American Adventures Part 17

"And supposing they do?"

I do not know how long this unsatisfactory dialogue might have continued had not some one come to the inside of the stage door and spoken to the doorman, whereat he indicated us with a gesture and said:

"There they are."

At this a woman emerged. The light was dim, but I saw that she wore no hat and had on an ap.r.o.n. As she came toward us we advanced.

"You wait for madame?" she asked, with the accent of a Frenchwoman.

"Yes."

"Madame receive your telegram only this afternoon," she said. "All week, she say, she wait to hear. This morning she have receive a telegram from Mr. Woods that say she mus' come to New York. She think you not coming, so she say 'Yes.' Then she receive your message. She don't know where to reach you. She can do nossing. She is desolated! She mus' fly to the train. She is ver' sorry. She hope that maybe the gentlemans will be in Baltimore nex' week? Yes?"

"You mean she can't come to-night?"

"Yes, monsieur. She cannot. She are fill with regret. She--"

"Perhaps," said my companion, recovering, "we can drive her to the train?"

The maid, however, did not seem to wish to discuss this point. She shook her head and said:

"Madame ver' sorry she cannot come."

"But I say," repeated my companion, "that we shall be delighted to drive her to the train if she wishes."

"She ver' sorry," persisted the maid negatively.

"Oh, I see," he said. "Very well. Please say to her that we are sorry, too."

"Yes, monsieur." The maid retired.

"I want something to eat," I remarked as we pa.s.sed down the long furniture-piled pa.s.sage leading to the street.

"So do I. We have that table at Harvey's."

"I know; but--"

"That's a fact," he put in. "I mentioned her name. We can't very well go there without her."

"And all dressed up like a pair of goats."

"No."

"There's always the hotel."

"I don't want to go back there--not now."

"Neither do I. Let's make it the Sh.o.r.eham," I suggested as we emerged upon the street.

"All right." Then, looking across the sidewalk, he added: "There's that d.a.m.ned taxi!"

"Yes. We'll drive around there in it."

"No," said he, "send it away. I don't feel like riding."

We walked to the Sh.o.r.eham. The cafe looked cheerful, as it always does.

We ordered an extensive supper. It was good. There were pretty women in the room, but we looked at them with the austere eyes of disillusioned men, and talked cynically of life. I cannot recall any of the things we said, though I remember thinking at the time that both of us were being rather brilliant, in an icy way. I suppose it was mainly about women.

That was to be expected. Women, indeed! What were women to us? Nothing!

And pretty women, least of all. Ah, pretty women! Pretty women!... Yes, yes!

I had ordered fruit to finish off the meal, and I remember that as the dish was set upon the table, it occurred to me that we had made a very pleasant party of it after all.

"Do you know," I said, as I helped myself to some hothouse grapes, "I've had a bully evening. It has been fine to sit here and have a party all to ourselves. I'm not so sorry that she did not come!"

Then I ate a grape or two.

They were very handsome grapes, but they were sour.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LEGACY OF HATE

... Immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield.

--PARADISE LOST.

The last time I went abroad, a Briton on the boat told me a story about an American tourist who asked an old English gardener how they made such splendid lawns over there.

"First we cut the gra.s.s," said the gardener, "and then we roll it. Then we cut it, and then we roll it."

"That's just what we do," said the American.

"Ah," returned the gardener, "but over here we've been doing it five hundred years!"

In Liverpool another Englishman told me the same story. Three or four others told it to me in London. In Kent I heard it twice, and in Suss.e.x five or six times. After going to Oxford and the Thames I lost count.

In the South my companion and I had a similar experience with the story about that daughter of the Confederacy who declared she had always thought "d.a.m.n Yankee" one word. In Maryland that story amused us, in Virginia it seemed to lose a little of its edge, and we are proud to this day because, in the far southern States, we managed to grin and bear it.

Doubtless the young lady likewise thought that "you-all" was one word.

However I refrained from suggesting that, lest it be taken for an attempt at retaliation. And really there was no occasion to retaliate, for the story was always told with good-humored appreciation not only of the dig at "Yankees"--collectively all Northerners are "Yankees" in the South--but also of the sweet absurdity of the "unreconstructed" point of view.

Speaking broadly of the South, I believe that there survives little real bitterness over the Civil War and the destructive and grotesquely named period of "reconstruction." When a southern belle of to-day d.a.m.ns Yankees, she means by it, I judge, about as much, and about as little, as she does by the kisses she gives young men who bear to her the felicitous southern relationship of "kissing cousins."

Even from old Confederate soldiers I heard no expressions of violent feeling. They spoke gently, handsomely and often humorously of the war, but never harshly. Real hate, I think, remains chiefly in one quarter: in the hearts of some old ladies, the wives and widows of Confederate soldiers--for there are but few mothers of the soldiers left. The wonder is that more of the old ladies of the South have not held to their resentment, for, as I have heard many a soldier say, women are the greatest sufferers from war. One veteran said to me: "My arm was shattered and had to be amputated at the shoulder. There was no anesthetic. Of course I suffered, but I never suffered as my mother did when she learned what I had endured."