anybody – except your husband – may say to you in the conservatory – oh, I see how it feels!" finished the widow with a sympathetic little shudder.

"And yet," reflected the bachelor, "a woman is always exacting vows and promises from the man she loves, always putting up bars – for him to jump over; when if she would only leave him alone he would be perfectly contented to stay within bounds and graze in his own pasture. A man hates being pinned down; but a woman doesn't want anything around that she can't pin down, from her belt and her theories to her hat and her husband."

"Well," protested the widow, studying the toe of her slipper, "it is a satisfaction to know you've got your husband fastened on straight by his promises and held in place by his vows and that he loves you enough to – "

"Usually," interrupted the bachelor, "a man loves you in inverse ratio to his protestations. The lover who promises all things without reserve is too often like the fellow who doesn't question the hotel bill nor ask the price of the wine, because he doesn't intend to pay it anyway. The fellow who is prodigal with vows and promises and poetry is generally the one to whom such things mean nothing and, being of no value, can be flung about generously to every girl he meets. The firm with the biggest front office is likely to be the one with the smallest deposit in the safe. The man who swears off loudest on New Year's is usually the one they have to carry home the morning after. And the chap who promises a girl a life of roses is the one who will let her pick all the thorns off for herself."

"Perhaps," sighed the widow, chewing the stem of a violet thoughtfully, "the best way to cure a man of a taste for anything, after all, is to let him have too much of it, instead of making him swear off. If you want him to hate the smell of a pipe insist on his smoking one all the time. If you want him to sign the temperance pledge serve him wine with every course. If you want him to hate a woman invite her to meet him every time he calls, and tell him how 'suitable' she would be."

"And if you want him to love you," finished the bachelor, "don't ask him to swear it, but tell him that he really ought not to. The best way to manage a donkey – human or otherwise – is to turn his head in the wrong direction, and he'll back in the right one."

"Then," said the widow decisively, "we ought to begin the New Year by making some irresolutions."

"Some – what?"

"Vows that we won't stop doing the things we ought not to do," explained the widow.

"All right," agreed the bachelor thoughtfully, "I'll make an irresolution to go on making love to you as much as I like."

"You mean as much as I like, Mr. Travers," corrected the widow severely.

"How much do you like?" asked the bachelor, leaning over to look into the widow's eyes.

The widow kicked the corner of the rug tentatively.

"I like – all but the proposing," she said slowly. "You really ought to stop that – "

"I'm going to stop it – to-night," said the bachelor firmly.

The widow looked up in alarm.

"Oh, you don't have to commence keeping your resolutions until to-morrow morning," she said quickly.

"And you are going to stop refusing me – to-night," continued the bachelor firmly.

The widow studied the corner of the rug with great concern.

"And," went on the bachelor, taking something from his pocket and toying with it thoughtfully, "you are going to put on this ring" – he leaned over, caught the widow's hand and slipped the glittering thing on her third finger. "Now," he began, "you are going to say that you will – "

The widow sprang up suddenly.

"Oh, don't, don't, don't!" she cried. "In a moment we'll be making promises."

"We don't need to," said the bachelor, leaning back nonchalantly, "we can begin by making – arrangements. Would you prefer to live in town or at Tuxedo? And do you think Europe or Bermuda the best place for the – "

"Bermuda, by all means," broke in the widow, "and I wish you'd have that hideous portico taken off your town house, Billy, and – " But the rest of her words were smothered in the bachelor's coat lapel – and something else.

"Then you do mean to marry me, after all?" cried the bachelor triumphantly.

The widow gasped for breath and patted her hair anxiously.

"I – I meant to marry you all the time!" she cried, "But I never thought you were really in earnest and – "

"'Methinks'," quoted the bachelor happily, "'that neither of us did protest too much.' We haven't made any promises, you know."

"Not one," rejoined the widow promptly, "as to my flirting."

"Nor as to my clubs."

"Nor as to my relatives."

"Nor my cigars."

"And we won't make any vows," cried the widow, "except marriage vows."

"And New Year's irresolutions," added the bachelor.

"Listen," cried the widow softly, with her fingers on her lips.

A peal of a thousand silver bells rang out on the midnight air.

"The chimes!" exclaimed the widow. "They're full of promises!"

"I thought it sounded like a wedding bell," said the bachelor, disappointedly.

"Maybe," said the widow, "it was only Love – ringing off."