CHAPTER VIII

LONGEST WAY HOME

"You hadn't forgotten?" he inquired, coming up behind me with an expression of uneasiness as I passed the first two or three cars in the line.

"No--that is, I forgot for only a moment! I'm so used to going to town on this trolley-car."

"Then--ah, here we are--"

The limousine to which I was conducted was a gleaming dark-blue affair, with light tan upholstery, and the door-knobs, clock-case and mouth-piece of the speaking-tube were of tortoise-shell.

The chauffeur touched something and the big creature began a softened, throbbing breathing. Isn't it strange how we can not help regarding automobiles as _creatures_? Sometimes we think of them as gliding swans--at other times as fiery-eyed dragons. It all depends upon whether _we're_ the duster, or the dustee.

I gained the idea as I stepped into this present one--which of course belonged to the gliding swan variety--that its master must be rather ridiculously well-to-do--for a cave-man. His initials were on the panels, and the man at the wheel said, "Mr. Tait, sir," after a fashion that no American-trained servant, white, black, or almond-eyed, ever said. Evidently the car had come down from Pittsburgh and the chauffeur had made a longer journey. Together, however, they spelled perfection--and luxury. Still, strange to say, the notion of this man's possible wealth did not get on my throat and suffocate me, as the notion of Guilford's did. I felt that the man himself really cared very little about it all. The idea of his being a man who could do hard tasks patiently did not fade in the glamour of this damask and tortoise-shell.

"Which is--the longest way to town?" he asked in a perfectly grave, matter-of-fact way as we started.

"Down this lane to the Franklin Pike, then out past Fort Christian to Belcourt Boulevard--and on to High Street," I replied in a perfectly grave, matter-of-fact way, as if he were a tubercular patient, bound to spend a certain number of hours in aimless driving every day.

"Thank you," he answered very seriously, then turned to the chauffeur.

"Collins, can you follow this line? I think we drove out this way the day the car came?"

"Oh, yes, sir--thank you," the man declared, slipping his way in and out among the throngs of other vehicles.

Then as we whirled away down the pike I kept thinking of this man--this young Englishman, who had come to America and elevated himself into the position of vice-president and general-manager of the Consolidated Traction Company, but, absurdly enough, no thought of the limousine nor the traction company came into my musings. I thought of him as a spirit--a spirit-man, who had lived in the woods. He had dwelt in a hut--or a cave--and toiled with his hands, hewing down trees, burning charcoal, eating brown bread at noon. Then, at dusk, he laid aside his tools, rumbling homeward in a great two-wheeled cart, whistling as he went, but softly--because he was deep in thought.

The seven _ages_ of man are really nothing to be compared in point of interest with the different conditions of mind which women demand of them.

Very young girls seek about--often in vain--for a man who can compel; then later, they demand one who can feel; afterward their own expansion clamors for one who can understand--but the final stage of all is reached when the feminine craving can not be satisfied save by the man who can _achieve_.

This, of course, indicates that the woman herself is experienced--sometimes even to the point of being a widow--but it is decidedly a satisfying state of mind when it is once reached, because it is permanent.

And your man of achievement is pretty apt to be an uncomplicated human. His deepest "problem" is how to make the voices of the nightingale and alarm clock harmonize. For he is a lover between suns--and a _laborer_ during them.

At Solinski's Japanese tea-room in Union Street, the limousine slowed up. The band was playing _The Rosary_ as we went in, for it was the hour of the afternoon for the professional seers and seen of Oldburgh's medium world to drop in off the sidewalks for half an hour and dawdle over a tutti-frutti. The ultra-sentimental music always gets such people as these--and the high excruciating notes of this love-wail were ringing out with an intense poignancy.

"Each hour a pearl--each pearl a prayer--"

"Which table do you prefer?" my companion asked me, but for a moment I failed to answer. I was looking up at the clock, and I saw that the hands were pointing to six. I had met Maitland Tait at four!--Thus I had two pearls already on my string, I reckoned.

"Oh, which table--well, farther back, perhaps!"

I came down to earth after that, for getting acquainted with the caprices of a man's appetite is distinctly an earthly joy. Yet it certainly comes well within the joy class, for nothing else gives you the comfortable sense of possession that an intimate knowledge of his likes and dislikes bestows.

Just after the "each-hour-a-pearl" stage you begin to feel that you have a _right_ to know whether he takes one lump or two! And the homely, every-day joys are decidedly the best. You don't tremble at the sounds of a man's rubber heels at the door, perhaps, after you're so well acquainted with him that you've set him a hasty supper on the kitchen table, or your fingers have toyed with his over the dear task of baiting a mouse-trap together--but he gets a dearness in this phase which a pedestal high as Eiffel Tower couldn't afford.--It is this dearness which makes you endure to see Prince Charming's coronet melted down into ducats to buy certified milk!

"And what are--those?" Maitland Tait asked, after the tea-service was before us, and I had poured his cup. He was looking about the place with a frank interest, and his gaze had lighted upon a group of marcelled, manicured manikins at a near-by table. They were chattering and laughing in an idly nervous fashion.

I dropped in two lumps of sugar and passed him his cup.

"They are wives," I answered.

"What?"

"Just wives."

Being English, it took him half a second to smile--but when he did I forgave him the delay.

"_Just_ wives? Then that means not mothers, nor helpmeets, nor--"

"Nor housekeepers, nor suffragettes, nor saints, nor sinners, nor anything else that the Lord intended, nor apprehended," I finished up with a fierce suddenness, for that was what Guilford wanted me to be. "They're _just_ wives."

He stirred his tea thoughtfully.

"That's what I find all over America," he said, but not with the air of making a discovery. "Men must work, and women must _eat_."

"And the sooner it's over the sooner to--the opera," I said.

He looked at me in surprise.

"Then you recognize it?" he asked.

"Recognize it? Of course _I_ recognize it--but I'm not a fair sample. I work for my living."

He was silent for a moment, looking at the manikins with a sort of half-hearted pity.

"If they could all be induced to work they'd not be what they are--to men," he observed.

"To men?"

"I find that an American wife is a tormenting side-issue to a man's busy life," he said, with a tinge of regret. "And I am sorry, too--for they are most charming. For my part, I should like a woman who could do things--who was clever enough to be an inspiration."

I nodded heartily, forgetful of personalities.

"I too like the workers in the world," I coincided. "My ideal man is one whose name will be made into a verb."

He laughed.

"Like Marconi, eh, and Pasteur--and--"

"And Boycott, and Macadam, and--oh, a host of others!"

It was quite a full minute before he spoke again.

"I don't see how I could make my name into a verb," he said quietly, "but I must begin to think about it. It is certainly a valuable suggestion."

It was my turn to laugh, which I did, nervously.

"In Oldburgh, Tait seems to stand for the opposite of dictate," I hazarded. "That means to _talk_, and you won't--talk."

"But I am talking," he insisted. "I'm asking you questions as fast as ever I can."

"However, your technique is wrong," I replied. "You shouldn't ask questions of a newspaper woman. You should let her ask the questions, and you should furnish the answers."

"But you're not a newspaper woman now, are you?" he demanded in some alarm. "I hope not--and certainly I must ask you questions before I begin to tell you things. There are quite a few facts which I wish to find out now."

"And they are, first--?"

"Where you live?"

I told him, and he took from his pocket a small leather book with his name, Maitland Tait, and an address in smaller letters which I could not make out, on the inside lining. In a small, rather cramped hand, he wrote the address I gave him, "1919 West Clydemont Place," then looked up at me.

"Next?" I laughed, in a flutter.

"Next I want to know when you will let me come to see you?"

"When?" I repeated, rather blankly.

He drew slightly back.

"I should have said, of course, _if_ you will let me come, but--"

"But I shall be very glad to have you come," I made haste to explain. "I--I was only thinking!"

I was thinking of my betrothed--for the first time that afternoon.

"The length of time I am to stay in the South is very uncertain," he went on to explain with a gentle dignity. "At first it appeared that I might have to make a long stay, but we are settling our affairs so satisfactorily that I may be able to get back to Pittsburgh at any time now. That's why I feel that I can't afford to lose a single day in doing the really important things."

"Then come," I said, with a friendly show, which was in truth a desperate spirit of abandon. "Come some day--"

"To-morrow?" he asked.

"To-morrow--at four."

But during the rest of the meal grandfather and Uncle Lancelot came and took their places on either side of me. They were distinctly de trop, but I could not get rid of them.

"This is--really the wrong thing to do, Grace," grandfather said, so soberly that when I rose to go and looked in the mirror to see that my hat was all right, his own sad blue eyes were looking out at me in perplexed reproach. "--Very wrong."

Then the sad blue eyes took in the lower part of my face. I believe I've neglected to say that there is a dimple in my chin, and Uncle Lancelot's spirit is a cliff-dweller living there. He comes out and taunts the thoughtful eyes above.

"Nonsense, parson!" he expostulated jauntily now. "Look on the lips while they are red! She's _young_!"

"Youth doesn't excuse folly," said grandfather severely.

"It exudes it, however," the other argued.

I turned away, resolutely, from their bickering. I had enough to contend with besides them--for suddenly I had begun wondering what on earth mother _would_ say, after she'd said: "Grace, you amaze me!"