The Widow [To Say Nothing of the Man]

by Helen Rowland

  VII

  A SHORT CUT.

  "WHAT ought I to do," asked the widow, carefully licking all the gum offthe flap of a violet envelope and then trying to make it stick, "to asilly boy, who--asked me for a kiss?"

  "What ought you to do?" repeated the bachelor, laying down his cigar andregarding the widow severely. "Refuse him, of course."

  "Oh, of course," agreed the widow, rubbing the envelope spasmodicallywith the end of her handkerchief, "but what ought I do to teach himbetter?"

  "I can't think of anything--better," replied the bachelor, charitablyreaching for the violet envelope and closing it firmly with his fist.

  "How about just taking the kiss--without asking for it?" inquired thewidow naively, as she leaned luxuriously back among the cushions of thedivan. "Wouldn't that have been better--for him, I mean?"

  "Would it?" The bachelor looked the widow straight in the eye.

  "Well," replied the widow weakly, toying with some fringe on a satinsofa pillow and carefully avoiding the bachelor's gaze, "he would havegotten it."

  "And now he never will," rejoined the bachelor with a confidence he didnot feel.

  "Oh, I don't know." The widow became suddenly interested in thearrangement of the fringe on the satin sofa pillow. "But it isn't theman who asks a woman for a kiss or--or anything--who gets it. It's theman who takes for granted."

  "Takes--what?"

  "Takes her by surprise, Mr. Travers," explained the widow, "and doesn'tgive her time to think or to say no. The short cut to managing a womanis not argument or reason. It's action. She may like to be coaxed, butit's the man who orders her about whom she admires--and obeys. Eve hasnever forgotten that she is only a rib and when Adam forgets it,she----"

  "Makes him feel like a small part of the vertebrae," interpolated thebachelor tentatively.

  "Naturally," returned the widow, tying the sofa pillow fringe in a hardknot and then untying it again, "when a man comes to her on his kneesshe is clever enough to keep him there; but when he comes to her with ascepter in his hand and determination in his eye, she has a wholesomerespect for him. It's not the man who begs but the one who demands thatreceives. It's not the man who asks a girl to marry him, but the one whotells her that she is going to marry him, who gets her. It's not thehusband who requests the privilege of carrying a latch-key or stayingdown town at night who can do so without fear and trembling, but the onewho calmly takes the latch-key and telephones his wife that he is goingto stay down town and then rings off as though the matter were settled.The question of who's going to have the whip hand in love or matrimonyis decided the very first time a man looks at a woman and lets her knowwho's master."

  The bachelor flicked the ashes off his cigar and regarded the widowcuriously.

  "Are you talking Christian Science or Hypnotism?" he inquired patiently.

  "Neither," replied the widow, "I'm talking facts, Mr. Travers. Haven'tyou ever seen a little short-legged man with a snub nose married to abeautiful, queenly creature, whom he ordered about as if she were theoriginal Greek slave and who obeyed him as if he were Nero himself, andadored him in proportion to his overbearing qualities? And have younever seen a magnificent, six-foot-two specimen of masculine humanity,who was first in war and first everywhere but in his own home, where hewas afraid to put his feet on a chair or light a pipe or make anoriginal remark, because some little dried-up runt of a woman had himhypnotized into believing that he was the thirty-second vertebrae and sheall the rest of the bones and sinew of the human race? A woman is like adarky, who fancies that 'freedom' means three-quarters of the sidewalk,or a small boy who imagines that doing as he pleases means smashing hissister's toys and stealing sweets from the pantry. Put her in her placeand she will stay there; but give her an inch of power and she'll takean ell of liberty and boss you off your own door sill. The biggest,boldest woman that ever lived is built like a barge, to be towed; andany little man who puffs up enough steam and makes a loud enough noisecan attach her to himself and tow her all the way up the river of life."

  The bachelor laid down his cigar and gazed at the widow in awe.

  "And I never knew it," he whispered huskily.

  "I suppose," said the widow, beginning to toy with the fringe again,"that you've been asking girls to kiss you, all this time."

  "Not _all_ the time," protested the bachelor.

  "And, of course," continued the widow maliciously, "they've all refusedyou."

  "Not _all_," repeated the bachelor, pensively.

  "What?" The widow glanced up quickly.

  "Once," explained the bachelor apologetically, "I didn't have a baldspot."

  "When a man asks for a kiss," pursued the widow, thoughtfully, "a girlHAS to refuse him; but when he takes it----"

  "She has to take it, too," said the bachelor, chuckling.

  "Would you mind," asked the widow, ignoring the last flippant bit ofpersiflage and picking up the violet envelope, "posting a letter forme?"

  "May I look at the address?" demanded the bachelor.

  "It's to the boy," began the widow, "who--who----"

  "Took the roundabout way?" finished the bachelor, helpfully.

  The widow nodded.

  "I have written him," she explained, "that he mustn't--that it would bebest if he wouldn't come here any more. That will keep him in his place,I think."

  "On his knees?" inquired the bachelor sarcastically.

  "And I told him," proceeded the widow, with a reproachful glance at thebachelor, "how very rude and foolish----"

  "Did you explain," interrupted the bachelor, "that the foolishnessconsisted in not taking the kiss?"

  "Mr. Travers!"

  "And that the rudeness lay entirely in assuming that you might not wantto be----"

  "How dare you!" cried the widow, flaming as red as the scarlet satinsofa pillow behind her head. "I gave him a dreadful scolding!" sheadded, looking pensively at the sealed note and toying with the edge ofthe flap, as though she half wished it would come open again.

  "In other words," remarked the bachelor laconically, "having him down,you proceeded to wipe your feet on him. Since he had turned the leftcheek, you made him turn all the way round, so that you could stick pinsin his back and make him feel like the thirty-second vertebrae and----"

  "I had to, Mr. Travers," cried the widow pleadingly. "It was my duty."

  "Your--what?"

  "To teach him a lesson," explained the widow promptly. "He's got tolearn that in the situation between man and woman there's only onethrone and that whoever gets up on it first wields the sceptre. He's gotto learn that the conquest of woman is not, like the Battle of Waterloo,an affair of strategy, but like the Battle of Bunker Hill orSennacherib----"

  "Or the Boston Tea Party or the Massacre of the Innocents," broke in thebachelor. "But aren't you a little hard on the girl? If you get him toowell trained he'll beat her."

  "Well," replied the widow promptly, "if he does she'll adore him.Besides, it's much better to have the matrimonial medicine administeredin allopathic doses than in the little homeopathic pellets of cautionand deceit, and lies and arguments which end in the divorce court, and awoman enjoys being bossed and bullied and ordered about by the man sheloves quite as much as he enjoys the bossing and bullying. It's hernatural instinct to look up, but she can't look up to a man who isfiguratively at her feet. She may struggle against the man who attemptsto conquer her by main force, but she enjoys being conquered just thesame, and it takes a great burden off her soul to be able to lay herhead on a broad, masculine shoulder and to know that every affair inlife is going to be settled and decided for her.

  "She may talk about thinking for herself and voting and all that, butshe is always glad enough to sit back and be thought for and voted forby some man who has magnetized her into believing him the incarnation ofintelligence. And any man can do it. If the average husband only had alittle more nerve and fewer nerves, he could master his wife with onehand and his eyes shut. The heathen Turk can get along better
with awhole harem full of women than the civilized man gets along with onelone, lorn wife. It isn't because he's any wiser or cleverer or kinder,but because the first Turk learned the short cut to managing a woman andpassed the secret down in the family. They don't ask them to marry themover there, they order them; they don't request them to run an errand orsew on a button, they merely wave their hands and the women fight forthe privilege of obeying. They have known for ages what the white mannever seems to have learned, that the way to take a woman is by stormand the way to hold her is by force and that any man can manage anywoman if he only knows how and has the audacity and the courage--Whatare you trying to do, Mr. Travers?"

  "I'VE got the courage at last--and the audacity." _Page99_]

  "I'm taking a short cut to the divan," replied the bachelor, sittingdown beside the widow, "and I've got the courage at last----"

  "How dare you, Billy Travers!"

  "And the audacity----"

  "Stop! Stop!"

  "And the nerve----"

  "Mr. Taylor," announced the maid, appearing suddenly between theportieres at this critical moment.

  "Oh, mercy!" cried the widow, "and my hair is just----"

  "Am I intruding?" asked a fresh-faced young man, entering brisklybetween the portieres.

  "Not at all, Bobby," said the widow sweetly, holding out one hand andfeeling her back hair with the other. "You arrived just atthe--psychological moment. We have been talking about you for the lasthalf hour."