Part 21 (1/2)

”You mean just begun,” said Mrs. Upton, with a sigh. ”The hardest work a match-maker has is in conducting the campaign after the nominations are made. When two people love each other madly, they are apt to do a great deal of quarrelling over absolutely nothing, and I'm not at all sure that an engagement means marriage until the ceremony has taken place.”

”And even then,” suggested Henry, ”there are the divorce courts, eh?”

”We won't refer to them,” said Mrs. Upton, severely; ”they are relics of barbarism. But as for the ending of my romance, my real work now begins. I must watch those two young people carefully and see that their little quarrels are smoothed over, their irritations allayed, and that every possible difference between them is adjusted.”

”But you and I didn't quarrel when we were engaged,” persisted Upton.

”No, we didn't, Henry,” replied Mrs. Upton. ”But that was only because it takes two to make a quarrel, and I loved you so much that I was really blind to all your possibilities as an irritant.”

”Oh!” said Henry, reflectively.

III

A SET-BACK

”All is confounded, all!

Reproach and everlasting shame Sits mocking in our plumes.”

--_Henry V_.

Time demonstrated with great effectiveness the unhappy fact that Mrs.

Upton knew whereof she spoke when she likened an engagement to a political campaign, in that the real battle begins after the nominations are made. Walter Bliss had decided views as to life, and Miss Meeker was hardly less settled in her convictions. Long before she had met Bliss, in default of a real she had builded up in her mind an ideal man, which at first, second, and even third sight Walter had seemed to her to represent. But unfortunately there is a fourth sight, and the lover or the _fiancee_ who can get beyond this is safe--comparatively safe, that is, for everything in this world has its merits or its demerits, comparatively speaking, and the comparison is more often than not made from the point of view of what ought to be rather than of what really is. Mrs. Upton was a realist--that is, she thought she was; and so was Miss Meeker. Everybody looks at life from his or her own point of view, and there must always be, consequently, two points of view, for there will always be a male way and a female way of looking at things. Walter was in love with his profession. Molly was in love with him as an abstract thing. She knew nothing of him as a Was.h.i.+ngton fighting measles; she was not aware whether he could combat tonsillitis as successfully as Napoleon fought the Austrians or not, and it may be added that she didn't care. He was merely a man in her estimation; a thing in the abstract, and a most charming thing on the whole. He, on the other hand, looked upon her not as a woman, but as a soul, and a purified soul at that: an angel, indeed, without the inc.u.mbrance of wings, was she, and with a rather more comprehensive knowledge of dress than is attributed to most of angels. But two people cannot go on forming an ideal of each other continuously without at some time reaching a point of divergence, and Walter and Molly reached that point within ten weeks. It happened that while calling upon her one evening Walter received a professional summons which he admitted was all nonsense--why should people call in doctors when it is ”all nonsense”?

The call came while Walter was turning over the leaves at the piano as Molly played.

”What is this?” he said, as he opened the note that was addressed to him. ”Humph! Mrs. Hubbard's boy is sick--”

”Must you go?” Molly asked.

”I suppose so,” said Walter. ”I saw him this afternoon, and there is not the slightest thing the matter with him, but I must go.”

”Why?” asked Molly. ”Are you the kind of doctor they call in when there's nothing the matter?”

She did not mean to be sarcastic, but she seemed to be, and Walter, of course, like a properly sensitive soul, was hurt.

”I must go,” he said, positively, ignoring the thrust.

”But you say there is nothing the matter with the boy,” suggested Molly.

”I'm going just the same,” said Walter, and he went.

Molly played on at the piano until she heard the front door slam, and then she rose up and went to the window. Walter had gone and was out of sight. Then, sad to say, she became philosophical. It doesn't really pay for girls to become philosophical, but Molly did not know that, and she began a course of reasoning.

”He knows he isn't needed, but he goes,” she said to herself, as she gazed dejectedly out of the window at the gaslamps on the other side of the street. ”And he will of course charge the Hubbards for his services, admitting, however, that his services are nothing. That is not conscientious--it is not professional. He is not practising for the love of his profession, but for the love of money. I am disappointed in him--and we were having such a pleasant time, too!”

So she ran on as she sat there in the window-seat looking out upon the dreary street; and you may be sure that the commingling of her ideals and her disappointments and her sense of loneliness did not help Walter's case in the least, and that when they met the next time her manner towards him was what some persons term ”sniffy,” which was a manner Walter could not and would not abide. Hence a marked coolness arose between the two, which by degrees became so intensified that at about the time when Mrs. Upton was expected to be called in to a.s.sist at a wedding, she was stunned by the information that ”all was over between them.” ”Just think of that, Henry,” the good match-maker cried, wrathfully. ”All is over between them, and Molly pretends she is glad of it.”

”Made for each other too!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Upton, with a mock air of sorrow.

”What was the matter?”