James Cabell - The Cords of Vanity. A Comedy of Shirking

"You wonder? Don't you understand even now?" the girl said shyly. "I am not as clever as you, of course; I have known that for a long while, Jaques; and to-night in particular I don't quite follow you, my dear, but I love you, and—why, there is nothing I could deny you!"

"Then give me back my freedom," said I. "For, look you, Rosalind, marriage is proverbially a slippery business. Always there are a variety of excellent reasons for perpetrating matrimony; but the rub of it is that not any one of them insures you against to-morrow. Love, for example, we have all heard of; but I have known fine fellows to fling away their chances in life, after the most approved romantic fashion, on account of a pretty stenographer, and to beat her within the twelvemonth. And upon my word, you know, nobody has a right to blame the swindled lover for doing this—"

I paused to inspect the china pug-dog which squatted on the pink-tiled hearth and which glared inanely at the huge brass coal-box just opposite. Then I turned from these two abominations and faced Rosalind with a bantering flirt of my head.

"—For put it that I marry some entrancing slip of girlhood, what am I to say when, later, I discover myself irrevocably chained to a fat and dowdy matron? I married no such person, I have indeed sworn eternal fidelity to an entirely different person; and this unsolicited usurper of my hearth is nothing whatever to me, unless perhaps the object of my entire abhorrence. Yet am I none the less compelled to justify the ensuing action before an irrational audience, which faces common logic in very much the attitude of Augustine's famed adder! Decidedly I think that, on the whole, I would prefer my Freedom."

It was as though I had struck her. She sat as if frozen. "Jaques, is there another woman in this?"

"Why, in a fashion, yes. Yet it is mainly because I am really fond of you, Rosalind."

She handed me that exceedingly expensive ring the jeweler had charged to me. I thought her action damnably theatrical, but still, it was not as though I could afford to waste money on rings, so I took the trinket absent-mindedly.

"You are unflatteringly prompt in closing out the account," I said, with a grieved smile….

"Good-bye!" said Rosalind, and her voice broke. "Oh, and I had thought—! Well, as it is, I pay for the luxury of thinking, just as you forewarned me, don't I, Jaques? And you won't forget the hall-light? Aunt Marcia, you know—but how glad she will be! I feel rather near to Aunt Marcia to-night," said Rosalind.

She left Lichfield the next day but one, and spent the following winter with the aunt that lived in Brooklyn. She was Rosalind Gelwix the next time I saw her….

And Aunt Marcia, whose taste is upon a par with her physical attractions, inserted a paragraph in the "Social Items" of the Lichfield Courier-Herald to announce the breaking-off of the engagement. Aunt Marcia also took the trouble to explain, quite confidentially, to some seven hundred and ninety-three people, just why the engagement had been broken off: and these explanations were more creditable to Mrs. Dumby's imagination than to me.

And I remembered, then, that the last request my mother made of me was to keep out of the newspapers—"except, of course, the social items"….

Within the week I had repented of what I termed my idiotic quixotism, and for precisely nine days after that I cursed my folly. And then, at the Provises, I comprehended that in breaking off my engagement to Rosalind Jemmett I had acted with profound wisdom, and I unfolded my napkin, and said:

"Do you know I didn't catch your name—not even this time?"

She took a liberal supply of lemon juice. "How delightful!" she murmured, "for I heard yours quite distinctly, and these oysters are delicious."

I noted with approval that her gown was pink and fluffy; it had also the advantage of displaying shoulders that were incredibly white, and a throat which was little short of marvellous. "I am glad," I whispered, confidentially, "that you are still wearing that faint vein about your left temple. I thought it admirable for early morning wear upon the house tops of Liege, but it seems equally effective for dinner parties."

She raised her eyebrows slightly and selected a biscuit.

"You see," said I, "I was horribly late. And when Kittie Provis said, 'Allow me,' and I saw—well, I didn't care," I concluded, lucidly, "because to have every one of your dreams come true, all of a sudden, leaves you past caring."

"It really is funny," she confided to a spoonful of consomme a la Julienne .

"After almost two years!" sighed I, ever so happily. But I continued, with reproach, "To go without a word—that very day—"

"Mamma—" she began.

I recalled the canary-bird, and the purple shawl. "I sought wildly," said I; "you were evanished. The proprietaire was tearing his hair—no insurance—he knew nothing. So I too tore my hair; and I said things. There was a row. For he also said things: 'Figure to yourselves, messieurs! I lose the Continental—two ladies come and go, I know not who—I am ruined, desolated, is it not?—and this pig of an American blusters—ah, my new carpets, just down, what horror!' And then, you know, he launched into a quite feeling peroration concerning our notorious custom of tomahawking one another—

"Yes," I coldly concluded into Mrs. Clement Dumby's ear, "we all behaved disgracefully. As you very justly observe, liquor has been the curse of the South." It was of a piece with Kittie Provis to put me next to Aunt Marcia, I reflected.

And mentally I decided that even though a portion of my assertions had not actually gone through the formality of occurring, it all might very easily have happened, had I remained a while longer in Liege; and then ensued a silent interval and an entree.

"And so—?"

"And so I knocked about the world, in various places, hoping against hope that at last—"

"Your voice carries frightfully—"

I glanced toward Mrs. Clement Dumby, who, as a dining dowager of many years' experience, was, to all appearances, engrossed by the contents of her plate. "My elderly neighbour is as hard of hearing as a telephone-girl," I announced. She was the exact contrary, which was why I said it quite audibly. "And your neighbour—why, his neighbour is Nannie Allsotts. We might as well be on a desert island, Elena—" And the given name slipped out so carelessly as to appear almost accidental.

"Sir!" said she, with proper indignation; "after so short an acquaintance—"

"Centuries," I suggested, meekly. "You remember I explained about that."

She frowned,—an untrustworthy frown that was tinged with laughter. "One meets so many people! Yes, it really is frightfully warm, Colonel Grimshaw; they ought to open some of the windows."

"Er—haw—hum! Didn't see you at the Anchesters."

"No; I am usually lucky enough to be in bed with a sick headache when Mrs. Anchester entertains. Of two evils one should choose the lesser, you know."

In the manner of divers veterans Colonel Grimshaw evinced his mirth upon a scale more proper to an elephant; and relapsed, with a reassuring air of having done his duty once and for all.

"I never," she suggested, tentatively, "heard any more of your poem, about—?"

"Oh, I finished it; every magazine in the country knows it. It is poor stuff, of course, but then how could I write of Helen when Helen had disappeared?"

The lashes exhibited themselves at full length. "I looked her up," confessed their owner, guiltily, "in the encyclopaedia. It was very instructive—about sun-myths and bronzes and the growth of the epic, you know, and tree-worship and moon-goddesses. Of course"—here ensued a flush and a certain hiatus in logic,—"of course it is nonsense."