Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 41

"I suppose that should be so, but as a physician I doubt it. My observations do not run that way. Age grows like a child again, thoroughly selfish."

"Then there is the question of the 'possible woman,'" Mason resumed, and his tone was cynically humorous again. "I can't give her up. There she stands in a radiant mist always just before me like the rainbow of our childhood. I can't promise any woman to love her till death. I don't know as it would be safe to promise it even to the woman with glamour.

Another might come with a subtler glory, and a better fitting glamour, and then--"

"What then?"

"It would all be up with the first woman," he said with a gravity of tone of which the words gave no hint.

"I'm afraid some one has already come to make pale the beauty of the sculptress. What about the other, the rich girl you set over against the sculptress at the beginning? Mind you, I believe the whole situation is fict.i.tious, but I'll humor you in it."

"Well, Aurelia--we'll call her Aurelia--brings up a far-reaching train of reflections, and, if you've got a patient waiting, you'd better come again."

"I'm the only patient waiting."

Mason ignored the lame old pun and proceeded:

"Aurelia lives in Springfield. You know the kind of home the wealthy politician builds in a western town--combination of jail and court-house. I attended a reception there last winter and saw Aurelia for the first time. She was as beautiful as an acrobat--"

"I don't want to interrupt, Mason, but I notice all your heroines are beautiful."

"They must be; my taste will not permit me to tolerate unsymmetrical heroines. I started in as an architect and I've done a little paddling in clay, and my heroines must be harmonious of structure--glamour comes only with beauty, to me."

"Largely physical, then."

"Certainly! I believe in the physical, the healthy, wholesome physical.

In the splendor of the tiger's wooing is no disease."

"Well, well, she was beautiful as an acrobat--"

Mason looked sour. "One more interruption, and the rest of my heart-tragedy will remain forever alien to your ear."

Sanborn seemed alarmed:

"My lips are glued to my pipe."

Mason mused--("Composed!" Sanborn thought.)

"She looked as if she had been moulded into her gown. The Parisian robe and the hair piled high, were fast--undeniably theatric, but her little face was sweet and girlish, almost childish. Well, she had glamour, largely physical as you say. But like the heroes of E. P. Roe's novels, I aspired to awaken her soul. She was pleased with me apparently. I called soon after the reception--I always follow up each case of glamour. I knew she was rich but I did not realize she commanded such an establishment.

"It was enormous. Her mother was a faded little hen of a woman, who had been a very humble person in youth, and who continued a very humble person in middle-life. The court-house in which she was forced to live continually over-awed her, but the girl used it, entertained in it as if she had a string of palace-dwelling ancestors straggling clear back to Charlemagne."

"That's the American idea, the power of adaptation. Our women have it better developed than--"

"She was a gracious and charming hostess, and I admit the sight of her in command of such an establishment was impressive. I thought how easily a tired editor could be absorbed into that inst.i.tution and be at rest--a kind of life hospital, so to say. She was interested in me--that was certain."

"Now, Mason, I must protest. You know how high Isabel and I both hold you, but we never quite considered you in the light of a ladies' man.

Your Springfield girl must have had dozens of brilliant and handsome young men about her."

Mason smoked in silence, waiting till Sanborn's buzz ceased.

"Well, she came to the city last month, and I've been to see her a number of times; the last time I saw her she proposed to me."

Sanborn stared, with fallen jaw gaping, while Mason continued in easy flow.

"And I have the matter under consideration. I saw the coming storm in her eyes. Last night as we sat together at the piano she turned suddenly and faced me, very tense and very white.

"'Mr. Mason, why can't you--I mean--what do you think of me?'

"I couldn't tell her that night what I thought of her, for she had seemed more minutely commonplace than ever. She had trotted round her little well-worn circle of graces and accomplishments, even to playing her favorite selection on the piano. I equivocated. I professed it was not very easy to say what I thought of her, and added:

"'I think you're a fine, wholesome girl,' as she is, of course.

"'But you don't think I'm beautiful?' That was a woman's question, wasn't it. 'Yes,' I said in reply, 'I think you are very attractive.

Nature has been lavish with you.'

"Then she flamed red and stammered a little:

"'Then why don't you like me?'

"'I do,' I said.

"'You know what I mean,' she hurried on to say--'I want you to like me better than any other woman.'

"'That's impossible,' I replied. It was pitiful to see her sitting there like a beggar in the midst of all her splendor. 'I like you very much. I think you're very sweet and kind and girlish.'

"She seemed to react from her boldness. Her eyes filled with tears. 'I know you think I'm _terrible_ to say these things.'

"'No. I feel that I do not deserve such trust on your part.' Then she defended me. 'Yes, you do. I couldn't have spoken to any one else so.

You're so kind and gentle.'"

"Did she say that of you?"

"She said that."

"I wish I could reach that phase of your character," sighed Sanborn.

"What did you say in reply?"

Mason apparently showed deep feeling at last.

"I told her that I was like the average man. I was taking credit to myself for not devouring her like a wolf! She didn't listen to that.

'What can I do to make you like me?' she asked. She leaned toward me, her chin in her palm, thinking and suffering as her sweet little soul had never suffered before. 'I'm too simple,' she said, with a flash of startling insight. 'I don't know enough. I feel that. Can't I study and change that?'

"'You're changing that now,' I replied.

"She grew radiant for a moment."

"'O you _do_ like me a little!'"

As he went on, Mason's tone grew sweet and solemn. It had singular power of suggestion. It developed more of his nature than he knew; his real gravity, and tenderness and purity.