A Thoughtless Yes

by Helen H. Gardener

"You think I am better than my opinions. I know exactly what you tell yourself about me when you are having it out with yourself upstairs. Oh, I know! You excuse me for saying this on the theory that it was not deliberate—was an oversight. You account for that by the belief that I am not well—my nerves are shaken. You are perfectly certain that I am all right, no matter what I do, or say, or think." She took her little friend's soft hand as it twisted nervously a ribbon in her lap, and held the back of it against her cheek, as she often did. "But just suppose it were some one else—some other woman, Nellie, you would suspect her (no doubt quite unfairly) of all the crimes in the statute-books. Oh, I know, I know, child! I did—at your age—and, sad to relate, I had no Florence Campbell to soften my judgments on even one of my sex."

She had grown serious as she talked, and her voice almost trembled. The instant she recognized this herself, she laughed again, and said gayly:

"Oh, I was a very severe judge—once—I do assure you, though you may not think so now." She dropped her voice to a tone of mocking solemnity, not uncommon with her, and added: "If you won't tell on me, I'll make a little confession to you, dear;" and she took both of the girl's hands firmly in her own and waited until the promise was given.

"I wouldn't have it get out for the world, but the fact is, Nell, I sometimes strongly suspect that, at your age, I was—a most unmitigated, self-righteous little prig."

Nellie's hands gave a disappointed little jerk: but her friend held them firmly, laughed gayly at her discomfiture—for she recognized fully that the girl was attuned to tragedy—buried her face in them! for an instant, and then deliberately kissed in turn each pink little palm—not omitting her own. Then she dropped those of her friend, and leaned back against her cushions and sighed.

Nellie was puzzled and annoyed. She was on the verge of tears.

"Florence, darling," she said presently, "if I did not know you to be the best woman in the world, I shouldn't know what to make of your dark hints, and of—and of you. You are always a riddle to me—a beautiful riddle, with a good answer, if only I could guess it. You talk like a fiend, sometimes, and you act like—an angel, always."

"Give me up. You can't guess me. Fact is, I haven't got any answer," laughed Florence.

But the girl went steadily on without seeming to hear her: "Do you know, there are times when I wonder if it would be possible to be insane and vicious, mentally and verbally, as it were, and perfectly sane and exaltedly good morally."

Florence Campbell threw herself back on her cushions and laughed gayly, albeit a trifle hysterically. "Photograph taken by an experienced artist!" she exclaimed. "You've hit me! Oh, you've hit me, Nell." Then sitting suddenly bolt-upright, she looked the girl searchingly in the face, and said slowly: "Do you know, Nellie, that I am sometimes tempted to tell the truth? About myself, I mean—and to you. Never on any other subject, nor to anybody else, of course," she added dryly, in comedy tones, strangely contrasting with the almost tragic accents as she went on. "But I can't. 'The truth!' Why, it is like the right; I'm sure I don't know what it is; and it has been so long—oh, so cruelly long—since I told it, by word or action, that I have lost its very likeness from my mind. I have told lies and acted lies so long—" Her friend's eyes grew indignant and she began to protest, but Florence ran on: "I have evaded facts—not only to others, but to myself, until—until I'd have to swear out a search-warrant and have it served on my mental belongings to find out myself what I do think or feel or want on any given subject."