She rose to her feet and Heroine drew away from her, firmly and rudely.
"Don" min" me, honey," said the old woman, and she held out a hand like a monkey"s paw. To my astonishment Heroine began to crane her head toward the hand, sniffed at it presently, gave a long sigh of relief and stood at ease, muscles relaxed, and eyelids drooping.
"Now I believe you," I said. "What else can you do?"
She turned her bright, beady eyes this way and that, searching perhaps for anyone who might be watching and listening. Then she said, "I kin tell fo"tunes, boss."
"Just tell me my name."
"You is Mista Mannering, boss."
"Hum, that"s too easy," I said. "I"ve been coming to Aiken a great many years. What is my horse"s name?"
"Her name is He"win, boss."
"Hum," I said and felt a little creepy feeling of wonder.
"Does you want to know any mo"?"
I nodded.
"You"s flighty, boss, but you ain"t bad. You is goin" ter be lucky in love, "n then you is goin" ter be unlucky. You is goin" ter risk gettin" shot, but dere ain"t goin" ter be no shootin". When summer come around you is goin" ter have sorrer in you" breas", and when winter comes around dere"ll be de same ole sorrer, a twistin" and a gnawin"."
"What sort of a sorrow, Auntie?"
"Sorrer like when you strikes a lil chile what ain"t done no harm, only seem like he done harm, sorrer like you feels w"en you baby dies, "case you is too close-fisted ter sen" fer de doctor, sorrer like----"
She broke off short, looking a little dazed and foolish.
"You"ve had your share of sorrow, Auntie, I can see that."
"Is I a beas" o" de fiel"?" she exclaimed indignantly, "or is I a humanous bein"?"
"Must all human beings have sorrows?"
"Yes, boss, but each has he own kin"! Big man has big sorrer, little man have little sorrer, and dem as is middlin" men dey has middlin"
sorrers."
"It"s all one," I said, "each gets what he can stand and no more. Put a big sorrow on a little man and he"d break under it; put a little sorrow on a big man and he wouldn"t know that he was carrying it. What else can you tell me, Auntie?"
"I ain"t goin" ter tell yo" no mo"."
"Not for another half-dollar?"
"No, boss."
"Well, there it is anyway. Good evening."
"Good evening, boss."
She had made me feel a little shivery and I rode off at the gallop.
XVI
I was surprised to find John Fulton in the Club. As a home-loving man he was not a frequent visitor. He had dropped in, he said, to get a game of bridge, had tired of waiting for somebody to cut out, and had been reading the newspapers to find out how the world was getting along.
"I haven"t more than glanced at them in a week," he said, "but there"s nothing new, is there? Just new variations of public animosity and domestic misfortunes. Have you read this Overman business?"
"I haven"t."
"It"s a case or a hard-working, thoroughly respectable man who, for no reason that is known, suddenly shoots down his wife and children in cold blood, and then blows his own head to smithereens."
"But of course there was a reason," I said; "he must have felt that he was justified."
"He seems to have had enough money and good health. And he pa.s.sed for a sane, matter-of-fact sort of fellow."
"If it was the regular reason," I said, "jealousy, he wouldn"t have hurt the children."
"Only a very unhappy man could kill his children," said Fulton. "His idea would be to save them from such unhappiness as he himself had experienced. But in nine cases out of ten it would be a mistaken kindness. Causes similar to those which drove the father into a despair of unhappiness would in all probability affect the children less. No two persons enjoy to the same degree, suffer to the same degree or are tempted alike. How many wronged husbands are there who swallow their trouble and endure to one who shoots?"
"Legions," I said. "Fortunately. Otherwise one could hardly sleep for the popping of pistols."
"Do you believe that or do you say it to be amusing?"
"I think that the number of husbands who find out that they have been wronged is only exceeded by the number who never even suspect it. But they are not the husbands we know, the modern novelist to the contrary notwithstanding. In our cla.s.s it is the wives who are wronged as a rule; in the lower cla.s.ses, the husbands. I"ve known hundreds of what the newspapers call society people; the women are good, with just enough exceptions to prove the rule: the men aren"t."
"When you say that the women are good, you mean they are technically good?"
"Who is technically good?"
"Hallo, Harry!"
Colemain, having pushed a bell, pulled up a big chair and joined us.
"We were saying that the average woman we know is technically good."
"You bet she is!" said Colemain. "She has to be! If she wasn"t how could she ever put over the things she does put over? And as a rule her husband isn"t technically good and so she has power over him. She says nothing, but he knows that she knows, and so when she does something peculiarly extravagant and outrageous, he reaches meekly for his checkbook. For one man who is ruined by drink there are ten ruined by women; and not by the kind of women who are supposed to ruin men either; not by the street-walker, the chorus girl or the demi-mondaine.
American men are ruined by their wives and daughters who are technically good. Don"t we know dozens of cases? When there is a crash in Wall Street how many well-to-do married men go to smash to one well-to-do bachelor? A marriage isn"t a partnership. It"s the opposite except in name. It"s a partnership in which the junior partner gives her whole mind to extracting from the business sums of money which ought to go back into it. And she spends those sums almost invariably on things which diminish in value the moment they are bought. It isn"t the serpent that is the arch enemy of mankind. It"s the pool in which Eve first saw that she was beautiful, or would be if she could only get her fig-leaf skirt to hang right."
"But I think," said Fulton gently, "that women ought to have pretty clothes, and bright jewels and luxuries. If a girl loves a man, and proves it and keeps on loving him, how is it possible for him to pay her back short of ruining himself? Haven"t you ever felt that if the whole world was yours to give you"d give it gladly? Why complain then when afterwards you are only asked to give that infinitesimal portion of the world that happens at the moment to be yours? If a man is ruined for his wife, if cares shorten his life, even then he has done far, far less than he once said he was willing and eager to do."
He looked at the big clock over the mantelpiece, sat silent for a moment, then rose, wished us good-night and went out.
"You wouldn"t think," said Harry, "to hear him talk that a woman was playing chuck-cherry with that infinitesimal portion of the world that happens to be his. I was in the bank this morning and I saw him come out of the President"s room. He looked a little as if he"d just identified the body of a missing dear one in the morgue."
"I"m afraid he is frightfully hard up," I said, "but he hasn"t said anything to me about it, and I don"t like to volunteer."
"He"s a good man," said Harry, "one of the few really good men I know, and it"s a blamed shame."