The Triflers

by Frederick Orin Bartlett

Here was the whole thing in a nutshell. There were some who might consider this to be an ideal state. Not to care about anything at all was not to have anything at all to worry about. Certain philosophies were based upon this state of mind. In part, Monte's own philosophy was so based. If not to care too much were well, then not to care at all should be better. It should leave one utterly and sublimely free. But should it also leave one utterly miserable?

There was something inconsistent in that—something unfair. To be free, and yet to feel like a prisoner bound and gagged; not to care, and yet to feel one's vitals eaten with caring; to obtain one's objective, and then to be marooned there like a forsaken sailor on a desert island—this was unjust.

Ah, but she did care! It was as if some portion of her refused absolutely to obey her will in this matter. In silence she might declare her determination not to care, or through tense lips she might mutter the same thing in spoken words; but this made no difference. She was a free agent, to be sure. She had the right to dictate terms to herself. She had the sole right to be arbiter of her destiny. It was to that end she had craved freedom. It was for her alone to decide about what she should care and should not care. She was no longer a schoolgirl to be controlled by others. She was both judge and jury for herself, and she had passed sentence to the effect that, since she had chosen not to care when to care had been her privilege, it was no longer her privilege to care when she chose to care. Nothing since then had developed to give her the right to alter that verdict. If anything, it held truer after Peter's departure than ever. She must add to her indictment the harm she had done him.

Still, she cared. Staring out of her window upon the quay, she caught her breath at sight of every new passer-by, in fearful hope that it might prove to be Monte. She did this when she knew that Monte was hundreds of miles away. She did this in face of the fact that, if his coming depended upon her consent, she would have withheld that consent. If in truth he had suddenly appeared, she would have fled in terror. He must not come; he should not come—but, O God, if he would come!

"But, O God, if he would come!"

Sometimes this thought held her for a moment before she realized it. Then for a space the sun appeared in the blue sky and the birds set up such a singing as Marie had never heard in all her life. Perhaps for a step or two she saw him striding toward her with his face aglow, his clear, blue eyes smiling, his tender man mouth open to greet her. So her heart leaped to her throat and her arms trembled. Then—the fall into the abyss as she caught herself. Then her head drooping upon her arm and the racking, dry sobs.

How she did care! It was as if everything she had ever hungered for in the past—all her beautiful, timid girlhood dreams; all that good part of her later hunger for freedom; all of to-day and all that was worth while of the days to come, had been gathered together, like jewels in a single jewel casket, and handed over to him. He had them all. None had been left her. She had none left.

She had always known that if ever she loved it was so that she must love. It was this that she had feared. She had known that if she gave at all she must give utterly—all that she ever had or hoped to have. Suddenly she recalled Mrs. Chic. It was with a new emotion. The latter had always been to her the symbol of complete self-sacrifice. It centered around the night Chic, Junior was born. That night she had been paler than Mrs. Chic herself; she had whimpered more than Mrs. Chic. Outside, waiting, she had feared more than the wife within who was wrestling with death for a new life. She had sat alone, with her hands over her ears in an agony of fear and horror. She had marveled that any woman would consent to face such a crisis. It had seemed wrong that love—an affair of orange blossoms and music and laughter—should lead to that. Wide-eyed, she had sobbed in terror until it was over. It was with awe and wonder that a few days later she had seen Mrs. Chic lying in her big white bed so crooningly happy and jubilant.