XVIII

_March 9._ What seemed my misfortune proved quite the reverse. You evidently mentioned to Agnes my refusing to dine with you, and the next time I saw her she took me to task for it.

"It's too bad of you," she told me, "when I have explained to you how sensitive Maizie is, and how she has the idea that nice men do not like her, that you should go and confirm her in the feeling by treating her so! Why don't you like her?"

"I do," was all I said.

"No, you don't," she denied indignantly. "I suppose men dislike fine women because they make them feel what poor things they are themselves!"

"I like you, Miss Blodgett," I replied.

"I don't believe it," she retorted, "or you would be nice to my best friend. Besides, the idea of mentioning me in the same breath as Maizie!

Men are born geese."

"Then you should pity rather than upbraid us," I suggested.

"I'll tell you what I intend to do," went on Agnes. "You promised us a visit this summer, and I am going to arrange for Maizie to be there at the time, so that you can really get to know her. And then, if you don't like her, I'll never forgive you."

"Now, Agnes," ordered Mrs. Blodgett crossly, "stop teasing the doctor.

I'm fond of Maizie, but I'm fairly tired with men falling in love with her, and I am glad to find one who hasn't."

All last spring and summer, as I toiled over the proof sheets of my history, I was waiting and dreaming of that promised fortnight with you.

I was so eager in my hope that when I found Agnes at the station, it was all I could do not to make my greeting a question whether you were visiting them. Luckily, she was almost as eager as I was, and hardly was I seated in the trap when she announced,--

"Mamma wanted to ask you when we were alone, and wouldn't hear at first of even Maizie being with us; but I told papa of my plan, and he insisted that Maizie should be invited. Wasn't he an old love? And now, Dr. Hartzmann, you'll try to like Maizie, won't you? And even if you can't, just pretend that you do, please."

If the groom had not mounted the rumble at this point, I believe I should have told her of my love for you, the impulse was so strong, in my grat.i.tude and admiration for the unselfish love she had for you.

A result of this misunderstanding was an amusing game of cross-purposes between mother and daughter. Agnes was always throwing us together, scarcely attempting to veil her wishes, while Mrs. Blodgett, thinking that I did not care for you, was always interfering to save me from your society. She proposed that I should teach Agnes chess, and left us playing; but when you joined us, Agnes insisted that she could learn more by watching us, only to play truant the moment you had taken her place. I shall never forget Mrs. Blodgett's amazement and irritation, on her return, at finding us playing, and Agnes not to be seen. Equally unsuccessful was an attempt to teach Agnes fencing, for she grew frightened before the foils had really been crossed, and made you take her place. At first I imagined she only pretended fear, but Mrs.

Blodgett became so very angry over her want of courage that I had to think it genuine. When we went to drive as a party there was always much discussion as to how we should sit; and in fact my two friends kept at swords' points most of the time, in their endeavors to make me tolerate or save me from the companionship of the woman I loved. Even I could see the comedy of the situation.

In one of our conversations you reverted to your novel, and questioned my view of the impossibility of the heroine being happy in her marriage, evidently influenced, but not convinced, by my opinion.

"To me it is perfectly conceivable," you argued, "that, regardless of her loving, a woman can be as happy married as single, and that it all depends upon what she makes of her own life."

"But in marriage," I contended, "she is not free to make her life at all."

"Surely she is if her husband truly loves her."

"Less so than if he does not."

"You are not in earnest?"

"Yes. Love makes women less selfish, but with many men it often has the opposite effect. The man you drew, Miss Walton, was so firm that he would not be other than selfish, and if my reading of your heroine is correct, she was a woman who would resign her own will, rather than lower her self-respect by conflicts with her husband."

"But he loved her."

"In a selfish man's way. If women knew better what that meant, there would be fewer unhappy marriages."

"Then you are sure my heroine did wrong?"

"I think she did what thousands of other women have done,--she married the love rather than the lover."

"No. I did not intend that. She married for quite other things than love: for greater freedom, for"--

"Would she have married," I interrupted, "if she had not been sure that the hero loved her?"

You thought an instant, and then said, "No, I suppose not--and yet"--You stopped, and then continued impulsively, "I wonder if I shall shock you very much if I say that I have no faith in what we call love?"

"You do not shock me, Miss Walton, because I do not believe you."

"It is true, nevertheless. Perhaps it is my own fault, but I have never found any love that was wholly free from self-indulgence or self-interest."

"If you rate love so low, why did you make your heroine crave it?"

"One can desire love even when one cannot feel it."

"Does one desire what one despises?"

"To scorn money does not imply a preference for poverty."

"The scorn of money is as genuine as your incapacity to love, Miss Walton."

"You do not believe me?"

"A person incapable of love does not crave it. It is only a loving nature which cares for love."

"But if one cannot love, how can one believe in it?"

"The unlighted torch does not believe in fire."

"But some substances are incombustible."

"The sun melts anything."

"The sun is trans-terrestrial."

"So is love."

You looked at me in silence for a moment, and then asked, "Is love so much to you?"

"Love is the only thing worth striving for in this life," I replied.

"And if one fails to win it?"