A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus Part 21

'Well, then, explain!'

'I didn't mean to tell you, Frank!' She gave the prettiest, most provocative little wriggles as her secret was drawn from her. 'I wanted to do it without your knowing. I thought it would be a surprise for you. But I begin to understand now that my ambition was much too high. I am not clever enough for it. But it is disappointing all the same.'

Frank took the bulky book off the table. It was Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management. The open page was headed, 'General Observations on the Common Hog,' and underneath was a single large tear-drop. It had fallen upon a woodcut of the Common Hog, in spite of which Frank solemnly kissed it, and turned Maude's trouble into laughter.

'Now you are all right again. I do hate to see you crying, though you never look more pretty. But tell me, dear, what was your ambition?'

'To know as much as any woman in England about housekeeping. To know as much as Mrs. Beeton. I wanted to master every page of it, from the first to the last.'

'There are 1641 of them,' said Frank, turning them over.

'I know. I felt that I should be quite old before I had finished.

But the last part, you see, is all about wills, and bequests, and homeopathy, and things of that kind. We could do it later. It is the early part that I want to learn now--but it IS so hard.'

'But why do you wish to do it, Maude?'

'Because I want you to be as happy as Mr. Beeton.'

'I'll bet I am.'

'No, no, you can't be, Frank. It says somewhere here that the happiness and comfort of the husband depend upon the housekeeping of the wife. Mrs. Beeton must have been the finest housekeeper in the world. Therefore, Mr. Beeton must have been the happiest and most comfortable man. But why should Mr. Beeton be happier and more comfortable than my Frank? From the hour I read that I determined that he shouldn't be--and he won't be.'

'And he isn't.'

'Oh, you think so. But then you know nothing about it. You think it right because I do it. But if you were visiting Mrs. Beeton, you would soon see the difference.'

'What an awkward trick you have of always sitting in a window,' said Frank, after an interval. 'I'll swear that the wise Mrs. Beeton never advocates that--with half a dozen other windows within point- blank range.'

'Well, then, you shouldn't do it.'

'Well, then, you shouldn't be so nice.'

'You really still think that I am nice?'

'Fis.h.i.+ng!'

'After all these months?'

'Nicer and nicer every day.'

'Not a bit tired?'

'You blessing! When I am tired of you, I shall be tired of life.'

'How wonderful it all seems!'

'Does it not?'

'To think of that first day at the tennis-party. "I hope you are not a very good player, Mr. Crosse!"--"No, Miss Selby, but I shall be happy to make one in a set." That's how we began. And now!'

'Yes, it is wonderful.'

'And at dinner afterwards. "Do you like Irving's acting?"--"Yes, I think that he is a great genius." How formal and precise we were!

And now I sit curling your hair in a bedroom window.'

'It DOES seem funny. But I suppose, if you come to think of it, something of the same kind must have happened to one or two people before.'

'But never quite like us.'

'Oh no, never quite like us. But with a kind of family resemblance, you know. Married people do usually end by knowing each other a little better than on the first day they met.'

'What DID you think of me, Frank?'

'I've told you often.'

'Well, tell me again.'

'What's the use when you know?'

'But I like to hear.'

'Well, it's just spoiling you.'

'I love to be spoiled.'

'Well, then, I thought to myself--If I can only have that woman for my own, I believe I will do something in life yet. And I also thought--If I don't get that woman for my own, I will never, never be the same man again.'

'Really, Frank, the very first day you saw me?'

'Yes, the very first day.'

'And then?'

'And then, day by day, and week by week, that feeling grew deeper and stronger, until at last you swallowed up all my other hopes, and ambitions, and interests. I hardly dare think, Maude, what would have happened to me if you had refused me.'

She laughed aloud with delight.

'How sweet it is to hear you say so! And the wonderful thing is that you have never seemed disappointed. I always expected that some day after marriage--not immediately, perhaps, but at the end of a week or so--you would suddenly give a start, like those poor people who are hypnotised, and you would say, "Why, I used to think that she was pretty! I used to think that she was sweet! How could I be so infatuated over a little, insignificant, ignorant, selfish, uninteresting--" O Frank, the neighbours will see you?'

'Well, then, you mustn't provoke me.'

'What WILL Mrs. Potter think?'

'You should pull down the blinds before you make speeches of that sort.'

'Now do sit quiet and be a good boy.'

'Well, then, tell me what you thought.'