Helen Rowland - The Widow [To Say Nothing of the Man]

"WHAT would you say," asked the widow, tucking her skirts cautiously about her patent leather toes and leaning back luxuriously against the variegated pillows, "if I should tell you that I have found the very girl who would make you a model wife?"

The bachelor glanced up indifferently and dipped the paddle lazily into the water.

"What model?" he asked, suspiciously. "Women are like automobiles, you know. There are so many models. And even after you have selected one most carefully you never can tell what it is going to do."

"They are more like horses," declared the widow, "if you know how to handle them, and are gentle and kind – "

"And let them see you're master – "

"And don't jab them with spiteful little spurs – "

"And know when to pull on the curb – "

"And when to coax them with sugar – "

"And when to beat 'em – and even then you can't tell what they're going to shy at or balk at any more than you can tell when an automobile is going to break down or run away or blow up. But this 'model' – is she pretty and fetching and warranted to run smoothly over rough roads and to climb all the matrimonial hills and not puncture a tire in the finances and to be just as good for a long run as for a spurt? Is she smart looking and substantial and – "

The widow sat up so quickly that the canoe swayed unsteadily beneath them.

"She's not a harem, Mr. Travers!" she cried. "Oh, dear!" she sighed hopelessly, leaning back again, "why is it that every man expects to get a harem of virtues combined in one wife? I don't believe any man but Solomon was ever perfectly satisfied with domestic life."

"Solomon," remarked the bachelor, giving the paddle an emphatic shove, "understood the necessity for variety in wives. But if Solomon had lived in the twentieth century he wouldn't have needed so many – er – annexations. He would have got it all in one modern woman. Now, you, for instance – "

"Speaking impersonally," interrupted the widow, trying to look austere and at the same time to blow a chiffon veil out of her mouth, "when a man buys an automobile he selects a runabout or a victoria or a touring car or a racing machine, according to his needs, and is satisfied."

"Not at all," protested the bachelor. "The moment he has one automobile he is sighing for another, and he is never happy until he has a garage full – "

"And it is the same about a coat or a hat," persisted the widow, ignoring the interruption; "he picks out what suits him best; but he doesn't expect his top hat to do him for picnics nor his swallow-tail to serve for lawn tennis nor his yachting cap to look well in church nor – "

"A derby," interrupted the bachelor, "will do almost anywhere."

"They're hideous, Mr. Travers! and stiff and commonplace and uncomfortable and – "

"Are they anything like the model wife you've picked out for me?" inquired the bachelor insinuatingly.

The widow flushed under the corner of her chiffon veil.

"Well," she acquiesced unwillingly, "she isn't particularly pretty nor brilliant and fascinating, and all that; but she's just the kind of a girl a man ought to marry."

"And never does!" finished the bachelor triumphantly, backing water and turning the canoe for mid-stream. "Of all kinds of women a man detests – "

"How many kinds of women are there?" cried the widow suddenly.

"How many women are there?" retorted the bachelor. "The variety is only limited by the number of feminine individuals. But fundamentally they can be divided into two classes, just as automobiles can be divided into gasoline and electric. There is the woman a man wants to marry, the kind that is stamped from birth for wifehood, the even-tempered, steady-going, comfortable kind of girl that you would like to tie to for life and with whom you know you would be perfectly contented – and utterly stupid. Every man has in mind his ideal wife; and nearly every man's ideal is of the calm, domestic, wholly good, wholly sweet sort, the sort that seems like a harbor away from the storm. But so often, just about as he has found this ideal, or before he has found her and before the sun of his summer day dream has risen the storm comes along – "

"The – what?"

"The tumultuous, impossible, adorable, unfathomable woman – the woman who may be good or bad, ugly or beautiful, but is always fascinating, alluring and irresistible. And she wrecks his little summer day dream and turns his snug harbor into a roaring whirlpool and carries him off in a tempest. Sometimes he marries her and sometimes he doesn't; but whether he does or does not, he is always spoiled for the other kind afterward."

"And if he does marry her," added the widow, trailing her fingers thoughtfully in the water, "he is always sorry and wishing he had married the other kind."

"Well," the bachelor laid his paddle across his knee, "what's the difference? If he had married the other kind he would always have been wishing he hadn't. Now if a man could only be allowed two wives – "

"One for week days and one for – holidays?" inquired the widow sarcastically.

"Yes," acquiesced the bachelor, "one for each side of him, the tame side and the untamed side. One to serve as a harbor and make him a home and fulfill his domestic longings and bring up his children and keep him sane and moral; and the other to amuse him and entertain him and inspire him and put the trimmings on life and the spice and flavor in the matrimonial dish."

"A sedative and a stimulant!" jeered the widow. "One to stir you up and one to calm you down; one to spur you forward and one to pull on the curb – a Hebe and a Minerva! And then you'd be running around demanding a Venus to make you forget the other two. Whatever woman a man marries, he invariably spends his life sighing for something different. If he is tied to a nice, soft sofa pillow, he longs for a backbone. If he marries a parlor ornament, he yearns for a kitchen utensil. If his wife has a Greek nose, he discovers afterward that what he really admires is pugs. If he picks out red hair or black, he will go blocks out of his way to pursue every yellow glint that catches his eye. And if he married a whole harem at once he would discover that what he really wanted was monogamy, and a single wife with a single idea. There aren't enough kinds of women in the world to fulfill any one man's idea of what a wife should be."

"And yet," sighed the bachelor, "I once knew a woman who would have done that – all by herself."

The widow looked unconvinced.

"Was she a model wife?" she inquired, skeptically.

"How do I know?" said the bachelor. "She wasn't my wife."

"Of course not!" cried the widow. "It is always the other man's wife who is our ideal – "

"She wasn't my ideal," protested the bachelor. "She was the storm that shattered my ideal and spoiled me for matrimony. She was a whole garage, a whole stable, a whole harem in one."

The widow looked distinctly disapproving.

"It's lucky," she said coldly, "that you escaped – a woman like – that!"

"But I haven't," protested the bachelor, laying down his paddle and leaning forward so that the ends of the widow's chiffon veil blew in his face. "She was the spice in life's pudding, the flavor, the sauce, the stimulant, the – "

"This canoe is tipping dreadfully," remarked the widow, but the disapproval had disappeared from her eyes.

"She was – "

"Why, I do believe it's growing dark, Mr. Travers."

"It is," agreed the bachelor. "Nobody can see – "

"See – what?" asked the widow, suddenly sitting up straight and fixing the bachelor with her eyes.

"How perfectly adorable and unfathomable and tumultuous – "