The Wit and Humor of America Volume X Part 8

"In that particular they're curiously like the aristocracy, aren't they?" said she. "By-the-bye, when are you going to publish another book of poems?"

"Apropos of bad literature?"

"Not altogether bad. I rather like your poems."

"So do I," said he. "It's useless to pretend that we haven't tastes in common."

They were both silent for a bit. She looked at him oddly, an inscrutable little light flickering in her eyes. All at once she broke out with a merry trill of laughter.

"What are you laughing at?" he demanded.

"I'm hugely amused," she answered.

"I wasn't I aware that I'd said anything especially good."

"You're building better than you know. But if I am amused, _you_ look ripe for tears. What is the matter?"

"Every heart knows its own bitterness," he answered. "Don't pay the least attention to me. You mustn't let moodiness of mine cast a blight upon your high spirits."

"No fear," she a.s.sured him. "There are pleasures that nothing can rob of their sweetness. Life is not all dust and ashes. There are bright spots."

"Yes, I've no doubt there are," he said.

"And thrilling little adventures--no?" she questioned.

"For the bold, I dare say."

"None but the bold deserve them. Sometimes it's one thing, and sometimes it's another."

"That's very certain," he agreed.

"Sometimes, for instance," she went on, "one meets a man one knows, and speaks to him. And he answers with a glibness! And then, almost directly, what do you suppose one discovers?"

"What?" he asked.

"One discovers that the wretch hasn't a ghost of a notion who one is--that he's totally and absolutely forgotten one!"

"Oh, I say! Really?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, really. You can't deny that _that's_ an exhilarating little adventure."

"I should think it might be. One could enjoy the man's embarra.s.sment,"

he reflected.

"Or his lack of embarra.s.sment. Some men are of an a.s.surance, of a _sang froid_! They'll place themselves beside you, and walk with you, and talk with you, and even propose that you should pa.s.s the livelong afternoon cracking jokes with them in a garden, and never breathe a hint of their perplexity. They'll brazen it out."

"That's distinctly heroic, Spartan, of them, don't you think?" he said.

"Intentionally, poor dears, they're very likely suffering agonies of discomfiture."

"We'll hope they are. Could they decently do less?" said she.

"And fancy the mental struggles that must be going on in their brains,"

he urged. "If I were a man in such a situation I'd throw myself upon the woman's mercy. I'd say, 'Beautiful, sweet lady! I know I know you. Your name, your entirely charming and appropriate name, is trembling on the tip of my tongue. But, for some unaccountable reason, my brute of a memory chooses to play the fool. If you've a spark of Christian kindness in your soul, you'll come to my rescue with a little clue."

"If the woman had a Christian sense of the ridiculous in her soul, I fear you'd throw yourself on her mercy in vain," she warned.

"What _is_ the good of tantalizing people?"

"Besides," she continued, "the woman might reasonably feel slightly humiliated to find herself forgotten in that bare-faced manner."

"The humiliation would be surely all the man's. Have you heard from the Wohenhoffens lately?"

"The--what? The--who?" She raised her eyebrows.

"The Wohenhoffens," he repeated.

"What are the Wohenhoffens? Are they persons? Are they things?"

"Oh, nothing. My inquiry was merely dictated by a thirst for knowledge.

It occurred to me that you might have won a black domino at the masked ball they gave, the Wohenhoffens. Are you sure you didn't?"

"I've a great mind to punish your forgetfulness by pretending that I did," she teased.

"She was rather tall, like you, and she had gray eyes, and a nice voice, and a laugh that was sweeter than the singing of nightingales. She was monstrously clever, too, with a flow of language that would have made her a leader in any sphere. She was also a perfect fiend. I have always been anxious to meet her again, in order that I might ask her to marry me. I'm strongly disposed to believe that she was you. Was she?" he pleaded.

"If I say yes, will you at once proceed to ask me to marry you?" she asked.

"Try it and see."

"_Ce n'est pas la peine._ It occasionally happens that a woman's already got a husband."

"She said she was an old maid."

"Do you dare to insinuate that I look like an old maid?" she cried.

"Yes."

"Upon my word!"

"Would you wish me to insinuate that you look like anything so insipid as a young girl? _Were_ you the woman of the black domino?" he persisted.

"I should need further information, before being able to make up my mind. Are the--what's their name?--Wohenheimer?--are the Wohenheimers people one can safely confess to knowing? Oh, you're a man, and don't count. But a woman? It sounds a trifle Jewish, Wohenheimer. But of course there are Jews and Jews."

"You're playing with me like the cat in the adage," he sighed. "It's too cruel. No one is responsible for his memory."

"And to think that this man took me down to dinner not two months ago!"

she murmured in her veil.

"You're as hard as nails. In whose house? Or--stay. Prompt me a little.