His wife recalled the shortcomings for which she had
been taking him to task. “Send a fiddlestick,”
she rapped; “on a boiling day like this!”
She took Mary’s arm; leaning heavily, passed
from the room.
Excursions In The Mind Of A Heroine.
Her mistress disrobed, head among pillows, slippered,
coverleted, eau-de-Cologne on temples, with closed
eyes inviting sleep to lull the tumults of the day.
Mary climbed to her room.
About her mouth there was a ridiculous twitching;
and as she watched it in the mirror she strove to
wrap herself in the armour in which she had learned
to take buffetings.
To be dispassionate was the salve she had schooled
herself to use upon a wounded spirit—to
regard this Mary with the comically twitching face
whom now she saw in the glass as a second person whose
sufferings might be coldly regarded and dissected.
It is a most admirable accomplishment. Nothing
is so easy as to be philosophic upon the cares of
another—nothing so easy as to wax impatient
with an acquaintance who allows himself to be overridden
by troubles and pains which appear to us of trifling
moment. If, then, we can school ourselves to
regard the figure that bears our name as one person,
and our ego as another, we have at least a chance of
chiding that figure out of all the fancied sufferings
it may undergo.
With some success Mary had studied the art; now gave
that Mary-in-the-glass who stood before her a healthy
reproof.
“The ridiculous thing you did,” Mary-in-the-glass
was told—“the ridiculous thing you
did to make yourself miserable was to go thinking
about—about Ireland.”
The mouth of Mary-in-the-glass ominously twitched.
“There you go again. And it is so absolutely
forbidden to think about that. Whatever’s
the use of it?”
Mary-in-the-glass could adduce no reason, and must
be prodded.
“Does it do you any good? Does it do them
any good, do you suppose, to know that you can never
think of them without making yourself unhappy?”
Mary-in-the-glass attempted a weak quibble; was instantly
snapped.
“I’m not saying you are never to
think of them. Goodness knows what I should do
if I did not. It’s all right to think of
them when you are happy and they can share the happiness
with you; but, when you choose to be idiotically miserable,
that’s the time you are not to go whining anywhere
near them—understand? You only make
them unhappy and make your troubles worse. Troubles!
if you can’t see the fun of Mrs. Chater, you
must be a wretched sort of person. Her face when
the cab brought her back! And trying to feel
her heart! And her rage with that little worm
of a Mr. Chater! Can’t you see the fun of
it instead of crying over it?”
Mary-in-the-glass could. The successive recollections
induced the prettiest dimples on her face. She
was at once forgiven.
