The Triflers

by Frederick Orin Bartlett

I don't want you to be worried, dear you. I won't have you unhappy. You said once, "Is n't it possible to care a little without caring too much?" Now I 'm going to ask you: "Is n't it possible for you to think of me a little without thinking too much?" If you could remember some of those evenings on the ride to Nice,—even if with a smile,—that would be better than nothing. If you could remember that last night before we got to Nice, when—when I looked up at you and something almost leaped from my eyes to yours. If you could remember that with just a little knowledge of what it meant—not enough to make you unhappy, but enough to make you want to see me again. Could you do that without getting uncomfortable—without mixing up your schedule?

I cried a little right here, Monte. It was a silly thing to do. But you're alone in Paris, where we were together, and I'm alone here. It is still raining. I think it is going to rain forever. I can't imagine ever seeing the blue sky again. If I did, it would only make me think of those glorious days between Paris and Nice. How wonderful it was that it never rained at all. The sky was always pink in the east when I woke up, and we saw it grow pink again at night, side by side. Then the purple of the night, with the myriad silver stars, each one beautiful in itself.

At night you always seemed to me to grow bigger than ever—inches taller and broader, until some evenings when I bade you good-night I was almost afraid of you. Because as you grew bigger I grew smaller. I used to think that, if you took a notion to do so, you'd just pick me up and carry me off. If you only had!

If you had only said, "We'll quit this child's play. You'll come with me and we'll make a home and settle down, like Chic."

I'd have been a good wife to you, Monte. Honest, I would—if you'd done like that any time before I met Peter and became ashamed. Up to that point I'd have gone with you if you had loved me enough to take me. Only, you did n't love me. That was the trouble, Monte. I'd made you think I did not want to be loved. Then I made you think I was n't worth loving. Then, when Peter came and made me see and hang my head,—why, then it was too late, even though you had wanted to take me.

But you don't know, and never will know, what a good wife I'd have been. But I would have tried to lead you a little, too. I would have watched over you and been at your command, but I would have tried to guide you into doing something worth while.

Perhaps we could have done something together worth while. You have a great deal of money, Monte, and I have a great deal. We have more than is good for us. I think if we had worked together we could have done something for other people with it. I never thought of that until lately; but the other evening, after you had been talking about your days in college, I lay awake in bed, thinking how nice it would be if we could do something for some of the young fellows there now who do not have money enough. I imagined myself going back to Cambridge with you some day and calling on the president or the dean, and hearing you say to him: "Madame Covington and I have decided that we want to help every year one or more young men needing help. If you will send to us those you approve of, we will lend them enough to finish their course."

I thought it would be nicer to lend the money than give it to them, because they would feel better about it. And they could be as long as they wished in paying it back, or if they fell into hard luck need never pay it back.

So every year we would start as many as we could, each of us paying half. They would come to us, and we would get to know them, and we would watch them through, and after that watch them fight the good fight. Why, in no time, Monte, we would have quite a family to watch over; and they would come to you for advice, and perhaps sometimes to me. Think what an interest that would add to your life! It would be so good for you, Monte. And good for me, too. Even if we had—oh, Monte, we might in time have had boys of our own in Harvard too! Then they would have selected other boys for us, and that would have been good for them too.

Here by myself I can tell you these things, because—because, God keep me, you cannot hear. You did not think I could dream such dreams as those, did you? You thought I was always thinking of myself and my own happiness, and of nothing else. You thought I asked everything and wished to give nothing. But that was before I knew what love is. That was before you touched me with the magic wand. That was before I learned that our individual lives are as brief as the sparks that fly upward, except as we live them through others; and that then—they are eternal. It was within our grasp, Monte, dear, and we trifled with it and let it go.