Mrs. Somers: “I should think you would be ashamed of it. Suppose you have shown that women are nervous and excitable, does that prove anything?”
Campbell: “Nothing in the world.”
Mrs. Somers: “Very likely some of us will be sick from it. I dare say you think that would be another triumphant argument.”
Campbell: “I shouldn’t exult in it.”
Mrs. Somers: “I don’t know when I shall ever get over it myself. I have had a dreadful shock.” Campbell: “I’m sorry with all my heart — I am, indeed. I had no conception that you cared so much for mice — despised them so much.”
Mrs. Somers: “Oh yes, laugh, do! It’s quite in character. But if you have such a contempt for women, of course you wouldn’t want to marry one.” Campbell: “Yes, I should, my dear. But only one.”
Mrs. Somers: “Very well, then! You can find some other one. All is over between us. Yes! I will send you back the precious gifts you have lavished upon me, and I will thank you for mine. A man who can turn the sex that his mother and sister belong to into ridicule can have no real love for his wife. I am glad that I found you out in time.” Campbell: “Do you really mean it, Amy?”
Mrs. Somers: “Yes, I mean it. And I hope it will be a lesson to you. If you find any other poor, silly, trusting creature that you can impose yourself upon for a gentleman as you have upon me, I advise you to reserve your low, vulgar, boyish tricks till after she is helplessly yours, or she may tear your hateful ring from her finger and fling it—” She attempts to pull a ring from her finger, but it will not come off. “Never mind! I will get it off with a little soapsuds; and then—” Campbell: “Oh no, my dear! Come, I can allow for your excitement, but I can’t stand everything, though I admit everything. When a man has said he’s played a silly part he doesn’t like to be told so, and as for imposing myself upon you for a gentleman — you must take that back, Amy.”
Mrs. Somers: “I do. I take it back. There hasn’t been any imposture. I knew you were not a gentleman.”
Campbell: “Very good! Then I’m not fit for a lady’s company, and I don’t deny, though you’re so hard upon me, that you’re a lady, Amy. Good-by.” He bows and walks out of the room.
Mrs. Somers, sending her voice after him in a wail of despair: “Willis!”
Campbell, coming back: “Well?”
Mrs. Somers: “I can’t let you go.” He runs towards her, but she shrinks back on her chair against the wall. “No, no!”
Campbell, hesitating: “Why did you call me back, then?”
Mrs. Somers: “I — I didn’t call you back; I just said — Willis.”
Campbell: “This is unworthy — even of you.”
Mrs. Somers: “Oh!”
Campbell: “Do you admit that you have been too severe?”
Mrs. Somers: “I don’t know. What did I say?”
Campbell: “A number of pleasant things; that I was a fraud, and no gentleman.”
Mrs. Somers: “Did I say that?”
Campbell: “Yes, you did.”
Mrs. Somers: “I must have been very much incensed against you. I beg your pardon for — being so angry.”
Campbell: “That won’t do. I don’t care how angry you are if you don’t call me names. You must take them back.”
Mrs. Somers: “Do you see my handkerchief anywhere about on the carpet?”
Campbell, looking about, and then finding it: “Yes; here it is.” He hands it to her, and she bends forward and takes it from him at arm’s-length, whipping it nervously out of his hand. “What’s the matter?”
Mrs. Somers: “Oh, nothing — nothing! Will you please give me my fan from the table there?” He obeys, and she catches it from him as she has caught the handkerchief. “Thank you! Keep away, please!”
Campbell, angrily: “Really this is too much. If you are afraid of touching me—”
Mrs. Somers: “No, I don’t mind touching you; that isn’t it. But if you stood so near, don’t you see, it might run up you, and jump on to me.” Campbell: “What might?”
Mrs. Somers: “You know. The mouse.” Campbell: “The mouse! There is no mouse.” Mrs. Somers: “That’s what you said before.” Campbell: “Well, it’s true. There isn’t any mouse, and there never was.” —
Mrs. Somers: “There’s the idea. And that’s all I ever cared for.”
Campbell: “Well, what are you going to do? I can’t kill the idea of a mouse, and I can’t drive it out of the room.”
Mrs. Somers: “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I suppose I shall die here.” She presses her handkerchief to her eyes. “I shall never get out of the room alive. Then I hope you will he satisfied.” Campbell: “Amy, how can you say such things to me?”
Mrs. Somers: “Oh, I suppose you’re fond of me, in your contemptuous way. I never denied that. And I’m sorry, I’m sure, if I wounded your feelings by anything I said.”
Campbell: “Then you admit that I am a gentleman?”
Mrs. Somers: “I didn’t say that.”
Campbell: “And I can’t be satisfied with less. I’ll own that I’ve been stupid, but I haven’t been ungentlemanly. I can’t remain unless you do.” Mrs. Somers: “And do you think threatening me is gentlemanly?”
Campbell: “That isn’t the question. Do you think I’m a gentleman?”
Mrs. Somers: “You’re what the world calls a gentleman — yes.”
Campbell: “Do you think I’m one?”
Mrs. Somers: “How can I tell? I can’t think at all, perched up here.”
Campbell: “Why don’t you get down, then?” Mrs. Somers: “You know very well why.” Campbell: “But you’ll have to get down some time. You can’t stay there always.”
Mrs. Somers: “Why should you care?” Campbell: “You know I do care. You know that I love you dearly, and that I can’t bear to see you in distress. Shall I beat the carpet, and you scream and make a rush?”
Mrs. Somers: “No; I haven’t the strength for that. I should drop in a faint as soon as I touched the floor.”
Campbell: “Oh, good heavens! What am I going to do, then?”
Mrs. Somers: “I don’t know. You got me into the trouble. I should think you could get me out of it.”
Campbell, after walking distractedly up and down the room: “There’s only one way that I can think of, and if we’re not engaged any longer, it wouldn’t do.”
Mrs. Somers, yielding to her curiosity, after a moment’s hesitation: “What is it?”
Campbell: “Oh, unless we’re still engaged, it’s no use proposing it.”
Mrs. Somers: “Can’t you tell me without?” Campbell: “Impossible.”
Mrs. Somers, looking down at her fan: “Well, suppose we are still engaged, then?” Looking up: “Yes, say we are engaged.”
Campbell: “It’s to carry you out.”
Mrs. Somers, recoiling a little: “Oh! do you think that would be very nice?”
Campbell: “Yes, I think it would. We can both scream, you know.”
Mrs. Somers: “Yes?”
Campbell: “And then you fling yourself into my arms.”
Mrs. Somers: “Yes?”
Campbell: “And I rush out of the room with you.”
Mrs. Somers, with a deep breath: “I would never do it in the world.”
Campbell: “Well, then, you must stay where you are.”
Mrs. Somers, closing her fan: “You’re not strong enough.” She puts her handkerchief into her pocket. “You would be sure to fall.” She gathers her train in one hand. “Well, then, look the other way!” Campbell turns his face aside and waits. “No, I can’t do it.”
Campbell, retiring wrathfully to the other side of the room: “What shall we do, then?”
Mrs. Somers, after reflection: “I don’t know what we shall do. But if I were a man—”
Campbell: “Well, if you were a man—”
Mrs. Somers: “Don’t you think Mrs. Curwen is fascinating?”
Campbell: “She does.”
Campbell: “I don’t admit anything of the kind. She’s always posing. I think she made herself ridiculous standing there on the table.”
Mrs. Somers, fondly: “Oh, do you think so? You are very severe.”
Campbell: “Come, now, Amy, what has all this got to do with it?”
Mrs. Somers: “Nothing. But if I were a man—”
Campbell: “Well?”
Mrs. Somers: “Well, in the first place, I wouldn’t have got you wrought up so.”
Campbell: “Well, but if you had! Suppose you had done all that I’ve done, and that I was up there in your place standing on a chair, and wouldn’t let you leave the room, and wouldn’t get down and walk out, and wouldn’t allow myself to be carried, what should you do?”
Mrs. Somers, who has been regarding him attentively over the top of her fan, which she holds pressed against her face: “Why, I suppose if you wouldn’t let me help you willingly — I should use violence Campbell: “You witch!” As he makes a wild rush upon her, the curtain, which in the plays of this author has a strict regard for the convenances? abruptly descends.
A LIKELY STORY
I. MR. AND MRS. WILLIS CAMPBELL
Mrs. Campbell: “Now this, I think, is the most exciting part of the whole affair, and the pleasantest.” She is seated at breakfast in her cottage at Summering-by-the-Sea. A heap of letters of various stylish shapes, colors, and superscriptions lies beside her plate, and irregularly straggles about among the coffee-service. Vis-�-vis with her sits Mr. Campbell behind a newspaper. “How prompt they are! Why, I didn’t expect to get half so many answers yet. But that shows that where people have nothing to do but attend to their social duties they are always prompt — even the men; women, of course, reply early anyway, and you don’t really care for them; but in town the men seem to put it off till the very last moment, and then some of them call when it’s over to excuse themselves for not having come after accepting. It really makes you wish for a leisure class. It’s only the drive and hurry of American life that make our men seem wanting in the convenances; and if they had the time, with their instinctive delicacy, they would be perfect: it would come from the heart: they’re more truly polite now. Willis, just look at this!”
Campbell, behind his paper: “Look at what?”
Mrs. Campbell: “These replies. Why, I do believe that more than half the people have answered already, and the invitations only went out yesterday. That comes from putting on R.S.V.P. I knew I was right, and I shall always do it, I don’t care what you say.”
Campbell: “You didn’t put on R.S.V.P. after all I said?” He looks round the edge of his paper at her.
Mrs. Campbell: “Yes, I did. The idea of your setting up for an authority in such a thing as that!”
Campbell: “Then I’m sorry I didn’t ask you to do it. It’s a shame to make people say whether they’ll come to a garden-party from four till seven or not.”
Mrs. Campbell: “A shame? How can you provide if you don’t know how many are coming? I should like to know that. But of course I couldn’t expect you to give in gracefully.”
Campbell: “I should give in gracefully if I gave in at all, but I don’t.” He throws his paper down beside his chair. “Here, hand over the letters, and I’ll be opening them for you while you pour out the coffee.”
Mrs. Campbell, covering the letters with her hands: “Indeed you won’t!”
Campbell: “Well, pour out the coffee, then, anyway.”
Mrs. Campbell, after a moment’s reflection: “No, I shall not do it. I’m going to open them every one before you get a drop of coffee — just to punish you.”
Campbell: “To punish me? For what?” Mrs. Campbell hesitates, as if at a loss what to say. “There! you don’t know.”
Mrs. Campbell: “Yes, I do: for saying I oughtn’t to have put on R.S.V.P. Do you take it back?”
Campbell: “How can I till I’ve had some coffee? My mind won’t work on an empty stomach. Well—” He rises and goes round the table towards her.
Mrs. Campbell, spreading both arms over the letters: “Willis, if you dare to touch them, I’ll ring for Jane, and then she’ll see you cutting up.”
Campbell: “Touch what? I’m coming to get some coffee.”
Mrs. Campbell: “Well, I’ll give you some coffee; but don’t you touch a single one of those letters — after what you’ve said.”
Campbell: “All right!” He extends one hand for the coffee, and with the other sweeps all the letters together, and starts back to his place. As she flies upon him, “Look out, Amy; you’ll make me spill this coffee all over the table-cloth.”
Mrs. Campbell, sinking into her seat: “Oh, Willis, how can you be so base? Give me my letters. Do!”
Campbell, sorting them over: “You may have half.”
Mrs. Campbell: “No; I shall have all. I insist upon it.”
Campbell: “Well, then, you may have all the ladies’ letters. There are twice as many of them.”
Mrs. Campbell: “No; I shall have the men’s, too. Give me the men’s first.”
Campbell: “How can I tell which are the men’s without opening them?”
Mrs. Campbell: “How could you tell which were the ladies’? Come, now, Willis, don’t tease me any longer. You know I hate it.”
Campbell, studying the superscriptions, one after another: “I want to see if I can guess who wrote them. Don’t you like to guess who wrote your letters before you open them?”
Mrs. Campbell, with dignity: “I don’t like to guess who wrote other people’s letters.” She looks down at the table-cloth with a menace of tears, and Campbell instantly returns all the notes.
Campbell: “There, Amy; you may have them. I don’t care who wrote them, nor what’s in them. And I don’t want you to interrupt me with any exclamations over them, if you please.” He reaches to the floor for his newspaper, and while he sips his coffee, Mrs. Campbell loses no time in opening her letters.
Mrs. Campbell: “I shall do nothing but exclaim. The Curwens accept, of course — the very first letter. That means Mrs. Curwen; that is one, at any rate. The New York Addingses do, and the Philadelphia Addingses don’t; I hardly expected they would, so soon after their aunt’s death, but I thought I ought to ask them. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, naturally; it was more a joke than anything, sending their invitation. Mrs. and the Misses Carver regret very much; well, I don’t. Professor and Mrs. Traine are very happy, and so am I; he doesn’t go everywhere, and he’s awfully nice. Mr. and Mrs. Lou Bemis are very happy, too, and Dr. Lawton is very happy. Mrs. Bridges Dear Mrs. Campbells me, and is very sorry in the first person; she’s always nice. Mr. Phillips, Mr. Rangeley, Mr. Small, Mr. Peters, Mr. Staples, Mr. Thornton, all accept, and they’re all charming young fellows.”
Campbell, around his paper: “Well, what of that?”
Mrs. Campbell, with an air of busy preoccupation: “Don’t eavesdrop, please; I wasn’t talking to you. The Merrills have the pleasure, and the Morgans are sorrow-stricken; the—”
Campbell: “Yes, but why should you care whether those fellows are charming or not? Who’s going to marry them?”
Mrs. Campbell: “I am. Mrs. Stevenson is bowed to the earth; Colonel Murphree is overjoyed; the Misses Ja—”
Campbell, putting his paper down: “Look here, Amy. Do you know that you have one little infinitesimal ewe-lamb of a foible? You think too much of young men.”
Mrs. Campbell: “Younger men, you mean. And you have a multitude of perfectly mammoth peccadilloes. You interrupt.” She goes on opening and reading her letters. “Well, I didn’t expect the Macklines could; but everybody seems to be coming.”
Campbell: “You pay them too much attention altogether. It spoils them; and one of these days you’ll be getting some of them in love with you, and then what will you do?”
Mrs. Campbell, with affected distraction: “What are you talking about? I’d refer them to
you, and you could kill them. I suppose you killed lots of people in California. That’s what you always gave me to understand.” She goes on with her letters.
Campbell: “I never killed a single human being that I can remember; but there’s no telling what I might do if I were provoked. Now, there’s that young Welling. He’s about here under my feet all the time; and he’s got a way lately of coming in through the window from the piazza that’s very intimate. He’s a nice fellow enough, and sweet, as you say. I suppose he has talent, too, but I never heard that he had set any of the adjacent watercourses on fire; and I don’t know that he could give the Apollo Belvedere many points in beauty and beat him.”
Mrs. Campbell: “I do. Mrs. and Miss Rice accept, and her friend Miss Greenway, who’s staying with her, and — yes! here’s one from Mr. Welling! Oh, how glad I am! Willis, dearest, if I could be the means of bringing those two lovely young creatures together, I should be so happy! Don’t you think, now, he is the most delicate-minded, truly refined, exquisitely modest young fellow that ever was?” She presses the unopened note to her corsage, and leans eagerly forward entreating a sympathetic acquiescence.
Campbell: “Well, as far as I can remember my own youth, no. But what does he say?”
Mrs. Campbell, regarding the letter: “I haven’t looked yet. He writes the most characteristic hand, for a man, that I ever saw. And he has the divinest taste in perfumes! Oh, I wonder what that is? Like a memory — a regret.” She presses it repeatedly to her pretty nose, in the endeavor to ascertain.
Campbell: “Oh, hello!”
Mrs. Campbell, laughing: “Willis, you are delightful. I should like to see you really jealous once.”
Campbell: “You won’t, as long as I know my own incomparable charm. But give me that letter, Amy, if you’re not going to open it. I want to see whether Welling is going to come.”
Mrs. Campbell, fondly: “Would you really like to open it? I’ve half a mind to let you, just for a reward.”
Campbell: “Reward! What for?”
Mrs. Campbell: “Oh, I don’t know. Being so nice.”
Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells Page 1128
