I paused to inspect the china pug-dog which squatted on the pink-tiled hearth and which glared inanely at the huge brass coal-box just opposite. Then I turned from these two abominations and faced Rosalind with a bantering flirt of my head.
“—For put it that I marry some entrancing slip of girlhood, what am I to say when, later, I discover myself irrevocably chained to a fat and dowdy matron? I married no such person, I have indeed sworn eternal fidelity to an entirely different person; and this unsolicited usurper of my hearth is nothing whatever to me, unless perhaps the object of my entire abhorrence. Yet am I none the less compelled to justify the ensuing action before an irrational audience, which faces common logic in very much the attitude of Augustine’s famed adder! Decidedly I think that, on the whole, I would prefer my Freedom.”
It was as though I had struck her. She sat as if frozen. “Jaques, is there another woman in this?”
“Why, in a fashion, yes. Yet it is mainly because I am really fond of you, Rosalind.”
She handed me that exceedingly expensive ring the jeweler had charged to me. I thought her action damnably theatrical, but still, it was not as though I could afford to waste money on rings, so I took the trinket absentmindedly.
“You are unflatteringly prompt in closing out the account,” I said, with a grieved smile. …
“Goodbye!” said Rosalind, and her voice broke. “Oh, and I had thought—! Well, as it is, I pay for the luxury of thinking, just as you forewarned me, don’t I, Jaques? And you won’t forget the hall-light? Aunt Marcia, you know—but how glad she will be! I feel rather near to Aunt Marcia tonight,” said Rosalind.
VII
She left Lichfield the next day but one, and spent the following winter with the aunt that lived in Brooklyn. She was Rosalind Gelwix the next time I saw her. …
And Aunt Marcia, whose taste is upon a par with her physical attractions, inserted a paragraph in the “Social Items” of the Lichfield Courier-Herald to announce the breaking-off of the engagement. Aunt Marcia also took the trouble to explain, quite confidentially, to some seven hundred and ninety-three people, just why the engagement had been broken off: and these explanations were more creditable to Mrs. Dumby’s imagination than to me.
And I remembered, then, that the last request my mother made of me was to keep out of the newspapers—“except, of course, the social items.” …
XX
He Dines Out, Impeded by Superstitions
I
Within the week I had repented of what I termed my idiotic quixotism, and for precisely nine days after that I cursed my folly. And then, at the Provises, I comprehended that in breaking off my engagement to Rosalind Jemmett I had acted with profound wisdom, and I unfolded my napkin, and said:
“Do you know I didn’t catch your name—not even this time?”
She took a liberal supply of lemon juice. “How delightful!” she murmured, “for I heard yours quite distinctly, and these oysters are delicious.”
I noted with approval that her gown was pink and fluffy; it had also the advantage of displaying shoulders that were incredibly white, and a throat which was little short of marvellous. “I am glad,” I whispered, confidentially, “that you are still wearing that faint vein about your left temple. I thought it admirable for early morning wear upon the house tops of Liége, but it seems equally effective for dinner parties.”
She raised her eyebrows slightly and selected a biscuit.
“You see,” said I, “I was horribly late. And when Kittie Provis said, ‘Allow me,’ and I saw—well, I didn’t care,” I concluded, lucidly, “because to have every one of your dreams come true, all of a sudden, leaves you past caring.”
“It really is funny,” she confided to a spoonful of consommé à la Julienne.
“After almost two years!” sighed I, ever so happily. But I continued, with reproach, “To go without a word—that very day—”
“Mamma—” she began.
I recalled the canary-bird, and the purple shawl. “I sought wildly,” said I; “you were evanished. The propriétaire was tearing his hair—no insurance—he knew nothing. So I too tore my hair; and I said things. There was a row. For he also said things: ‘Figure to yourselves, messieurs! I lose the Continental—two ladies come and go, I know not who—I am ruined, desolated, is it not?—and this pig of an American blusters—ah, my new carpets, just down, what horror!’ And then, you know, he launched into a quite feeling peroration concerning our notorious custom of tomahawking one another—
“Yes,” I coldly concluded into Mrs. Clement Dumby’s ear, “we all behaved disgracefully. As you very justly observe, liquor has been the curse of the South.” It was of a piece with Kittie Provis to put me next to Aunt Marcia, I reflected.
And mentally I decided that even though a portion of my assertions had not actually gone through the formality of occurring, it all might very easily have happened, had I remained a while longer in Liége; and then ensued a silent interval and an entrée.
“And so—?”
“And so I knocked about the world, in various places, hoping against hope that at last—”
“Your voice carries frightfully—”
I glanced toward Mrs. Clement Dumby, who, as a dining dowager of many years’ experience, was, to all appearances, engrossed by the contents of her plate. “My elderly neighbour is as hard of hearing as a telephone-girl,” I announced. She was the exact contrary, which was why I said it quite audibly. “And your neighbour—why, his neighbour is Nannie Allsotts. We might as well be on a desert island, Elena—” And the given name slipped out so carelessly as to appear almost accidental.
“Sir!” said she, with proper indignation; “after so short an acquaintance—”
“Centuries,” I suggested, meekly. “You remember I explained about that.”
She frowned—an untrustworthy frown that was tinged with laughter. “One meets so many people! Yes, it really
