Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905

He was silent, and after a pause they started slowly down the hill.

Two days passed since she had told him that Mrs. Fraser was in love with him. They had been much together, but never alone until now, and she knew that he was furious with himself for letting the minutes slip unmarked by. Suddenly he burst out: “Will you wear that gray frock you wore the first night, to-night? And the low diamond thing in your hair?”

“Why?”

“Because – I want to see you again as I saw you then. I – I have lost my bearings. I can’t remember how you looked, and I – want – ”

“I looked like a well-preserved, middle-aged lady. Please don’t begin to think me young, Teddy.”

Under her broad hat brim her eyes gleamed maliciously.

“You are young! I was an idiotic – ”

She raised her head.

“Oh, don’t! Don’t fall in love with me; it would bore us both to death; be my nice adopted son.”

“Dear Lady Harden,” he returned, flushing, “I assure you that I have not the slightest idea of falling in love with you.”

“Thank Heaven! I adore boys, but a boy in love is really too appalling.”

He caught her hand and looked down at her, something suddenly dominating in his eyes.

“That is nonsense,” he said, shortly. “I am young, but I am not a child, and if I fell in love with you – ”

“Well?”

“It would not be as a child loves. That is all.”

He released her hand, and they walked on in silence.

The extraordinary delight that most charming women take in playing with fire had ever been Dagny Harden’s, for the reason that she had never, in all her experiences, been in the slightest danger of burning her delicate fingers. Purely cerebral flirt that she was, her unawakened heart dozed placidly in the shadow of her husband’s strong affection for her.

Once or twice when the suffering she inflicted was plainly written on the face of her victim, her mind shrank fastidiously away from closer examination of pain she had caused, and the disappearance of the man was a relief to her.

As she descended the stairs that evening, in the gray frock and the diamond circlet, she smiled the little smile that meant pleased anticipation.

Teddy was a dear boy, and he had grown older in the last day or two. After dinner she would play on her fiddle and – watch the dear boy. Then there would be a rather picturesque good-by, for he was leaving at dawn, and – that would be all.

Fate, grinning in his monk’s sleeve, had settled things otherwise.

There was no music, and at half-past ten Lady Harden found herself in a little boat on the lake, one of several parties, alone with Teddy Cleeve. In the shadow of some willows he pulled in his oars.

His face was very white, his mouth fixed.

“Why have you done this?” he asked, abruptly.

She hesitated, and then, the obvious banality refusing to be uttered, answered, slowly: “It isn’t really done, Teddy, you only think it is.”

“That is – a damned lie.”

The woman never lived who did not enjoy being sworn at by the right man, in the right way.

“Teddy!”

“Oh, yes, ‘Teddy’! It is a lie. Why tell it?”

“I mean that – if it hadn’t been me it would have been – some one else. Your time had come,” she returned, nervously.

From across the lake came singing – some “coon song” anglicized into quaint incomprehensibility. Cleeve folded his arms.

“Don’t – look like that, Teddy.”

“I look as I feel. I am not – you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you looked at me at dinner as if – ”

“Hush! Don’t say horrid things.”

“You looked at me as though you loved me. And if truth is better than lying, it was worse to look like that – without feeling it, than it would have been to really feel it.”

“You are talking nonsense. I am very nearsighted, and – ”

He laughed harshly. “Can’t you play the game even for five minutes? I understood that it amused you to make a fool of me, but it didn’t end with that. You have made me really love you. Really love you, do you understand?”

As he spoke, they heard peals of distant laughter, and saw six or seven of the people who had been boating scampering across the moonlit lawn toward the nearest park gates.

“They must be going over to the Westerleighs’ – we must go, too,” said Lady Harden. “Will you row in?”

Cleeve did not answer; he did not appear to have heard her remark.

After a pause he said, slowly: “You have made me really love you. I don’t know why you did it, for I surely had not hurt you in any way. However, you did it, and you must have had some reason. You found me a boy; you have made me a man. Well – you must love me, too.”

The boat had begun to drift, and was alone on the burnished water.

Lady Harden clasped her hands nervously.

“I must love you! What rot! Come, row to the landing, please. I am going back to the house, and you must go on to the Westerleighs’.”

“Dagny – I say, you must love me, too.”

“You are crazy.”

“I am not.”

“Well, I do not love you, and I never shall. Now let us end this melodrama.”

Cleeve took up the oars and rowed rapidly to the landing place. Then, as she stepped onto the platform, he took her into his arms.

“You must,” he said, looking down at her. “It’s all your own fault. You did it willfully. Now you must love me.”

His dogged persistency puzzled her and routed all her usual array of graceful phrases.

“Am I being invited to – elope with you?” she asked, laughing a little shrilly.

He flushed. “No. I – love you. But – you must feel something of this that is hurting me. Hurting? Why, it’s hell.”

“Hell! I am sorry – indeed I am – ”

“Oh, that does no good. Words can’t help. You have got to suffer, too,” he returned, still holding her round the shoulders.

It was, in spite of the thrill of the unusual that she distinctly felt, absurd. It ought to be laughed at. So she laughed.

“How can you make me suffer, you baby?” she asked.

“Well, I can. Woman have their weapons, and men have theirs. You’ve made a man of me. I know a lot of things I didn’t know last week. Among others, I know that you couldn’t have been as you have been unless I had attracted you pretty strongly. You are” – he went on, with the green coolness that sat so oddly on his tense young face – “pretty near to loving me at this moment.”

“That is not true.”

“Oh, yes, it is, Lady Harden. It’s because I am young, and big, and – good looking. These things count for you as well as for us. And you are thirty. I read a book the other day about a woman of thirty. Thirty is young enough, but thirty-five isn’t, and – thirty-five is coming.”

Her eyes closed for an instant. “You are brutal.”

“Yes, I am very brutal. You were brutal, too. You see, I remembered that novel while I was dressing for dinner, and it taught me a lot. You and it have made me rather wise between you. Well, I love you,” he went on, suddenly fierce, “and you must love me. Dagny!”

Bending, he kissed her.

She herself had killed his boyish shyness, his youthful hesitation, all the boy’s natural fear of repulsion.

He was the man, she the woman. He dominated, she submitted; he was strong, she was weak; he was big, she was small.

“Oh, why – ” she stammered, as he released her.

“Because – it is the only way. You could always have beaten me at talking – ”

“You had no right to kiss me.”

“I think I had. If a woman has a right to torment a man as you tormented me, he surely has a right to take whatever means he can of – getting even. Women are so brutal – ”

He had found, she felt, the solution to the Eternal riddle.

Her heart was beating furiously, but her voice, as she went on, was cool enough.

“Look here, Teddy, I will tell you the truth about all this. Will you believe me?”

After a second’s hesitation he answered, curtly: “Yes.”

“Well – you are right. I mean your – method is right. It never occurred to me before that – well, that turn about is fair play. Women are brutes – particularly, perhaps, the good ones who flirt.”

Cleeve laughed. “‘The good ones who flirt.’ Go on!”

“And I suppose you were, in a way, entitled to use against me the only weapons you had. You see, I am quite frank. Only – you used them too soon. I don’t love you. Probably, if we had been together a week longer, I should have, but – I do not love you at this minute.”

“Wait till I’m gone,” he observed, with his horrible young wisdom.

She frowned. “That has nothing to do with it. You leave here to-morrow morning, and on Friday you sail. And I do not love you. I am sorry for having hurt you. Believe this.”

“I don’t believe it. I’m not sorry, and I don’t believe you are. Listen – the others are coming. Run back to the house, and I’ll go and meet them. And first – let me kiss you again.”

The voices, still afar seemed discordant in the white stillness.

Cleeve opened his arms. “Come. Then I shall believe you.” Lady Harden took a step forward, and held her face bravely to his.

Then, just as he bent his head, she turned and hid her face on his arm. “I cannot,” she whispered.

The Boy-Man’s lips were set hard, his brows drawn down.

“Ah, Dagny, dearest,” he whispered, “and I must go to-morrow.”

She looked up. “You have won; I have lost; thank God you go to-morrow!” she answered.

A moment later she was speeding through the shadows toward the house, and Cleeve, lighting a cigarette, lounged down to the drive toward the laughing groups of returning frolickers.

A PRESENT-DAY CREED

What matters down here in the darkness?’Tis only the rat that squeals,Crushed down under the iron hoof.’Tis only the fool that feels.’Tis only the child that weeps and sorrowsFor the death of a love or a rose;While grim in its grinding, soulless mask,Iron, the iron world goes.God is an artist, mind is the all,Only the art survives.Just for a curve, a tint, a fancy,Millions on millions of lives!If this be your creed, O late-world poet,Pass, with your puerile pose;For I am the fool, the child that suffers,That weeps and sleeps with the rose.W. Wilfred Campbell

BETWEEN THE LINES

By M. H. Vorse

Dramatis personæ – Miss Paysley, twenty-one, small, with a dignified carriage, when she remembers it, otherwise she is as impulsive as a little girl. She is pale, blond, blushes easily and has a way of looking at one with a straight, honest, gaze.

Mr. Jarvis, thirty, tall, well built. Has an easy-going, tolerant manner that is sometimes almost indifferent.

Scene– A lamplit piazza. The subdued light throws curious shadows on the thick growth of vines which screen the place from the street. Here and there where the vines are broken one may look out into the velvety blackness of the night. The piazza is furnished in the usual way. Rugs, wicker chairs, wicker tables. On the table a carafe with liquor and glasses. Litter of books, smoking things, etc.

Enter Miss Paysley and Mr. Jarvis.

Miss Paysley (pulling aside the vines) – What a sense of space darkness gives one! I feel as if I were looking into eternity!

Mr. Jarvis (aside) – That sounds like Millicent. (Aloud.) Aren’t you going to keep your promise?

Miss Paysley – Don’t you feel the greatness of space around you in a night like this?

Mr. Jarvis (reproachfully) – And I thought you were a woman of your word. I didn’t bring you out here to look into limitless space. I brought you out here to look into my hand.

Miss Paysley (bringing her eyes to his, as if with effort, and blushing) – You know I warned you! I’m awfully in earnest, and sometimes I say – well, things.

Mr. Jarvis – I want the truth, you know. (Shakes up the pillow in the hammock.)

Miss Paysley (aside) – He brought me out here to get me to hold his hand half an hour! None in mine, thanks! I’ll show him! (Aloud.) No, here, please, quite under the light.

Mr. Jarvis – You’ll be ever so much more comfortable in the hammock.

Miss Paysley (with a malicious smile) – You’re so thoughtful! But light I must have. Now the table. (Moves the table between them.) Please let both your hands lie quite naturally on it.

Mr. Jarvis (disappointed) – On the table? Oh! (Aside.) At this rate palmistry won’t be popular any more.

Miss Paysley (bends over his hand, then raises her eyes suddenly to Jarvis) – You know it makes me almost nervous to read your hand. I feel, with some people, as if I were listening at the door and hearing secrets I oughtn’t to. (Aside.) I wouldn’t do it for any one but Millicent. But I can’t stand by and see that Orton woman – How I hate engaged flirts!

Mr. Jarvis – I’m not afraid; if I had been, why should I have asked you?

Miss Paysley (raising her eyes suddenly again) – You may have had – your reasons.

Mr. Jarvis (aside) – That’s a fetching way she has of raising her eyes. Wonder what she meant by that just now. (Aloud.) How becoming the pale green of the leaves is to your hair.

Miss Paysley – Turn your hands over, please. Now put your right one directly under the light. Oh!

Mr. Jarvis – What do you see?

Miss Paysley – What strange, strange nails. I’ve read about it, but I’ve never seen it before. Not so marked! It’s the perfect type!

Mr. Jarvis (interested in spite of himself) – What does it mean?

Miss Paysley (embarrassed, hesitating) – It isn’t pleasant.

Mr. Jarvis (looking at her) – Go on!

Miss Paysley (reluctantly) – Well, they mean – consumption! (Aside.) They’ll make him serious – besides, it is the type.

Mr. Jarvis (rising to the bait) – Why, I haven’t a consumptive relative. (Aside.) She is honest. And I was expecting the old Girdle of Venus gag. (Aloud.) What does this line mean, and why are the veins of my hands so red?

Miss Paysley (aside) – You don’t catch this child this way. No compliments about your impressible temperaments from me. (Aloud, meditatingly, slowly.) Those red lines – sometimes – they mean insanity – but in your case —

Mr. Jarvis (with sarcasm) – Would you mind telling me at what age I am going to lose my teeth, or if I am in danger of breaking a leg? I had no idea palmistry was so pathological.

Miss Paysley (undisturbed) – Hold your fingers up to the light.

Mr. Jarvis (aside) – Now for the old “you let money slip through your fingers.”

Miss Paysley – You don’t know how to hold on to your fortune; you let the best thing in your life slip through your fingers.

Mr. Jarvis (aside) – Rather a good variant. (Aloud.) What do you mean?

Miss Paysley (with impatience) – How should I know what I mean? I’m telling you what I see. I don’t know enough about you to have the answer to the riddle of your hand. Remember, we’ve only met twice.

Mr. Jarvis – Three times.

Miss Paysley – Twice, three times, half a dozen – it doesn’t signify.

Mr. Jarvis – It does to me.

Miss Paysley (aside) – I’m sorry for you, Millicent. (Aloud.) You ought to know what I mean. Have you never been in danger of losing through your own carelessness – I mean, something you are fond of? (Aside.) That’s pretty pointed. I hope Millicent won’t give me away.

Mr. Jarvis – Have you ever heard about the expulsive power of a new – interest.

Miss Paysley (aside) – The pill. (With reflection.) I’ve heard of changing one’s mind.

Mr. Jarvis (holding up his hand, which is large and powerful) – And my hand shows indecision of character?

Miss Paysley (aside) – He’s jesting. They’re all alike – men. Keen for praise. (Aloud.) I didn’t say indecisive. You know what you want, but you often don’t value what you have. You are ready to pay for a thing of lesser value with the one of greater.

Mr. Jarvis – So few things have a fixed value; it’s what they seem worth to you. You can only measure the worth of any given thing by the pleasure it gives you.

Miss Paysley – The selfish man’s creed. (Glancing at his hand.) You are abominably selfish, you know – selfish and self-indulgent! You will sacrifice anything to attain something you want, except your own comfort!

Mr. Jarvis (with a fine air of impartiality) – I don’t think that’s altogether true.

Miss Paysley (studying his hand intently) – Yes, and you will sacrifice not only anything but anybody!

Mr. Jarvis (modestly) – That is what has always endeared me so to my friends. I’m a sort of modern Moloch!

Miss Paysley (raising her eyes suddenly) – Don’t joke about it. It may be true. (There is a strained eagerness in her manner that is quite convincing.)

Mr. Jarvis (aside) – Hanged if I don’t think she believes this rot.

Miss Paysley – Please hold up your hands with the first fingers touching. I thought so.

Mr. Jarvis – What?

Miss Paysley (with conviction) – Your best impulses you never follow to the end, either in your life or your work. For instance, I imagine your studio is full of half-finished canvases, the best work you have done, but unfinished. The work you expose, your finished stuff, is what has let itself be finished easily!

Mr. Jarvis (suspiciously) – You guessed that from such of my work as you’ve seen.

Miss Paysley (aside) – That was a dead steal from Millicent! (Aloud, coolly.) I haven’t the pleasure of knowing much of your work, Mr. Jarvis. Please put your right hand under the light. (Aside.) I’d better put him in good temper again. Queer how a man loves a chance of talking uninterruptedly about himself. (Aloud.) You have an exaggerated worship of strength in yourself and others.

Mr. Jarvis – Where do you see that?

Miss Paysley – In the whole character of your hand. (Aside.) Millicent said “strength and the admiration of strength is his keynote.” (Aloud.) You must see for yourself that your hand isn’t a weak one, and see how the lines are cut – as if with a chisel. (Aside.) He’s purring already like a Cheshire cat.

Mr. Jarvis – What do you mean by an exaggerated worship of strength?

Miss Paysley – I mean you underscore strength too much among the other virtues.

Mr. Jarvis – Can one? A man, I mean?

Miss Paysley – And with that as the foundation of your character, it’s astonishing what weak-minded things you do!

Mr. Jarvis – How graceful!

Miss Paysley – What else do you call all those unfinished canvases? The line of least resistance isn’t strength.

Mr. Jarvis (with pathos) – One would think I were your Sunday-school class.

Miss Paysley (aside) – It’s time to give him more toffey. (Aloud.) Your popularity has been one of the reasons of your not always following your creed of strength.

Mr. Jarvis (modestly) – Yes, my fatal beauty has always stood in the way of my living up to my ideals!

Miss Paysley (aside) – Oh, you may sneer, but you know you like it. Else you wouldn’t be here. (Aloud.) There is something here I don’t understand.

Mr. Jarvis (aside) – I was waiting for that to come. (Aloud.) Go on!

Miss Paysley – Please let your hand drop over from the wrist. How unusual!

Mr. Jarvis (interested) – I’ve never seen that done before.

Miss Paysley (tranquilly) – You have your fortune told early and often?

Mr. Jarvis (undisturbed) – As often as possible!

Miss Paysley (aside) – Of course you never lose a chance of talking about yourself! (Aloud.) You’ve a very unusual hand. You’re two or three people, one at the top of the other.

Mr. Jarvis (plaintively) – One would think I were a ham sandwich.

Miss Paysley (calmly) – A layer cake, I should put it.

Mr. Jarvis (aside) – You can’t feaze her. She’s really prettier than Mrs. Orton. (Aloud.) What are my many characters? It’s interesting. (Aside.) Now for the “You know the higher but follow the lower.”

Miss Paysley – Fundamentally, beside your love of strength, you are simple, kindly, unaffected. You would be happy married to a girl kindly and unaffected like yourself. (Aside.) I mustn’t give too pointed a description of Millicent.

Mr. Jarvis – The country – Milking time? Love in a cottage? Baby’s first step?

Miss Paysley – Laugh, if you like, but that’s really what you like, and what would make you happy! That’s the sort of atmosphere you do your best work in. You need for a wife some one not too self-assertive, and who believes in you. You need a certain sort of appreciation to work well – and wanting appreciation, you put up with flattery.

Mr. Jarvis – I just live on flattery.

Miss Paysley (with conviction) – You drink it in by the pailful! You don’t mind if it’s put on with a butter knife!

Mr. Jarvis (who has gotten more and more interested) – What becomes of my strength then?

Miss Paysley – Oh, you only live on flattery when you are starved for legitimate appreciation. (Aside.) I think I got out of that rather neatly. (Aloud.) You are really idealistic, with a good deal of sentiment, and, selfish as you are, you have a heart.

Mr. Jarvis (gratefully) – Thank you for the heart.

Miss Paysley – You like to have people think you are cynical and light-minded. You only show your real self to a few people.

Mr. Jarvis – He sounds to me like a prig and a bore.

Miss Paysley (with more warmth than she has shown yet) – He’s a charming and delightful person. It’s the man of the world with the-smile-that-won’t-come-off that’s the bore!

Mr. Jarvis – Have you found me so?

Miss Paysley (steadily) – Not when I’ve read between the lines.

Mr. Jarvis (looking at Miss Paysley searchingly) – I really think you’re honest.

Miss Paysley (returning his look) – What did you think I came out here for?

Mr. Jarvis (still looking into Miss Paysley’s eyes) – Apparently to give me your unvarnished opinion of me. Please go on.

Miss Paysley – I’ve described the first and second layers of the cake.

Mr. Jarvis – Isn’t there any frosting?

Miss Paysley (aside) – They simply are insatiable for praise. (Aloud.) The frosting doesn’t count. I’ve been eating the frosting ever since I met you.

Mr. Jarvis (meekly) – I hope you liked it.

Miss Paysley (harking back to the last remark but one) – This superimposed you has different tastes, likes different women – and is more easily taken in.

Mr. Jarvis – How more easily taken in?

Miss Paysley (aside) – I thought I’d get a rise. Now for the plunge. (Aloud.) I mean that in your own world, among the people who think as you do, you can tell the real ones from those who are only shams.

Mr. Jarvis (quickly) – Whereas, in the world represented by what we have agreed to call the upper layer of the cake, I don’t know a lump of flour from a raisin?

Miss Paysley – Exactly.

Mr. Jarvis – May I ask if you are a real raisin – as I’ve given you the credit of being?

Miss Paysley – Oh! you should know what I am. I don’t belong to the upper layer – the highly spiced one.

Mr. Jarvis – Would you mind telling me if there is any particular lump of flour now passing itself off on me as a raisin?

Miss Paysley (with dignity) – My good man, this is palmistry, not a life saving expedition! (Aside.) He’s a little too quick.

Mr. Jarvis – It seemed to me to have something to do with the art of portrait painting.

Miss Paysley – I’m not responsible, am I, for the lines in your hand?

Mr. Jarvis – No, nor for your opinion of me.

Miss Paysley (aside) – You can’t get a rise out of me that way. (Aloud.) No, nor for that, either.

Mr. Jarvis – Let’s sift down the evidence. I’m in danger of losing something that is precious to me, or, rather, I’m in danger of paying with my gold piece for a brazen image. I don’t follow my best impulses to the end. I’m a layer cake with a substantial piece of home-made cake for my under layer and an inferior article on top. Miss Paysley, would you kindly tell me if this cross in my left hand is a warning to avoid widows with pale, gold hair?