Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “Then what has?”

  “Oh, it’s so crazy!” Anne cried. “I could imagine little boys of seven or even ten, being caught that way, at a children’s party, but to see grown men!”

  “Anne!” Mrs. Cromwell contrived to smile, though rather dismally. “How are these ‘grown men’ caught by Miss Sallie Ealing?”

  “Why, just by less than nothing, Mamma! Of course, she’s got a kind of style and anybody’d notice her anywhere, but what makes you notice her so much is her being so triumphant: the men are all rushing at her every instant, and that makes you look at her more than you would. But what started them to rushing and what keeps them going is the thing I feel I can never forgive them for. Mamma, I feel as if I could never respect a man again!”

  “Remember your father,” Mrs. Cromwell said indulgently. “Your father—”

  “No; if a man like Harrison Crisp can become just a girl’s slave on that account—” Anne inter rupted herself. “Why, it’s like Circe’s cup!” she cried. “I suppose that meant Circe’s kiss, really.”

  “They don’t do that, do they, Anne?”

  “I don’t know,” Anne said. “It’s not that at first, anyhow.”

  “Well, how does she enslave them?”

  “It’s like this, Mamma. The first time I ever saw her, I was dancing with Harrison, and he happened to point her out to me. He’d just met her and didn’t take any interest in her at all. He really didn’t. Well, a minute or two later she danced near us and spoke to him over her partner’s shoulder as they passed us. T heard something terrible about you!’ was what she said, and she danced on away, looking back at him over her shoulder. Pretty soon some one cut in and took me away, and Harrison went straight and cut in and danced with Sallie Ealing almost all the rest of the evening. The next day he and I were playing over the course and when we finished she was just starting out from the club in a car with one of the boys. She called back to Harrison, ‘I dreamed about you last night!’ and he was terribly silly: he kept calling after her, ‘What was the dream?’ And she kept calling back, ‘I’ll never tell you!’ Mamma, that’s what she does with them all.”

  “Tells them she’s dreamed about them?”

  “No,” Anne said. “That’s just a sample of her ‘line.’ When she dances near another girl and her partner, she’ll say to the other girl’s partner, ‘Got something queer to tell you,’ or ‘I heard something about you last night,’ or ‘Wait till you hear what I know about you,’ or something like that; and, of course, he’ll get rid of the girl he’s with as soon as he can and go to find out. She almost never passes a man at a dance, or on the links, without either calling to him if he’s not near her, or whispering to him if he is. It’s always some absolutely silly little mystery she makes up about him — and almost her whole stock in trade is that she’s heard something about ’em, or thought something curious about ’em, or dreamed about ’em. It’s always something about them, of course. Then they follow her around to find out, and she doesn’t tell ’em, so they keep on following her around, and she gets them so excited about themselves that then they get excited about her — and she makes ’em think she’s thinking about them mysteriously — and they get so they can’t see anybody but Sallie Ealing! They don’t know what a cheap bait she’s caught ’em with, Mamma; — they don’t even guess she’s used bait! That’s why I don’t feel as if I could ever respect a man again. And the unfairness of it is so strange! The rest of us could use those tricks if we were willing to be that cheap and that childish; but we can’t even tell the men that we wouldn’t stoop to do it! We can’t do anything because they’d think we’re jealous of her. What can we do, Mamma?”

  Mrs. Cromwell sighed and shook her head. “I’m afraid a good many generations of girls have had their Sallie Ealings, dear.”

  “You mean there isn’t anything we can do?” Anne asked, and she added, with a desolate laugh, “I just said that, myself. But men do things when they feel like this, don’t they, Mamma? Why is it a girl can’t? Why do I have to sit still and see men I’ve respected and looked up to and thought so wise and fine — why do I have to sit still and see them hoodwinked and played upon and carried off their feet by such silly little barefaced tricks, Mamma? And why don’t they see what it is, themselves, Mamma? Any girl or woman — the very stupidest — can see it, Mamma, so why doesn’t the cleverest man? Are men all just idiots, Mamma? Are they?”

  This little tumult of hurried and emotional questions pressed upon the harassed mother for but a single reply. “Yes, dear,” she said. “They are. It’s a truth we have to find out, and the younger we are when we find out, the better for us. We have to learn to forgive them for it and to respect them for the intelligence they show in other ways — but about the Sallie Ealings and what we used to call ‘women’s wiles,’ we have to face the fact that men are — well, yes — just idiots!”

  “All men, Mamma?”

  “I’m afraid so!”

  “And there’s nothing to do about it?”

  “I don’t quite say that,” Mrs. Cromwell returned thoughtfully. “There’s one step I shall certainly be inclined to take. I’m certain these Ealing people would not make desirable members of the club and!”

  “No, no!” Anne cried, in terrified protest. “You mustn’t try to have them blackballed, Mamma.

  You couldn’t do a single thing about it that Harrison would hear of, because he’s proposed them himself, and he’d insist on knowing where the opposition came from. Don’t you see what he’d think? It would look that way to everybody else, too. Don’t you see, Mamma?”

  Mrs. Cromwell was forced to admit her helplessness to help her daughter even by this stroke of warfare. “It’s true, I’m afraid, Arme. But what an outrageous thing it is! We can’t even take measures to protect a good old family institution like the Green Hills club from people who’ll spoil it for us — and all because a silly boy was made sillier by a tricky girl’s telling him she’d dreamed about him!”

  “Yes,” Anne said, while new tears sidled down her cheeks; “he must have been silly all the time. I didn’t think he was — not until this happened — but he must have been, since it could happen.” She put out a hand to her mother’s. “Mamma,” she said, piteously, “why does any one have to care what a silly person does? If he’s silly and I know it, why does it matter to me what he does? Why don’t I get over it?”

  And with that, the sobbing she had so manfully withheld could be withheld no longer. Her mother soothed her in a mother’s way, but found nothing to say that could answer the daughter’s question. They had an unhappy half-hour before Anne was able to declare that she was ashamed of herself and apologize for “making such an absurd scene”; but after that she said she was “all right,” and begged her mother to go to bed. Mrs. Cromwell complied, and later, far in the night, came softly to Anne’s door and listened.

  Anne’s voice called gently, “Mother?”

  The door was unlocked, and Mrs. Cromwell went in. “Dearest, I’ve been thinking. You and I might take a trip somewhere abroad perhaps. Would you like to?”

  “We can’t. We can’t even do that. Don’t you see if we went now it would look as if I couldn’t stand it to stay here? We can’t do anything, Mother!” Mrs. Cromwell bent over the bed. “Anne, this isn’t serious, dear. It will pass, and you’ll forget it.”

  “No. I think I must have idealized men, Mother. I believe I thought in my heart that they’re wiser than we are. Are they all such fools, Mother? That’s what I can’t get over. If you were in my place and Papa not engaged to you yet, and he saw Sallie Ealing and she tried for him — oh, Mamma, do you think that even Papa—”

  Mrs. Cromwell responded with a too impulsive honesty; she gave it as her opinion that Sallie would have found Mr. Cromwell susceptible. “I’m afraid so, Anne,” she said. “Perhaps this Ealing girl’s way would be too crude for him now, at his age, but I shouldn’t like him to be exposed to her system in the hands of Madame de Staël, for inst
ance. Somewhere in the world there may be a man who wouldn’t feel any fascination in it, but if there is he’d be a ‘superman,’ and we aren’t likely to meet him. You must go to sleep now.”

  “I’ll try to, Mother,” the unhappy girl said obediently. “I’ll try not to think.”

  VII. NAPOLEON WAS A LITTLE MAN

  ON AN AFTERNOON of June sunshine, a week later, Mrs. Cromwell sat with a book beside one of the long windows of her drawingroom. The window was open, and just outside it a grass terrace, bordered by a stone balustrade, overlooked the lawn that ran down to the shady street. Anne reclined in a wicker chaise longue upon the terrace, protected by the balustrade and a row of plants from the observation of the highway. She, also, had a book; but it lay upon her lap in the relaxed grasp of a flaccid hand. Her eyes were closed, though she was not asleep; and the mother’s frequent side glances took anxious and compassionate note of darkened areas beneath the daughter’s eyelids, of pathetic shapings about her mouth.

  The street was lively with motorists on the way to open country, for it was Saturday, and the automobiles were signalling constantly; but among all the signals, so alike, there was one that Anne recognized. Suddenly she opened her eyes, drew herself up, and looked across the top of the balustrade at a shining gray car just then approaching. It was a long, fleet-looking thing, recognizably imported, and impressive in its intimations of power, yet it selfishly had seats for but two people. One was not occupied; and in the other reclined a figure appropriate to the fine car, for, like the car, the figure was long, fleet-looking, and powerful. The young man was bareheaded; his dark hair shone in the sunlight, and his hands were gracefully negligent, but competent, upon the wheel. One of them gave Anne a cordial though somewhat preoccupied wave of greeting.

  She waved in return, but did not smile; then she sank back in her chair and closed her eyes again. Her mother sent a hard glance down the street after the disappearing car, looked at Anne, and breathed a deep, inaudible sigh.

  A moment later a straw hat upon a head of short sandy hair appeared above the balustrade and little Hobart Simms came up the stone steps that led from the lawn to the terrace. “I hope I’m not disturbing a nap,” he said, apologetically.

  Mrs. Cromwell was sorry to see him. There are times when the intrusions of the insignificant are harder to bear than those of the important, and she felt that Anne’s suffering would be the greater for the strain of talking to this bit of insignificance in particular. However, both mother and daughter gave the youth a friendly enough greeting; he sat down in a chair near Anne, and Mrs. Cromwell returned her eyes to her book.

  “It’s such a fine day,” Hobart said, fanning himself with his straw hat. “I thought maybe after I get my breath you might like to take a walk, maybe.”

  “I believe not,” Anne said, smiling faintly. “How did you lose your breath, Hobart?”

  “Hurrying,” he explained. “I’m working with the receiver that’s in charge of my father’s business, you know. As soon as I found he wasn’t coming this afternoon I left. I hurried because I was afraid you’d be out somewhere. We haven’t any car, you know; — they’re in the receiver’s hands, too.”

  “I’m so sorry, Hobart.”

  “Not at all,” he returned, cheerfully. “It’s a good thing. There are lots of families that ought to learn how to use a sidewalk again. It’s doing all of our family good. We’d got like too many other people; we’d got to believing the only place where we could walk was a golf course. Bankruptcy’s been a great thing for my father — I believe it’ll add ten years to his life.”

  Anne laughed and Mrs. Cromwell was pleased, for although the laugh was languid, it was genuine. The mother’s glance passed from her daughter to the caller and lingered with some favour upon his shrewd and cheerful face. Perhaps it was just as well that he had come, if he could amuse Anne a little.

  “I never heard of any one who took that view before,” the girl said. “It’s pretty plucky of you, I think.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “We’re all of us having a great time. Never had to do anything we didn’t want to before, and it’s such a novelty it’s more fun than Christmas. If it hadn’t happened I doubt if I’d ever have found out that I like to work.”

  “But you did work, Hobart.”

  “Yes,” he said, dryly. “For my father. This is a pretty good receiver we’ve got, and he’s showed me the difference between working for my father and working for other people.” He paused and chuckled. “Best thing ever happened to me!”

  Anne did not hear him. The automobile signal that had caught her attention a little while before was again audible from the street, and she had turned to look. The long, gray, foreign car came slowly by, moving flexibly through a momentary clustering of other machines, and it seemed to guide itself miraculously, for the driver had no apparent interest in where it went. His attention was all upon the occupant of the seat that had been vacant a few minutes before; — upon her he gazed with such aching solicitude that he could be known for a lover at a distance all round about him of fifty paces and more. And not only he, but his companion also seemed enclosed within the spell that comes upon lovers, shutting out the world from them; for, as he gazed upon her, so she likewise gazed receptively upon him. But, being a girl, she was in fact aware of certain manifestations in the world outside the spell, which he was not, and she knew that she was observed from a Georgian terrace.

  She detached her eyes from Harrison’s long enough to wave her slim hand, and received in return a beaming smile from Anne, across the balustrade, and a wave of the hand most cordial. Harrison remained in his trance, incapable of making or receiving any salutation, and Hobart Simms, looking after the car as it passed northward, did not see how bleak and blank Anne looked as she sank back in her chair.

  He laughed. “Poor old Harry Crisp!” he said. “He didn’t even see us, so it’s all up with him. It’s too bad: he might have got something out of life; but it’s all over now.”

  “I don’t follow you, I’m afraid,” Anne said, coldly, in a tired voice.

  “No? Well, in the first place, he’s working for his father. That’s bad, but it can be got over. What’s really fatal, he’s going to marry that Miss Ealing. I’ve heard it rumoured, and after looking at ’em just now I see it’s true. That’s something he can’t get over.”

  “Can’t he?” Anne’s tired voice was a little tremulous. “You mean he’ll always be in love with her? I should think that rather desirable if they’re to marry.”

  “Oh, he’ll get over that,” Hobart said, briskly. “I mean he’ll never get over his having married Miss Ealing.”

  Anne looked puzzled; but she did not try to make him be more explicit. Instead, she asked indifferently, “Don’t you call her ‘Sallie,’ Hobart? I thought all the men called her ‘Sallie’ by this time. She’s been here several weeks.”

  “No, I don’t,” he answered. “I haven’t called her anything, in fact.”

  “What? Didn’t she take the trouble to fascinate you, Hobart?”

  He laughed. “You’d hardly think she would, but she did — a little. I don’t suppose you could say she went out of her way to do it, or took any trouble, exactly; but she did invite me to join, as it were.”

  Anne was more interested. Since the passing of Harrison Crisp’s car she had been leaning back in her long chair, but now she sat upright and looked frowningly at her caller.

  “‘Invited you to join?’” she said. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean she invited me to get on the bandwagon,” he explained. “Not right up on a front seat, of course; but anyhow I was given a ticket to hang on behind somewhere.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “Probably you don’t,” Hobart said, and he looked thoughtful. “You’re always so above the crowd, Anne, probably you wouldn’t understand Miss Ealing’s invitations. You see I’m in a pretty good position to see things that you wouldn’t, so to speak. Of course, strangers ne
ver pay any attention to the little shrimps in a crowd, and when Miss Ealing did pay me a slight attention I wasn’t so grateful as I should have been; — I thought it was pretty funny.”

  “‘Funny’!” Anne exclaimed. “Why?”

  “Because it only showed her up, you see. Of course, it didn’t mean she had any interest in me; it only meant she had a use for me. She already had most of the rest of ’em excited about her; but she’s a real collector and she wanted the whole collection — even me! You see, the girl that makes ’em all think she’s thinking about them isn’t thinking about any of ’em, of course. She’s only thinking about herself, like any other selfish little brute.”

  “Hobart!”

  “Of course, I don’t mean to say she gave me a pressing invitation to join,” he explained, laughing cheerfully at himself. “Naturally, that couldn’t be expected. The big, hand-painted, gilt-edged card was for Harrison Crisp, of course; and then there were a number of handsomely engraved ones for tall eligibles. She just slipped me a little one printed on soft paper — a sort of handbill, you know, when she was delivering ’em around to the residue.”

  Anne’s languor had vanished now. She stared at him incredulously. “Hobart Simms,” she cried, “what do you mean by ‘handbills’?”

  “It’s simple enough,” he began. “That is, it is to me. Taller men with fathers that aren’t in the hands of a receiver wouldn’t have much of a chance to understand it, I imagine. She’s made a real stir in our little Green Hills midst with her handbills and—”

  Anne interrupted sharply: “I asked you what you meant by her ‘handbills.’”

  “Yes; I’m trying to tell you, but it’s so ridiculous I’m afraid you won’t be able to see what I mean. It’s like this: she’ll be passing you, for instance, dancing with some other man, or hanging to his arm, and she’ll whisper to you quickly over his shoulder, ‘I heard something about you,’ or, ‘I’ve found out something about you,’ or, maybe, ‘Can’t you even look at me?’ Something like that, you know, — and you’re supposed to get excited and follow up the mystery. You’re supposed to wonder just how much she is thinking about you, you see. That’s what I mean by her handbills, because if you don’t get excited, but look around a little, you’ll notice she’s passing ’em pretty freely. That’s why I thought it was funny when she even gave me one!”