The Cords of Vanity

When I first knew Stella she was within a month of being fifteen, which is for womankind an unattractive age. There were a startling number of corners to her then, and she had but vague notions as to the management of her hands and feet. In consequence they were perpetually turning up in unexpected places and surprising her by their size and number. Yes, she was very hopelessly fifteen; and she was used to laugh, unnecessarily, in a nervous fashion, approximating to a whinny, and when engaged in conversation she patted down her skirts six times to the minute.

It seems oddly unbelievable when I reflect that Rosalind⁠—“daughter to the banished Duke”⁠—and Stella and Helen of Troy, and all the other famous fair ones of history, were each like that at one period or another.

As for myself, I was nine days younger than Stella, and so I was at this time very old⁠—much older than it is ever permitted anyone to be afterward. I cherished the most optimistic ideas as to my impendent moustache, and was wont in privacy to encourage it with the manicure-scissors. I still entertained the belief that girls were upon the whole superfluous nuisances, but was beginning to perceive the expediency of concealing this opinion, even in private converse with my dearest chum, where, in our joyous interchange of various heresies, we touched upon this especial subdivision of fauna very lightly, and, I now suspect, with some self-consciousness.

Left to myself, I began to retrace my steps. Solitude had mitigated my craving for tobacco in a surprising manner; indeed, a casual observer might have thought it completely forgotten, for I walked with curious leisure. When I had come again to the box-hedge my pace had degenerated, a little by a little, into an aimless lounge. Mr. Robert Etheridge Townsend was rapt with admiration of the perfect beauty of the night.

Followed a strange chance. There was only the mildest breeze about; it was barely audible among the leaves above; and yet⁠—so unreliable are the breezes of still summer nights⁠—with a sudden, tiny and almost imperceptible outburst, did this treacherous breeze lift Mr. Townsend’s brand-new straw hat from his head, and waft it over the hedge of trim box-bushes. This was unfortunate, for, as has been said, the hedge was a tall and sturdy hedge. So I peeped over it, with disconsolate countenance.

Wrapping my dressing-gown about me⁠—I had afterward reason to thank the kindly fates that it was the green one with the white fleurs-de-lis, and not my customary, unspeakably disreputable bathrobe, scorched by the cigarette ashes of years⁠—I approached the door and peeped out into the empty hotel corridor. The incandescent lights glimmered mildly through a gray haze which was acrid and choking to breathe; little puffs of smoke crept lazily out of the lift-shaft just opposite; and downstairs all Liége was shouting incoherently, and dragging about the heavier pieces of hotel furniture.

“By Jove!” said I, and whistled a little disconsolately as I looked downward through the bars about the lift-shaft.

“Do you reckon,” spoke a voice⁠—a most agreeable voice⁠—“we are in any danger?”

The owner of the voice was tall; not even the agitation of the moment prevented my observing that, big as I am, her eyes were almost on a level with my shoulder. They were not unpleasant eyes, and a stray dream or two yet lingered under their heavy lids. The owner of the voice wore a strange garment that was fluffy and pink⁠—pale pink like the lining of a seashell⁠—and billows of white and the ends of various blue ribbons peeped out about her neck. I made mental note of the fact that disordered hair is not necessarily unbecoming; it sometimes has the effect of an unusually heavy halo set about the face of a half-awakened angel.

“You are quite by way of being a gentleman,” had been Stella’s greeting, that afternoon. Then, on a sudden, she rested both hands upon my breast. When she did that you tingled all over, in an agreeable fashion. “It was uncommonly decent of you to remember,” said this impulsive young woman. “It was dear of you! And the flowers were lovely.”

“They ought to have been immortelles, of course,” I apologised, “but the florist was out of them. Yes, and of daffodils, too.” I sat down, and sighed, pensively. “Dear, dear!” said I, “to think it was only two years ago I buried my dearest hopes and aspirations and⁠—er⁠—all that sort of thing.”

“Nonsense!” said Stella, and selected a blue cup with dragons on it. “At any rate,” she continued, “it is very disagreeable of you to come here and prate like a death’s-head on my wedding anniversary.”

“Gracious gravy!” said I, with a fine surprise, “so it is an anniversary with you, too?” She was absorbed in the sugar-bowl. “What a coincidence!” I suggested, pleasantly.

I paused. The fire crackled. I sighed.

“You are such poor company, nowadays, even after the advantages of foreign travel,” Stella reflected. “You really ought to do something to enliven yourself.” After a little, she brightened as to the eyes, and concentrated them upon the tea-making, and ventured a suggestion. “Why not fall in love?” said Stella.

“I am,” I confided, “already in that deplorable condition.” And I ventured on sigh number two.

And a half-hour subsequently, true to my word, I was scaling a ten-foot stone wall, thickly overgrown with ivy. At the top of it I paused, and sat down to take breath and to meditate, my legs meanwhile bedangling over an as flourishing Italian garden as you would wish to see.

“Now, I wonder,” I queried, of my soul, “what will be next? There is a very cheerful uncertainty about what will be next. It may be a spring-gun, and it may be a bulldog, and it may be a susceptible heiress. But it is apt to be⁠—No, it isn’t,” I amended, promptly; “it is going to be an angel. Or perhaps it is going to be a dream. She can’t be real, you know⁠—I am probably just dreaming her. I would be quite certain I was just dreaming her, if this wall were not so humpy and uncomfortable. For it stands to reason, I would not be fool enough to dream of such unsympathetic iron spikes as I am sitting on.”

“Perhaps you are not aware,” hazarded a soprano voice, “that this is private property?”

“Why, no,” said I, very placidly; “on the contrary I was just thinking it must be heaven. And I am tolerably certain,” I commented further, in my soul, “that you are one of the more influential seraphim.”

The girl had lifted her brows. She sat upon a semicircular stone bench, some twenty feet from the wall, and had apparently been reading, for a book lay open in her lap.