Part 6 (1/2)
Just as Master McAllister reached them, raising his hat and bowing to Mary and her friend--Helen's eyes and Helen's smile unconsciously lingered on him for a second or two until, apparently recollecting that she was looking at another, she lowered her glance and peeped at him through her eyelashes instead.
Mary meanwhile was calmly continuing her conversation, never even suspecting the comedy which was going on by her side, but when Helen shot a glance over her shoulder and whispered with satisfaction ”He turned to look!” even Mary began to have some slight idea of what was going on.
”Helen,” she demurred, ”you should never turn around to look at a young man.”
”Why not?” laughed Helen, her arm going around her cousin's waist. And speaking in the voice of one who has just achieved a triumph, she added, ”They're all such fo-oo-ools!”
Mary thought that over.
Helen's correspondents continued active, and as each letter arrived she read parts of it to her cousin. She was a mimic, and two of the letters she read in character one afternoon when Mary was changing her dress for dinner.
”Oh, Helen, you shouldn't,” said Mary, laughing in spite of herself and feeling ashamed of it the same moment. ”I think it's awful to make fun of people who write you like that.”
”Pooh!” laughed Helen. ”They're all such fo-oo-ools!”
”You don't think that of all men, do you!”
”Why not?” laughed Helen again, and tucking the letters into her waist she started humming. Un.o.bserved Ma'm Maynard had entered to straighten the room and, through the mirror, Mary saw her grimly nodding her head.
”Why, Ma'm Maynard,” said Mary, ”you don't think that all men are fools, too, do you?”
”Eet is not halways safe to say what one believes,” said Ma'm, pursing her lips with mystery. ”Eef mademoiselles, your aunts, should get to hear--”
”Oh, I won't tell.”
”Then, yes, ma cherie, I think at times all men are fools ... and I think it is also good at times to make a fool of man. For why? Because it is revenge.
”Ah, ma cherie, I who have been three times wed--I tell you I often think the old-world view is right. Man is the natural enemy of a woman.
”He is not to be trus'.
”I have heard it discuss' by great minds--things I cannot tell you yet--but you will learn them as you live. And halways the same conclusion arrives: Man is the natural enemy of a woman, and the one best way to keep him from making a fool of you, is to turn 'round queeck and make it a fool of him!”
”Oh, Ma'm Maynard, no!” protested Mary, who had turned from the mirror and was staring with wide eyes. ”I can't believe it--never!”
”What is it, ma cherie, which you cannot believe?”
”That man is woman's natural enemy.”
”But I tell you, yes, yes.... It has halways been so and it halways will.
Everything that lives has its own natural enemy--and a woman's natural enemy--it is man!
”Think just for a moment, ma cherie,” she continued. ”Why are parents so careful? Mon Dieu, you would think it at times that a tiger is out in the streets at night--such precautions are made if the girl she is out after dark. And yes, but the parents are right. There is truly a tiger who roams in the black, but his name--eet is Man!
”Think just for a moment, ma cherie. Why are chaperons require'--even in the highest, most culture' society? Why is marriage require'? Is it not because all the world knows well that a man cannot be left to his own promise, but has to be bound by the law as a lion is held in a cage?”
”No,” said Mary, shaking her head, ”I'm sure it isn't that way. You're simply turning things around and making everything seem horrid.”