This story differs from the Creation in that it begins with a woman, as all stories of to-day should. And why not? for take the lady out of the case and there’s no story and never will be. The slim finger of a woman, you know, is in every pie. Sometimes it improves the flavor and sometimes it spoils it—that’s a matter of luck—and there are men who have tried pies or many fingers, whichever simile you prefer, and the result in their cases is always the same.
The girl in this story had birth, and blood, and breeding behind her. She also had good looks and a little money, and that is about all that anyone wants. Add to that a fairly nice disposition and you have reached the limit.
Of course, she wasn’t perfect by any means. She was a bit whimsical and peculiar, and her moods were as apparent as the moving pictures thrown on a sheet in the theatre. She was unusual in that her moods were reflected in her face with all the truthfulness of a mirror. That was the reason that some said she was good-looking, while others contended that she was most ordinary. Take her as I’ve often seen her, when she was cheerful and happy-go-lucky, and while there was nothing about her features that was regular she was attractive enough for anyone, and she could make a good many young fellows turn their heads to look after her as she passed down the street.
Then again something would happen, and she would seem to age ten years in as many hours, and a crop of deep lines and wrinkles would spring out like magic. But she had magnetism, and she was forever standing at the fork of two roads, one of which led to good and the other to bad. To her it was the toss of a coin which one she would take.
It was while she was in a thoughtful mood, debating with herself, that the man came along. There’s an apology goes with that, for he hadn’t a vote yet, and he was very youthful in his ways and of that age where a youngster is apt to tell more than is good for him, and to stray from the field of fact. Of course, it’s not a crime—it’s only a period. With his red cheeks and baby complexion he looked like a cross between a stick of peppermint candy and one of Raphael’s cherubs. He was as pretty a piece of embroidery as ever asked his mother for spending money, and when the girl saw him she immediately threw out a line and took him in tow. Inside of twenty-four hours she had her monogram indelibly stamped on him, and he was hers. Hand in hand they went out to see the world and become real sports, and it wasn’t long before wine was the limit and it wasn’t half good enough at that. They left a lurid streak up and down the line, but it soon faded out, for they weren’t financially strong enough to make a splash that would attract any more attention than a pair of tiny gold fish in a two-dollar aquarium.
After all, it amounts to nothing more or less than a question of capacity—stomach as well as purse, and it is rarely that the two harmonize. The man with the yard-wide thirst is often handicapped by a purse with complete or partial paralysis.
And then these two fell in with other company in the shape of a man and woman whose nuptials had been attended by incidents of a more or less exciting character, the star part of which was an elopement which savored more of desire than genius in its arrangements. They had succeeded so well in their new venture that they owned the entire contents of a flat across the river in Jersey, and being still in the throes of love themselves—or thinking they were—they were headquarters for everything that seemed like an affair of the heart. Some who were not their friends were unkind enough to say that it was nothing more nor less than a case of misery loving company, and that being on the coals themselves this couple enjoyed leading others to the broiler. But that’s unkind and really ought not to be believed.
However, many a racket came off in the flat, and they all went as hot a pace as wind and weather permitted, until even a rank outsider would have said it was time for a minister to get on the job and do what he could to make things legal.
The cork popped from a bottle of wine and the juice of the grape sizzled out.
“What do you say, Kid, let’s get married?”