Part 28 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIX
FRANCES GOES TO THE COUNTRY
I am very fond of my room on the top floor of Mrs. Milliken's house, but, as regards privacy, I might nearly as well have lodgings in a corner grocery. I had finally arranged that Frances was to go to a hilly part of New Jersey, near a very pretty lake, and gather health and a coat of tan for herself and Baby Paul. I was to leave with her on the one forty-five, in order to help her on the journey and see her safely installed. The noon hour had struck and the whistles of a few thousand factories were confirming the announcement, when a vision presented itself at my door. It was very prettily clad, with a love of a hat and a most becoming gown, and smiled engagingly. She had fluffy hair and first rate teeth. Also, she immediately developed a slight lisp that did not lack attractiveness.
”Mr. Cole!” she exclaimed. ”May I come in? I am from the _New York Banner_. I should like to have you tell me all about your novels and your impressions of modern literary activities, and something as to your views upon the war, and----”
She was already in the middle of my room, and I could do no otherwise than to advance a chair for her.
”Pray take a seat, Miss----”
”I am Cordelia.”
”Cordelia!”
”Yes, privately Josie Higgins. I hope that you can give me a photograph of yourself that we can publish. The public is dying to hear all about you. I must interview you or die in the attempt, which would be very inconvenient as I have an appointment to see Gretz at two-thirty, fellow who killed his mother-in-law. Thanks, I will take the chair. It is getting quite warm again, isn't it?”
She pulled out a small note book and a business-like pencil from a frivolous handbag, as my heart sank within me. I shared the feelings of a small boy haled before the princ.i.p.al of his school. She looked small and inoffensive, but I knew that pencil of hers to be sharper than the serpent's tooth. Heavens! She was looking at the slouchy slippers I still wore and at the bed, yet undone, since I had told the landlady she might as well have it attended to after my departure. Her eyes wandered swiftly from the inkspot on the carpet to the bundle of collars and s.h.i.+rts Eulalie had deposited on my trunk. She also picked up my fragrant calabash from the desk close at hand and contemplated it, curiously. All this quick as a flash.
After this, she scrutinized my countenance, with her head c.o.c.ked a little to one side, and jotted down something.
”That's good,” she declared, apparently much gratified. ”I think I know what you would say, but you had better tell it yourself. For nothing on earth would I fake an interview, and anyway you look very kind and obliging. Now tell me how you ever happened to think of 'Land o' Love.'”
”I'm sure I don't know,” I answered truthfully.
”Undoubtedly,” she acquiesced. ”Ideas like that just worm themselves into one's head and one puts them down. But, of course, that won't quite do. Don't you think we had better say that you have long been impressed by the sadness of most lives, in the end, and were anxious to show how, from unpromising beginnings, an existence may turn from dross into refined gold by the exercise of will, of human sympathy, of tolerance of foibles and love for one's fellow man? That will do very nicely!”
She was putting down her words with lightning speed.
”Now tell me. Did you ever really know a counterpart of Jennie Frisbie?”
she asked again. ”She has become a sort of cla.s.sic, you know. Women are weeping with her and love her to distraction. They wonder how a mere man can have so penetrated the inwardness of their s.e.x and painted such a beautiful picture of it at its best.”
”Don't know that I ever did, my dear young lady,” I replied reluctantly.
”Of course you didn't. They're not really made that way. For my part, I think that a lot of women are cats,” said the famed Cordelia. ”But naturally we can't say it in print. Your answer should be that beneath the surface every woman holds the potentialities of a Jennie Frisbie.
'No, I have never known my heroine in person,' said Mr. Cole, looking dreamily out of the window, 'but I have known a thousand of her. She is a composite photograph, the final impression gathered by one who has done his best to obtain definite colors wherewith to paint a type, accurately and truthfully.' Yes, I think that'll do.”
Her pencil was flying, as I looked at her, aghast.
”Miss Cordelia,” I said, ”you're a very attractive and bewitching young fraud.”
She showed her pretty teeth, laughing heartily.
”I'm not at all a fraud,” she disclaimed. ”I deliver the goods, at least to my paper, and I never hurt people who are decently civil. How about your views on the Great American Novel?”
”It will probably be written by a Frenchman or a j.a.p,” I answered, ”for no man can do perfect justice to his own people.”
”That's not so bad,” she approved, ”I think I'll put that down.”