“Are you quite sure?” enquired Mrs. Manton, teasingly.
“Yes. Listen, Gertrude, to me!” Freda said, as she rose to look down into the sombre face before her. “There are all kinds of attractions and fascinations and mesmerisms that pass for love. But when you have known your man for a long time and feel you can hang on him, trust him, let him steer you, and just want to be right with him all the time—isn’t that love?”
“It sounds suspiciously like it,” smiled Mrs. Manton.
“But you’re not taking me seriously,” Freda objected.
“What do you want me to do—weep? Oh, girl, I could deliver one of the finest speeches on this subject that ever was heard.” Mrs. Manton spoke with decided emphasis, and pointed toward Freda admonishingly. “Remember, my dear, that no man lives that can understand a woman’s nature. They can’t vibrate with us. Good or bad, they don’t need us. Mind you, they think they do. But when the curtain is lifted on the mystery, their fine frenzy dies. What do we do then? We wash dishes three times a day, and listen to a voice in the kitchen fire to find out when they will return to the glorious delirium of their first affections. Then we grow restless. We are off up toward the sky. Then we whizz plumb down like an aeroplane in a nose-dive. We don’t know why we do the things we do. We are in ignorance as to why our love makes us hurt them. In short we are women. They are only men. And a satisfied woman is the rarest work of God!”
During the evening Gertrude gathered her little flock together in the dining room and provided music, dancing and refreshments, as a function in honor of Maxwell Lee’s departure. Not a word was said about his condition. It was all as if nothing had happened. Freda was informed quietly by Mrs. Manton that Mauney was going to Rookland with Max on the morrow and was providing money for his better care while in the sanatorium. He had at first refused his kindly offer, but had finally been persuaded, after three hours’ argument, to accept it. The party broke up early and Freda, after assisting her landlady to wash the dishes, joined Mauney in the drawing room.
It was a rarely happy hour. Freda, accustomed to orthodox methods of love-making, was genuinely refreshed by Mauney’s restraint. Her presence brought a happiness that he could not disguise. It shone in his face. Most men would have told her, of course, that she was looking very beautiful to-night. His omission of the compliment she readily explained by reason of his essentially undemonstrative disposition. Freda, always dramatic by nature, expressed her own feelings by gathering herself neatly upon a cushion at his feet. Mauney sat leaning forward, his arms on his knees, looking down into her face. He scarcely appreciated the real surrender typified by that lowly cushion. But he knew and she knew that a delicious, quivering kind of peace was in the room with them. They talked of many matters for a time.
“If I had you,” he said, seriously, at length, “everything would be perfect. I wouldn’t care what happened—”
Her head turned thoughtfully away for a moment, but he soon lifted her face with a finger under her chin.
“Try to get me, won’t you?” he implored. “Try to put yourself in my position. Lee has been the whitest chap to me that ever was. Behind my back as well as to my face. If he had only ever done me one little, mean trick—but he hasn’t. Can you see what a damned predicament I’m in?”