Читать книгу Mary Minds Her Business - George Weston - Страница 8

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A few weeks after her arrival, Helen and Mary were walking to the post-office. Helen had a number of letters to mail, her correspondents being active and her answers prompt.

They hadn't gone far when a young man appeared in the distance, approaching them. Mary gave him a look to see who it was, and after saying to Helen, "This is Bob McAllister—one of our neighbours. He's home from school," she continued the conversation and failed to give Sir Robert another thought.

Not so Helen, however.

One hand went to the back of her hair with a graceful gesture, and next she touched her nose with a powdered handkerchief.

A moment before, she had been looking straight ahead with a rather thoughtful expression, but now she half turned to Mary, smiling and nodding. In some manner her carriage, even her walk, underwent a change. But when I try to tell you what I mean I feel as tongue-tied as a boy who is searching for a word which doesn't exist. As nearly as I can express it, she seemed to "wiggle" a little, although that isn't the word. She seemed to hang out a sign "Oh, look—look at me!"—and that doesn't quite describe it, either.

Just as Master McAllister reached them, raising his hat and bowing to Mary and her friend—Helen's eyes and Helen's smile unconsciously lingered on him for a second or two until, apparently recollecting that she was looking at another, she lowered her glance and peeped at him through her eyelashes instead.

Mary meanwhile was calmly continuing her conversation, never even suspecting the comedy which was going on by her side, but when Helen shot a glance over her shoulder and whispered with satisfaction "He turned to look!" even Mary began to have some slight idea of what was going on.

"Helen," she demurred, "you should never turn around to look at a young man."

"Why not?" laughed Helen, her arm going around her cousin's waist. And speaking in the voice of one who has just achieved a triumph, she added, "They're all such fo-oo-ools!"

Mary thought that over.

Helen's correspondents continued active, and as each letter arrived she read parts of it to her cousin. She was a mimic, and two of the letters she read in character one afternoon when Mary was changing her dress for dinner.

"Oh, Helen, you shouldn't," said Mary, laughing in spite of herself and feeling ashamed of it the same moment. "I think it's awful to make fun of people who write you like that."

"Pooh!" laughed Helen. "They're all such fo-oo-ools!"

"You don't think that of all men, do you!"

"Why not?" laughed Helen again, and tucking the letters into her waist she started humming. Unobserved Ma'm Maynard had entered to straighten the room and, through the mirror, Mary saw her grimly nodding her head.

"Why, Ma'm Maynard," said Mary, "you don't think that all men are fools, too, do you?"

"Eet is not halways safe to say what one believes," said Ma'm, pursing her lips with mystery. "Eef mademoiselles, your aunts, should get to hear—"

"Oh, I won't tell."

"Then, yes, ma cherie, I think at times all men are fools … and I think it is also good at times to make a fool of man. For why? Because it is revenge.

"Ah, ma cherie, I who have been three times wed—I tell you I often think the old-world view is right. Man is the natural enemy of a woman.

"He is not to be trus'.

"I have heard it discuss' by great minds—things I cannot tell you yet—but you will learn them as you live. And halways the same conclusion arrives: Man is the natural enemy of a woman, and the one best way to keep him from making a fool of you, is to turn 'round queeck and make it a fool of him!"

"Oh, Ma'm Maynard, no!" protested Mary, who had turned from the mirror and was staring with wide eyes. "I can't believe it—never!"

"What is it, ma cherie, which you cannot believe?"

"That man is woman's natural enemy."

"But I tell you, yes, yes. … It has halways been so and it halways will. Everything that lives has its own natural enemy—and a woman's natural enemy—it is man!

"Think just for a moment, ma cherie," she continued. "Why are parents so careful? Mon Dieu, you would think it at times that a tiger is out in the streets at night—such precautions are made if the girl she is out after dark. And yes, but the parents are right. There is truly a tiger who roams in the black, but his name—eet is Man!

"Think just for a moment, ma cherie. Why are chaperons require'—even in the highest, most culture' society? Why is marriage require'? Is it not because all the world knows well that a man cannot be left to his own promise, but has to be bound by the law as a lion is held in a cage?"

"No," said Mary, shaking her head, "I'm sure it isn't that way. You're simply turning things around and making everything seem horrid."

"You think so, ma cherie? Eh, bien. Three husbands I've had. I am not without experience."

"But you might as well say that woman is man's natural enemy—"

"And some say that," said Ma'm nodding darkly. "Left to himself, they say, man might aspire to be as the gods; but halways at his helbow is a woman like a figure of fate—and she—she keeps him down where he belongs—"

"I hate all that," said Mary quietly. "Every once in a while I read something like it in a book or a magazine, and whenever I do, I put the book down and open the window and breathe the fresh air. Of course I know some married people aren't happy. But it isn't always because they are married. Single people are unhappy, too. Aunt Patty has indigestion sometimes, and I suppose a lot of people do. But you wouldn't call food a natural enemy; would you? And some children are just as bad as they can be. But you wouldn't call children natural enemies, would you—or try to get along without them?"

But Ma'm Maynard would only shrug her shoulders.

"Eh, bien," she said. "When you have live' as long as me—"

Through the open window a clock could be heard.

"Six o'clock!" squealed Helen, "and I'm not changed yet." As she hurried to the door she said, "I heard Aunt Patty say that Uncle Stanley was coming to dinner again tonight. I hope he brings his handsome son again—don't you?"