A Book o' Nine Tales.. Bates Arlo

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      She. Where is she, then?

      He. Heaven knows; not I. But let that go. Why may we not be useful to each other? Our cases are similar; we are both lonely.

      She. And strangers.

      He. Acquaintance is not a matter of time, but of temperament. Should we have found it possible to be so frank with one another had we been merely strangers?

      She. You are specious.

      He. No; only honest.

      She. But what —

      He. What? Why, friendship. We have found it possible to be frank in masks; why not out of them?

      She. Then you propose a platonic friendship?

      He. I want a woman who will be my friend, to whom I can talk freely. There are words a man has no power or wish to say to a man, yet which must be spoken or they fester in his mind.

      She. I am, then, to be a safety-valve.

      He. Every man must have a woman as a lodestar; you are to be that to me.

      She. And your wife?

      He. My wife? She voluntarily abandoned me. I haven’t seen her for three years; and surely she ought to cease to count by this time.

      She. You are heartless.

      He. Heartless?

      She. You should be faithful to your lost —

      He. Lost fiddlestick!

      She. You are very rude!

      He. I don’t see —

      She. And very disagreeable.

      He. But —

      She. If you had really loved your wife, you’d always mourn for her, whatever she did.

      He. Good Heavens! That is like a woman. A man is expected to bear anything, everything, and if at last he does not come weeping to kiss the hand that smites him, he is heartless, forsooth! Bah! I am not a whipped puppy, thank you.

       She. Your love was, perhaps, never distinguished by meekness?

      He. I’m afraid not.

      She. It might be none the worst for that. The ideal man for whom I am looking will not be too lamblike, even in love.

      He. You look for an ideal man, then?

      She. As closely as did Diogenes.

      He. And your husband?

      She. Oh, like your wife, he should, perhaps, begin not to count.

      He. Good. We are sworn friends, then, until you find your ideal man.

      She. If you will.

      He. Then unmask.

      She. Is that in the bargain?

      He. Of course. Else how should we know each other again?

      She. But —

      He. Unmask!

      She. Very well, – when you do.

      He. Now, then. [They unmask.]

      She. Philip!

      He. Agnes!

      She. You knew all the time!

      He. Who told you I was here?

      She. I didn’t know it.

      He. I thought you went to Russia.

      She. Well, I didn’t. I hope you feel better! Good night.

       He. Wait, Agnes. I —

      [There is a moment’s silence, in which they look at each other intently. He takes her hand in both his.]

      He. Agnes, I am not your ideal man, but —

      She. Nor I your ideal woman, apparently. Your wife does not count, you say.

      He. No more than your husband; so we are quits there.

      She. It’s very horrid of you to remind me of that.

      He. I acknowledge that I was always very horrid in everything.

      She. Oh, if you acknowledge that, Phil, it is hardly worth while to spend any more time in explanations while this divine waltz is running to waste.

      He. But you were tired and out of sorts.

      She. You old goose, don’t you see that I’m neither!

      He. And you do waltz divinely.

      [They attempt to adjust their masks, but somehow get into each other’s arms. In a few moments more, however, they are seen among the dancers within.]

       Tale the Second.

      THE TUBEROSE

I

      “I shall feel honored, Mistress Henshaw, if you will accept this posie as a token which may perchance serve to keep me in remembrance while I am over the sea.”

      “I am extremely beholden to you,” replied the old dame addressed, her wrinkled face illuminated with a smile of pleasure. “But for keeping you in remembrance it needs not this posie or other token. I do not hold my friends so lightly.”

      “I thank you for counting me one of your friends,” John Friendleton said frankly. “I have no kindlier memories of Boston than of the home under your roof.”

      He had placed upon the many-legged table a flower-pot containing a thrifty tuberose, and with a kindly smile upon his handsome and winning face, he stood regarding the old dame into whose custody he had just given the plant. The dress of the period, – the days of the end of the seventeenth century, – plain though it was, accorded well with the sturdy honesty and kindness of his face and the compact and strong build of his figure. The wrinkled crone returned his smile with one of frosty but genuine warmth.

      “This plant is none the less pleasing to me,” she said, “though I by no means need it as a reminder. I shall be very careful in its nourishing.”

      “It is by no means an ordinary herb,” Friendleton returned lightly. “There may be magic in it for aught I can tell. My uncle, who sent me the bulbs from even so far away as Spain, hath a shrewd name as a wise man; and to say sooth he belike doth know far more than altogether becometh a good Christian. I give you fair warning that there may be mischief in the herb; though to be sure,” he added laughing, “the earth in which it grows is consecrated, for I filled the pot from Copp’s СКАЧАТЬ