The Widow [To Say Nothing of the Man]

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."

The widow rose and looked coolly out over the waves.

"I can't see," she said, "why you should fancy there could be any chance – "

"I don't," sighed the bachelor. "It isn't a matter of chance, but of choice."

The ice in the widow's eyes melted into sun in a moment. She turned to the bachelor impulsively.

"Why do you want to marry me?" she asked.

The bachelor rose and looked down at her critically.

"Well," he said, "for one thing, because you're just the woman I ought not to marry."

"What!"

"You're too highly spiced – "

"Billy!"

"And you'd be sure not to agree with me – "

"Billy Travers!"

"And because – "

"Well? Go on."

"Because – " The bachelor hesitated and gazed deep into the violet eyes.

"Please proceed, Mr. Travers."

"I won't!" The bachelor turned his back on her defiantly.

The widow came a little nearer and stooped around to peep under his hat-brim.

"Please – Billy!" she breathed softly.

"Well, then – because I'm in the marrying mood," he replied.

But the widow was half way to the hotel before he knew what had happened.

V

Money and Matrimony

"WHAT rhymes with 'matrimony'?" inquired the widow, taking her pencil out of her mouth and looking up thoughtfully through the fringes of her pompadour.

"Money," responded the bachelor promptly, as he flung himself down on the grass beside her and proceeded to study her profile through the shadows of the maple leaves.

The widow tilted her chin scornfully.

"I suppose they do sound alike," she condescended, "but I am making a poem; and there is no poetical harmony in the combination."

"There is no harmony at all without it," remarked the bachelor shortly. "But how on earth can you make a poem out of matrimony?"

"Some people do," replied the widow loftily.

"On paper!" sneered the bachelor. "On paper they make poems of death and babies and railroad accidents and health foods. But in real life matrimony isn't a poem; it's more like a declaration of war, or an itemized expense account, or a census report, or a cold business proposition."

The widow bit the end of her pencil and laid aside her paper. If the bachelor could have caught a glimpse of her eyes beneath the lowered lashes he might not have gone on; but he was studying the sky through the maple leaves.

"It's a beautiful business proposition," he added. "A magnificent money making scheme, a – "

The bachelor's eyes had dropped to the widow's and he stopped short.

"Go on," she remarked in a cold, sweet voice that trickled down his back.

"Oh, well," he protested lamely, "when you marry for money you generally get it, don't you? But when you marry for love – it's like putting your last dollar on a long shot."

"If you mean there's a delightful uncertainty about it?" began the widow.

"There's nothing half so delightful," declared the bachelor, "as betting on a sure thing. Now, the man or woman who marries for money – "

"Earns it," broke in the widow fervently. "Earns it by the sweat of the brow. The man who marries a woman for her money is a white slave, a bond servant, a travesty on manhood. For every dollar he receives he gives a full equivalent in self-respect and independence, and all the things dearest to a real man."

"A real man," remarked the bachelor, taking out his pipe and lighting it, "wouldn't marry a woman for her money. It's woman to whom marriage presents the alluring financial prospect."

"Oh, I don't know," responded the widow, crossing her arms behind her head and leaning thoughtfully against the tree at her back. "In these days of typewriting and stenography and manicuring and trained nursing, matrimony offers about the poorest returns, from a business standpoint, of any feminine occupation – the longest hours, the hardest work, the greatest drain on your patience, the most exacting master and the smallest pay, to say nothing of no holidays and not even an evening off."

"Nor a chance to 'give notice' if you don't like your job," added the bachelor sympathetically.

"If the average business man," went on the widow, ignoring the interruption, "demanded half of his stenographer that he demands of his wife he couldn't keep her three hours."

"And yet," remarked the bachelor, pulling on his pipe meditatively, "the average stenographer is only too glad to exchange her position for that of wife whenever she gets – "

The jangle of gold bangles, as the widow brought her arms down from behind her head and sat up straight, interrupted his speech.

"Whenever she gets – "

The widow picked up her ruffles and started to rise.

"Whenever she gets – ready," finished the bachelor quickly.

The widow sat down again and leaned back against the tree.

"How perfectly you illustrate my point," she remarked sweetly.

"Oh," said the bachelor, taking his pipe out of his mouth, "did you have a point?"

"That marriage is something higher and finer than a business proposition, Mr. Travers, and that there are lots of reasons for marrying besides financial ones."

"Oh, yes," agreed the bachelor, "there is folly and feminine coercion and because you can't get out of it, and – "

"As for marriage as a money affair," pursued the widow without waiting, "it's just the money side of it that causes all the squabbles and unhappiness. If they've got it, they are always quarreling over it and if they haven't got it they are always quarreling for it. The Castellanes and Marlboroughs who fight over their bills and their debts aren't any happier than the Murphys and the Hooligans who fight over the price of a pint of beer. It's just as difficult to know what to do with money when you've got it as it is to know what to do without it when you haven't got it; and a million dollars between husband and wife is a bigger gulf than a $10 a week salary. It's not a question of the amount of money, but the question of who shall spend it that makes all the trouble."

"But don't you see," argued the bachelor, sitting up suddenly and knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "that all that would be eliminated if people would make marriage a business proposition? For instance, if two people would discuss the situation rationally and make the terms before marriage; if the man would state the services he requires and the woman would demand the compensation she thinks she deserves – "

"Ugh!" shuddered the widow, putting her hands over her eyes, "that would be like writing your epitaph and choosing the style of your coffin."

"And every man," pursued the bachelor, "would be willing to give his wife her board and room and a salary adequate to her services and to his income – "

"And to let her eat with the family," jeered the widow.

"Well," finished the bachelor, "then marriage wouldn't offer the poorest returns in the professional market. And, besides," he added, "there would be fewer wives sitting about in apartment hotels holding their hands and ordering the bellboys around, while their husbands are down town fretting and struggling themselves into bankruptcy; and fewer husbands spending their nights and their money out with the boys, while their wives are bending over the cook stove and the sewing machine, trying to make ends meet on nothing a year."

"But that," cried the widow, taking her hands down from her eyes, "would mean spending your courtship talking stocks and bonds and dividends!"

"And the rest of your life forgetting them and talking love," declared the bachelor, triumphantly.

The widow looked up speculatively.

"Well – perhaps," she acquiesced, "if courtship were more of a business proposition marriage would be less of a failure. Anyhow, you'd know in advance just what a man considered you worth in dollars and cents."

"And you'd eliminate all the uncertainty," added the bachelor.

"And the chance of having to beg for your carfare and pin money."

"And of having to go bankrupt for matinee tickets and Easter hats."

"And of being asked what you did with your allowance."

"Or of how you acquired your breath or lost your watch."

"The trouble is," sighed the widow, "that no man would ever be broad enough or generous enough to make such a proposition."

"And no woman would ever be sensible enough to listen to it."

"Nonsense. Any woman would. It's just the sort of thing we've been longing for."

"Well," said the bachelor, turning on his back and looking up at the widow speculatively, "let me see – you could have the violet room."

"What!" exclaimed the widow.

"It's got a good south view," protested the bachelor, "and besides it's not over the kitchen."

"What on earth do you mean?" The widow sat up straight and her bangles jingled warningly.

"And you could have Saturday and Wednesday evenings out. Those are my club nights."

"How dare you!"

"And any salary you might ask – "

"What are you talking about, Billy Travers?"

"I'm making you a proposal of marriage," explained the bachelor in an injured tone. "Don't you recognize it?"

The widow rose silently, lifted the sheet of paper in her hands and tore it to pieces.

"Was that your poem?" inquired the bachelor as he watched the breeze carry the fragments away over the grass.

The widow shook out her ruffles and picked up her hat.

"You've taken all the poetry out of it," she retorted, as she fled toward the house.

The bachelor looked after her undecidedly for a moment. Then he leaned back lazily and blinked up at the sky between the leaves.

"And this," he said softly, "is the white man's burden."

VI

Signs and Countersigns of Love

"IF there were only some way," began the bachelor, gazing thoughtfully out of the window of the dining car, "in which a fellow could prove his love – "

"There are millions of them!" declared the widow, sipping her consommé daintily.

"Those mediæval fellows had such an advantage over us," complained the bachelor. "When a chap loved a girl, all he had to do to prove it was to get another chap to say he didn't, and then to break the other chap's head. That was a sure sign."

"And it was so easy," remarked the widow.

"Yes," agreed the bachelor, enthusiastically. "Is there anybody whose head you particularly want broken? I feel remarkably like fighting."

"Of course, you do," said the widow sympathetically. "The fighting spirit is born in every man. But duelling isn't a sign of love; it's a sign of egotism, hurt pride, the spirit of competition, the dog-in-the-manger feeling. Besides, it's out of fashion."

"Well," sighed the bachelor, "then I suppose I shall have to save your life or – die for you."

"You might," said the widow, nodding encouragingly, "but it wouldn't prove anything – except that you had a sense of the picturesque and dramatic. Suppose you did save my life; wouldn't you do as much for any man, woman or child, or even any little stray dog who might happen to fall out of a boat or be caught in a fire, or get under the feet of a runaway?"

"I've got it!" cried the bachelor, "I'll write a book of poems and dedicate them to you."

The widow toyed with her spoon.

"You've done that to – several girls before," she remarked ungratefully.

"That's it!" cried the bachelor. "How is a man going to tell when he's in love when he feels the same way – every time?"

"Have you forgotten your soup?" asked the widow, glancing at the untouched plate in front of the bachelor.

The bachelor picked up his spoon languidly.

"No," he said, "but – "

"Because if you had," said the widow, "it would have been a proof."

"A – what?"

"A proof," repeated the widow. "Forgetting to eat your meals is the first sign of love. A man may write poetry and swear love by all the planets separately; but if he sits down opposite you an hour afterward and orders mutton chops and gravy and devours them to the last crumb, either he doesn't mean what he says or doesn't know what he is talking about. When he lets his breakfast grow cold and forgets to go out to his lunch and loses his interest in his dinner it's a sure sign of love."

"It might be a sign of dyspepsia," suggested the bachelor doubtfully.

"Oh, well," proceeded the widow, sipping her soup leisurely, "there are other signs besides a lost appetite."

The bachelor looked hopeful.

"Is one of them smelling violets all day, when there aren't any 'round; and feeling a funny jump in your throat every time you catch sight of a violet hat; and suddenly discovering you have written, 'Send me eight quarts of violets and a widow,' instead of 'eight quarts of gasoline and a patent pump'?"

The widow leaned so far over her soup that her eyes were completely shaded by the brim of her violet hat.

"Yes," she said gently, "loss of reason is one of them – and loss of memory."

"And loss of sleep?"

"And loss of common sense."

"And loss of self-respect?"

"And of your powers of conversation."

"Nonsense!" cried the bachelor, "a man in love can say more fool things – "

The widow put down her spoon emphatically.

"A man in love," she contradicted, "can't talk at all? It's not the things he says, but the things he isn't able to say; the things that choke right up in his throat – "

"I've had that!" interrupted the bachelor.

"Had – what?"

"The 'love-lump' in the throat."

"And did you ever go up stairs to light the gas and turn on the water instead; or walk three blocks in the wrong direction without knowing it; or hunt ten minutes for your shoes and then discover it was your collar button or your hat that you had lost?"

"Or add a column of figures and get a poem for the answer; or break your neck running to the office and then have to sit down and think what you came down early for; or begin a business letter 'Dearest Smith' and drop it in the box without a stamp, or read your paper upside down, or – "

"You've got it!" cried the widow.

"I know it," sighed the bachelor, "dreadfully!"

"The idea, I mean," said the widow, blushing. "Those are the real proofs of love."

"But," protested the bachelor, "they aren't impressive. How are you going to let the girl know – "

"A girl always knows," declared the widow.