“You bet.” Ida committed herself no further at the moment.
“Then you will enjoy study—expanding and furnishing your mind. It is a wonderful sensation!” Mrs. Blake’s eyes were flashing now, her mouth was soft, her strong little chin with that cleft which always suggests a whirlpool, was lifted as if she were drinking. “The moment you are conscious that you are using the magic keys to the great storehouses of the world, its arts, its sciences, its records of the past—when you begin to help yourself with both hands and pack it away in your memory—always something new—when you realise that the store is inexhaustible—that in study at least there is no ennui—Oh, I can give you no idea of what it all means—you will find it out for yourself!”
“Jimminy!” thought Ida. “I guess not! But that ain’t where her charm for men comes from, you bet!” Aloud she said, with awe in her voice:
“No wonder you know so much when you like it like that. But don’t it make you—well—kinder lonesome?”
“Sometimes—lately——” Mrs. Blake pulled herself up with a deep blush. “It has meant everything to me, that mental life, and it always shall!”
The astute Ida noted the defiant ring in her voice, and plunged in. “I wonder now? Say, you’re a pretty woman and a young one, and they say men would go head over ears about you if you’d give ’em a show. You’ve got a busy husband and so have I. Husbands don’t companion much and you can’t make me believe learning’s all. Don’t you wish these American Turks of husbands would let us have a man friend occasionally? They say that in high society in the East and in Europe, the women have all the men come to call on them afternoons they like, but the ordinary American husband, and particularly out West—Lord! When a woman has a man call on her, she’s about ready to split with her husband—belongs to the fast set—and he’s quail hunting somewheres else. Of course I’ve known Mark all my life—and you who was—were brought up in the real world—it must be awful hard on you. Wouldn’t you like to try your power once in a while, see how far you could go—just for fun? I guess you’re not shocked?”
“No, I’m not shocked,” said Ora, laughing. “But I don’t believe men interest me very much in that way—although, heaven knows, there are few more delightful sensations than talking to a man who makes you feel as if your brain were on fire. I don’t think I care to have American men, at least, become interested in me in any other way. In Europe——” She hesitated, and Ida leaned forward eagerly.
“Oh, do tell me, Mrs. Blake! I don’t know a blamed thing. I’ve never been outside of Montana.”
“Well—I mean—the American man takes love too seriously. I suppose it is because he is so busy—he has to take life so seriously. He specialises intensely. It is all or nothing with him. Of course I am talking about love. When they play about, it is generally with a class of women of which we have no personal knowledge. The European, with his larger leisure, and generations of leisure in his brain, his interest in everything, and knowledge of many things,—above all of the world,—has reduced gallantry to a fine art. He may give his fancy, his sentiment, his passion, even his leisure, to one woman at a time, but his heart—well, unless he is very young—that remains quite intact. Love is the game of his life with a change of partner at reasonable intervals. In other words he is far too accomplished and sophisticated to be romantic. Now, your American man, although he looks the reverse of romantic, and is always afraid of making a fool of himself, when he does fall in love with a woman—say, across a legal barrier—must annihilate the barrier at once; in other words, elope or rush to the divorce court. It isn’t that he is more averse from a liaison than the European, but more thorough. It is all or nothing. In many respects he is far finer than the European, but he makes for turmoil, and, less subtle, he fails to hold our interest.”
“You mean he don’t keep us guessing? Well, you’re right about most of them. I never saw a boy I couldn’t read like a page ad., until I met my husband. I thought I knew him, too, till I’d been married to him awhile. But, my land, he gets deeper every minute. I guess if I hadn’t married him he’d have kidnapped me, he was that gone, and forgetting anything else existed. Of course, I didn’t expect that to last, but I did think he’d go on being transparent. But, believe me, the Sphinx ain’t a patch on him. I sometimes think I don’t know him at all, and that keeps me interested.”