Such was my Mary.
Beefsteak For 14 Palace Gardens.
Friday was the night of the incident in the library
between Bob Chater and Mary; Saturday the exchange
of love in the Park between Mary and her George; Saturday
evening the writing of Mary’s letter; upon Monday
George read it.
Now it was Monday morning, and precisely at ten o’clock
three persons set out for the same seat in Regent’s
Park—the mind of each filled with one of
the others, empty of all thought of the third.
Mary—accompanied by David and Angela—carried
towards the seat the image of her George, but had
no heed of Mr. Bob Chater’s existence; she was
the magnet that drew Bob, ignorant of George; George
sped to his Mary and had no thought of Bob.
Our young men were handicapped in point of distance.
Mary, with but a short half-mile to go, must easily
be first to make the seat; Bob, coming to town from
a week-end up the river, would occupy little short
of an hour. George from Herons’ Holt to
that dear seat, allowed full seventy-five minutes.
Upon the whole, Mr. Bob Chater had not enjoyed his
week-end; ideally circumstanced, for once the attractions
it offered had failed to allure.
Mr. Lemmy Moss, in the tiny riparian cottage he rented
for the summer months, was the most excellent of hosts;
Claude Avinger was widely known as a rattling good
sort; the three young ladies who came down early on
Sunday morning and had no foolish objections to staying
indecorously late, were in face, figure and morals
all that Bob, Lemmy, and Claude could desire.
Yet throughout that day in the cushioned punt Bob
won more pouts than smiles from the lady who fell
to his guardianship.
Disgustedly she remarked to her friends on the home
journey, “Fairly chucked myself at him, the
deadhead “—wherein, I apprehend, lay
her mistake. For whether a man’s assault
upon a woman be dictated by love or desire, its vehemence
is damped by acquiescence, spurred by rebuff.
Doubtless for our lusty forefathers one-half the fascination
of obtaining to wife the naked ladies who caught their
eye lay in the tremendous excitement of snatching
them from their tribes; while for the ladies, the
joy of capture comprised a great proportion of the
amorous delights.
The characteristics remain. Maidens are more
decorously won to-day; their tribes do not defend
them; but they do the fighting for themselves.
The sturdier the defence they are able to make, the
greater the joy of at length being won; while, for
the suitor, the more pains he hath endured in process
of conquest the more keenly doth he relish his captive.
So with Bob. The young lady fairly chucking herself
at him in the punt he could not forbear to contrast
with the enticing reserve of Mary. The more playfully
(or desperately, poor girl) she chucked herself at
him, the more did her charms cloy as against those
of that other prize who so stoutly kept him at arm’s-length.
Nay, the more strenuously did she seek to entice his
good offices, the more troubled was he to imagine
why another of her sex should so slightingly regard
him.
