Part 13 (1/2)

Howard?” Mrs. Sidney said, and Miss Trevor drew nearer to hear the answer.

”One of the editorial writers down on the paper and a very clever one--none better. He works hard and is desperately serious and a regular hermit.”

”I think he's very handsome--don't you, Marian?”

”I found him interesting,” said Miss Trevor.

Howard thought a great deal about Miss Trevor that night, and she was still in his head the next day. ”This comes of never seeing women,” he said to himself. ”The first girl I meet seems the most beautiful I ever saw, and the most intellectual. And, when I think it over, what did she say that was startling?”

Nevertheless he went with Segur the next Sunday to Mrs. Sidney's great house in the upper Avenue overlooking the Park.

”Why do I come here?” he asked himself. ”It is a sheer waste of time.

Mrs. Sidney can do me no good, or I her. It must be the hope of seeing Miss Trevor.”

When the gaudy and be-powdered flunkey held back the heavy curtains of the salon to announce him and Segur, he saw Miss Trevor on a low chair absently staring into the fire. Yet when he had spoken to Mrs. Sidney and turned toward her she at once stretched out her hand with a slight smile. Some others came in and Howard was free to talk to her. He sat looking at her steadily, admiring her almost perfect profile, delicate yet strong.

”And what have you been doing since I saw you?” Miss Trevor asked.

”Writing little pieces about politics for the paper,” replied Howard.

”Politics? I detest it. It is all stealing and calling names, isn't it?

And something dreadful is always going to happen if somebody or other isn't elected, or is elected, to something or other. And then, whether he is or not, nothing happens. I should think the men who have been so excited and angry and alarmed would feel very cheap. But they don't. And the next time they carry on in just the same ridiculous way.”

”Politics is like everything else--interesting if you understand what it is all about. But like everything else, you can't understand it without a little study at first. It's a pity women don't take an interest. If they did the men might become more reasonable and sane about it than they are now. But you--what have you been doing?”

”I--oh, industriously superintending the making of my new nets.” Marian laughed and Howard was flattered. ”And also, well, riding in the Park every morning. But I never do anything interesting. I simply drift.”

”That's so much simpler and more satisfactory than thres.h.i.+ng and splas.h.i.+ng about as I do. It seems so fussy and foolish and futile. I wish--that is, sometimes I wish--that I had learned to amuse myself in some less violent and exhausting way.”

”Marian--I say, Marian,” called Mrs. Sidney. ”Has Teddy come down?”

Miss Trevor coloured slightly as she answered: ”No, he comes a week Wednesday. He's still hunting.”

”Hunting,” Howard repeated when Mrs. Sidney was again busy with the others. ”Now there is a kind of work that never bothers a man's brains or sets him to worrying. I wish I knew how to amuse myself in some such way.”

”You should go about more.”

”Go--where?”

”To see people.”

”But I do see a great many people. I'm always seeing them--all day long.”

”Yes--but that is in a serious way. I mean go where you will be amused--to dinners for instance.”

”I don't dare. I can't work at work and also work at play. I must work at one or the other all the time. I can do nothing without a definite object. I can't be just a little interested in anything or anybody.

With me it is no interest at all or else absorption until interest is exhausted.”

”Then if you were interested in a woman, let us say, you'd be absorbed until you found out all there was, and then you'd--take to your heels.”