III.
The goddesses found it a harder task than they had anticipated to hate Miss Jones. Scarcely twenty-four hours had passed before Gretchen was at her feet, and vowed that she was the German equivalent for a “perfect darling.” In return Miss Jones taught her how to make quince jelly, flavored with the kernels in the stones. Two days sufficed to conciliate Röschen; and when she discovered that Miss Jones did not positively and unequivocally condemn the homicidal eccentricities of Lucrezia Borgia, she declared with noble enthusiasm that Miss Jones was “a grand soul.” As for Minchen, she held out heroically against Miss Jones’s blandishments; but at the end of a week she too succumbed. Miss Jones had complimented her in imperfect German, but with the sweetest of accents, on her wax flowers, and had drawn new designs for her, full of animation and dash. Presently they said “thou” to each other, and Miss Jones, who had been Lulu at home, was metamorphosed into Luischen. Even the Frau Professorin, who at first had put her down as an artful little minx, began to forget her grudge against her. The Professor found it a positive hardship that he was not at liberty to kiss her. But the most amusing thing of the whole affair was that they all became her partisans against her recreant lover, Grover, who had trifled so wantonly with her feelings. They made cautious overtures to condole with her, but, in spite of the tenderest sympathy, found her singularly uncommunicative on this subject. Now the goddesses, who in external charm did not profess to compete with her, had in the first flush of their enthusiasm been quite disposed to sacrifice themselves upon the altar of their devotion; but, although they could have forgiven any other form of maltreatment, Lulu’s apparent distrust of them wounded them deeply. They had looked forward to delicious nocturnal confidences, when, half disrobed, each should visit the other’s boudoir and discuss the fascinating topic from all possible and impossible points of view. That Lulu had proved impervious to all hints of this nature was a slight which could not be pardoned, at least not without due penance on her part. Moreover, to add to their mortification, there seemed daily to be less occasion for sympathy. Lulu was winning Mr. Grover back to his allegiance slowly but surely. He called, now, almost every afternoon, took long walks with her through the Rosenthal, and barring a certain Anglo-Saxon reserve (which in Germany is thought perfectly incomprehensible) behaved in every way as an engaged man should. It was scarcely to be wondered at that the goddesses found such an exhibition of devotion a little bit irritating, and voted Lulu, the happy and victorious, as odious as Lulu, the abandoned, the secretly-grieving, had been lovely and interesting. It was especially Röschen, the admirer of daring unconventionally, who took it into her head that she had been wronged and deceived by the false and heartless Lulu, and she swore—that is to say, she vowed solemnly—that she should yet get even with that sly and demure little arch-fiend. The coveted opportunity did not, however, present itself as soon as her impatience demanded, and while the winter dragged along slowly, alternating delightfully between frozen mud and liquid mud, Grover’s devotion went on steadily deepening, until Miss Jones even interfered with his laboratory practice, mixed herself up in his chemicals, and on one occasion precipitated an explosion which singed his whiskers and damaged his complexion for a month to come. From this experience he drew the wise deduction that love and chemistry are antagonistic forces, and therefore irreconcilable; but as he could not persuade himself to give up either, it occurred to him to effect a compromise. He would, as far as possible, devote the forenoons to chemistry and the afternoons to love—that is to say, he would devote himself to Miss Jones, and try gently to lure her on to the forbidden topic.
I believe I have said before that demonstrations of affection were strictly prohibited; but I have not remarked that in the by-laws subsequently drafted by Miss Jones for the regulation of their abnormal relation, oral references to the same interesting topic were likewise forbidden. When Miss Jones had her own way, she usually talked music, and talked intelligently and well. She seemed to find a kind of humorous satisfaction in confining her adorer strictly to practical topics and in ignoring sentimental allusions. If he rebelled against this sort of maltreatment, and became silent and moody, she aggravated the offence by not appearing to notice it. She would then find employment in separating little boys who fought in the street, or in eliciting confidences from old apple-women. There was something almost fiercely virginal about her, something bordering upon enthusiasm in the way she repelled an attempted incursion upon the forbidden ground. And withal she was so tender and sympathetic toward all mankind, that her wilful obtuseness on the subject of love bore to him the appearance of wanton cruelty. It did not occur to him that she might be acting in self-defence, fearing to give the slightest rein to a feeling which might, on very slight provocation, run away with her. She was the kind of girl which one does not readily think of in connection with the tender passion; and whose love, perhaps, for this very reason, seems so ineffably precious to him who is trying to win it.
“Did it ever occur to you,” he said to her one day, as they were walking together under the leafless arches of the Rosenthal, “that when God saw all that He had made, and ‘behold it was very good,’ He left woman out?”
“No, I didn’t know it,” she said, with a gleam of amusement.
“Nevertheless, it is so,” he went on. “When He said it was all very good, woman was not yet created. After she was made, God said nothing at all.”
“That was because she was so nice that she needed no commendation,” rejoined Miss Jones promptly.
“For all that, history shows that she has made a deal of mischief in the world,” said Grover lugubriously; he was feeling piqued and abused at her want of responsiveness to his undisguised admiration.
“History was written by men,” was Miss Jones’s response.
“But made by women,” ejaculated Grover, eager to hold his own in the tilt.
“As you like. I don’t think the man was far wrong who said that there was a woman at the bottom of every important event.”
“You talk like a book.”
“I only wish I had the wit to make one. I would make you men stare if I published my version of the world’s history.”
“You can do that better without the wit,” he retorted recklessly; then, seeing a little cloud, as of pained surprise, pass over her countenance, he made a motion to seize her hand, but succeeded, instead, in knocking her parasol into the middle of the road. The necessity of recovering it cooled for the moment the passion which had threatened to overmaster him.
“Pardon me,” he murmured penitently, as he was again at her side. “I did not mean to hurt your feelings; but the fact is, I am on such a constant strain to keep my sentiment below the boiling point that I lose my self-control and say things the effect of which I only see after I have said them.”
“Don’t apologize, please,” she said, hurrying on so rapidly that he could only with difficulty keep pace with her; then as a perfect godsend, there crossed her line of vision two small boys who were pulling each other’s hair and pummelling each other lustily.
“You naughty boy,” she ejaculated with much animation, seizing the bigger one by the arm and forcing him to face her, “why do you strike that poor little fellow?”
“He mixes himself up in my affairs,” responded the culprit, defiantly; then discovering a considerable tuft of his antagonist’s hair in his hand, he turned about shame-faced and tried to dispose of it, unperceived. Miss Jones, however (though she was not without sympathy for any one whose affairs were becoming mixed), dexterously caught the descending tuft on the point of her parasol and held it up as proof of his guilt. “What a dreadful little boy you are,” she said, reprovingly.
“But I will pummel Anton again,” retorted the dreadful little boy, “if he plays ‘engaged’ with Tilly Heitmann.”
“Plays ‘engaged!’ Ah, then I beg your pardon,” said Miss Jones, airily, with a sly little glance at her companion. “Little boys who play engaged deserve to be pummelled.”