The Cords of Vanity. A Comedy of Shirking

Santiago Captain Sampson and Commander Schley were still hunting for Cervera's 'phantom fleet.' And in Fairhaven, as I remember it, although there was a highly-colored picture of Commodore Dewey in the barber-shop window, nobody was bothering in the least about the war except when Colonel Snawley and Dr. Jeal foregathered at Clarriker's Emporium to denounce the colossal errors of 'imperialism'….

  'Thus, then, I end my calendar 
  Of ancient loves more light than air;— 
  And now Lad's Love, that led afar 
  In April fields that were so fair, 
  Is fled, and I no longer share

  Sedate unutterable days 
  With Heart's Desire, nor ever praise 
  Felise, or mirror forth the lures 
  Of Stella's eyes nor Sylvia's, 
  Yet love for each loved lass endures.

  'Chloris is wedded, and Ettarre 
  Forgets; Yolande loves otherwhere, 
  And worms long since made bold to mar 
  The lips of Dorothy and fare 
  Mid Florimel's bright ruined hair;

  And Time obscures that roseate haze 
  Which glorified hushed woodland ways 
  When Phyllis came, as Time obscures 
  That faith which once was Phyllida's,— 
  Yet love for each loved lass endures.

  'That boy is dead as Schariar, 
  Tiglath-pileser, or Clotaire, 
  Who once of love got many a scar. 
  And his loved lasses past compare?— 
  None is alive now anywhere.

  Each is transmuted nowadays 
  Into a stranger, and displays 
  No whit of love's investitures. 
  I let these women go their ways, 
  Yet love for each loved lass endures.

  'Heart o' My Heart, thine be the praise 
  If aught of good in me betrays 
  Thy tutelage—whose love matures 
  Unmarred in these more wistful days,— 
  Yet love for each loved lass endures.'

For this was the year that I graduated, and Chloris—I violate no confidence in stating that her actual name was Aurelia Minns, and that she had been, for a greater number of years than it would be courteous to remember, the undisputed belle of Fairhaven,—had that very afternoon married a promising young doctor; and I was draining the cup of my misery to the last delicious drop, and was of course inspired thereby to the perpetration of such melancholy bathos as only a care-free youth of twenty is capable of evolving.

5

'Dear boy,' said Bettie, when I had made an end of reading, 'and are you very miserable?'

Her fingers were interlocked behind her small black head; and the sympathy with which she regarded me was tenderly flavored with amusement.

This much I noticed as I glanced upward from my manuscript, and mustered a Spartan smile. 'If misery loves company, then am I the least unhappy soul alive. For I don't want anybody but just you, and I believe I never will.'

'Oh—? But I don't count.' The girl continued, with composure: 'Or rather, I have always counted your affairs, so that I know precisely what it all amounts to.'

'Sum total?'

'A lot of imitation emotions.' She added hastily: 'Oh, quite a good imitation, dear; you are smooth enough to see to that. Why, I remember once—when you read me that first sonnet, sitting all hunched up on the little stool, and pretending you didn't know I knew who you meant me to know it was for, and ending with a really very effective, breathless sob—and caught my hand and pressed it to your forehead for a moment—Why, that time I was thoroughly rattled and almost believed—even I—that—' She shrugged. 'And if I had been younger—!' she said, half regretfully, for at this time Bettie was very nearly twenty-two.

'Yes.' The effective breathless sob responded to what had virtually been an encore. 'I have not forgotten.'

'Only for a moment, though.' Miss Hamlyn reflected, and then added, brightly: 'Now, most girls would have liked it, for it sounded all wool. And they would have gone into it, as you wanted, and have been very, very happy for a while. Then, after a time—after you had got a sonnet or two out of it, and had made a sufficiency of pretty speeches,—you would have gone for an admiring walk about yourself, and would have inspected your sensations and have applauded them, quite enthusiastically, and would have said, in effect: 'Madam, I thank you for your attention. Pray regard the incident as closed.''

'You are doing me,' I observed, 'an injustice. And however tiny they may be, I hate 'em.'

'But, Robin, can't you see,' she said, with an odd earnestness, 'that to be fond of you is quite disgracefully easy, even though—' Bettie Hamlyn said, presently: 'Why, your one object in life appears to be to find a girl who will allow you to moon around her and make verses about her. Oh, very well! I met to-day just the sort of pretty idiot who will let you do it. She is visiting Kathleen Eppes for the Finals. She has a great deal of money, too, I hear.' And Bettie mentioned a name.

'That's rather queer,' said I. 'I used to know that girl. She will be at the K. A. dance to-morrow night, I suppose,'—and I put up my manuscript with a large air of tolerance. 'I dare say that I have been exaggerating matters a bit, after all. Any woman who treated me in the way that Miss Aurelia did is not, really, worthy of regret. And in any event, I got a ballade out of her and six—no, seven—other poems.'

For the name which Bettie had mentioned was that of Stella Musgrave, and I was, somehow, curiously