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Flaming Youth

<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> Semicircles of weariness hollowed Robert Osterhout's eyes as he opened the door and entered Mona's room. It had been a hard night for him. Memory had been delicately dissecting his nerves. Striving in vain to lose himself in his experiments he had turned, early in the morning, to his communion with the dead woman. The letter, that pitiful solace for the unremitting pain of loss and loneliness, was in his hand now as he closed the door behind him. " ... As for Pat," he had written, "she is one of those born to trouble the hearts of men and to take fire from their trouble. Of the tribe of Helen! If I could see her safely married—— Safely! As if there were any safety in marriage! Not under our present system. Look at Connie. Though, for that matter, my misgivings about her and Cary Scott seem to have been misplaced. That flame has flickered out. She will perhaps settle down from sheer inertia. But hers is hardly what one would call a safe or successful marriage. Dee's may be better. Not that she is specially in love with James. But her training at sports will stand her in good stead. She will go through with it. Dee is first and last a good sport. Nevertheless, I sometimes wish she had waited for the really right man, if there be any such for her. "Mona, there are times when I could believe in trial marriage, with suitable safeguards, of course, against children. If I were a philosopher instead of a medical man I should certainly favour the system. But my technical training prejudices my judgment. Of course, we do[Pg 151] have trial marriages, and commonly; or trial alliances, which is the same thing without the same name. If the truth were known I suppose that most men who marry the second time, marry their mistresses. How many other experiments may previously have gone into the discard as having proved unsuitable, is another question. Selection of the fittest. The notion that men never marry the women who give themselves is fictional cant, one of those many falsities which society propagates under the silly delusion that they are safeguards of virtue. "What an experiment it would be to bring up a young girl in an atmosphere clear of all the common lies and illusions! You had begun to do it with Pat, I think. I wish that I could carry on. But it is too blind a venture for a worn and uncertain bachelor like myself. Nevertheless, when Pat does put questions to me I give her the truth. And she has a flair for truth. An enquiring and pioneering sort of mind, too, which would be a fine equipment if only it were trained and disciplined. As it is, it is a danger. She will explore, and exploration, with her temperament—Pat ought to marry some man much older than herself; a man of thirty at least, clever enough to understand her, patient enough to bear with her caprices, and strong enough to compel her respect. He could make something real of her, for there is essential character in Pat. Or is it only the charm of her personality that makes one think so? I could wish that Cary Scott were not married. Though, of course, he is too old for her. He takes a great deal of interest in her and has much influence over her mind; but his interest is not that kind of interest, naturally. He has been talking to me about her; very shrewdly, too. He thinks her of the dangerously inflammable type. I fancy that she has been making a confidant of him. He thinks that I should talk[Pg 152] to her plainly. I feel rather alarmed at the prospect; the modern flapper knows so formidably much!" Opening the safe to add this letter to the accumulating pile in the centre compartment, Osterhout was conscious of a subtle and troubling impression. He felt that some alien hand had intruded there, some alien eye had seen those words, so sacredly confidential, sealed in the inviolable silences of death. Yet that, he knew, was impossible. No one in the world except himself had the combination of the safe. Could Mona herself, Mona's spirit, returning to the room she had so loved and so permeated with her personality, have entered there to absorb the essence of the confidences which she had demanded of him? But if that were so, why should he feel that sense of invasion, since the letters belonged more to Mona than to him? Nevertheless, the thought was a blessed appeasement to the thirst of his heart. He clasped it to him. But presently his underlying materialistic hard sense reasserted its ascendancy. He set it all down to imagination; smiled tolerantly at himself for a sentimental self-deluder. For a long time Pat did not come to pay him the expected visit. But the day before her return to school she appeared in his laboratory. "Bobs," she announced pathetically, "I've got a sore throat." "Let's have a look at it," he directed, leading her to the window. She tilted back her face, while he explored the recesses of the accused organ. "Sore throat, eh?" he remarked. "At least your mouth is clean, which is more than could have been said of it a year ago. You've got a breath like a cow." "'Snice," purred Pat. "I'm a good little dieter. But what about my throat?" [Pg 153] "Well," answered the physician judicially, "it might be diphtheria or it might be scarlet fever, but I think it's that guilty feeling that comes of telling lies about itself. Your throat is no more sore than my pipe." "I know it isn't," admitted the unabashed Pat. "But I'm kind of wrong inside. Way-way inside, I mean." "The patient must be more specific if the physician is to be of use." "Bobs, am I a fool?" "I suppose so. Most people are." "Am I a dam' fool?" "As to degree we come to a consideration of definition which——" "Mr. Scott thinks I am." "Hello! Who's making this diagnosis? Cary Scott, or you, or I?" "Do you think I ought to go to college?" "Too late. You couldn't get in now, thanks to that infernal, mind-coddling, brain-softening school of yours." "It isn't! I love the school. They let you do whatever you like." "Which is, of course, the best possible course for a finished product like you." "Oh, well! Who cares? I don't." "Then why come to me?" "I don't think I'm getting everything out of—of things that I might," said Pat plaintively. "That's the beginning of wisdom. Why this divine discontent? Have the movies begun to pall?" "Oh, have you seen Doug Fairbanks in his last? He's too flawless." "Evidently they haven't begun to pall. If I could be assured of its being his last I would gladly go to see the too-flawless Doug. But my dull artistic appreciations[Pg 154] do not rise above Charley Chaplin. But we wander. We were discussing your way-way inside, weren't we? Why its sudden discomposure?" "I thought you could tell me. You know so much, Bobs. I'm getting bored with the things I used to like. I think it's talking with Mr. Scott. He's so different, and he makes the rest seem dull." "Yes; Scott is a bit of a prig," said Osterhout with intention. "He isn't!" flashed Pat indignantly. "He's the best dressed man at the club. Jimmie James says so." As the physician smiled at this naïve refutation she added: "Well, a man can't be a prig and look the way Mr. Scott always does, can he?" "Obviously not." "It's only because he's been about the world so much and knows such a lot about music and art and books and—and things." "Well, you've had the advantages of a liberal and ladylike education yourself. Kindred spirits. Don't fall in love with Cary Scott, Infant. Remember he's a married man," smiled Osterhout. "Fall in love with him? Why, I'd as soon think of falling in love with you! He's old enough to be my grandfather! But I think he's awfully good for me," she added naïvely. "Don't you love to talk with Mr. Scott, Bobs?" "Oh, I just adore it!" simpered the doctor, clasping fervent hands. "Now you're laughing at me," she pouted. "He's always laughing at me. That doesn't help much." "Sometimes it does, Bambina. It might even teach you to laugh at yourself." [Pg 155] "I do that, too. And sometimes I cry at myself. All night." "Do you?" He scrutinised her. "At your age? What do you cry about?" "Just about myself. Because nothing seems worth while except—except queer things." "That's morbid. Or else it's a pose." "It isn't a pose. I even don't like school as much as I did. Bobs, I want to leave after this term. D'you think if you went to Dad you could talk him into letting me?" "Much more likely that you could. What's your plan? Launch yourself socially on a waiting world?" "Don't be spit-catty; it doesn't suit you. No; I want to come back home and run the house for Dad and have some fun. I've been taking domestic science, and I know I could do it better than Con. She'd be glad to be rid of the bother, anyway. I thought I'd work at music, too. Do you think I could do anything with my voice, Bobs?" "Don't ask me. Any crow knows more music than I do. I think it would be good for you to tackle anything steady and regular. It would keep you from being too introspective." "Nice Bobs, to give me all the big words for nothing! That means that I think too much about myself, doesn't it? I know I do. And I talk too much about myself, too. I came over here just to talk about myself and to get you to talk about me," she confessed simply. With an air of considered maturity, she added: "It isn't much fun for me to talk to boys of my own age. They're always wanting to tell you about themselves, or else to make love to you. Generally it's love-stuff." "Indeed! Do you go in much for that particular indoor sport, Pat?" [Pg 156] "Oh, it isn't all indoors. There's porch swings, and limousines; all that helps. Are you shocked, Bobs?" "I'm interested. The habits of the young of the species are bound to be interesting to a scientist." "You said something when you said 'habits.' Everybody does it. Didn't you when you were young?" "It's so long ago that I've forgotten. But I don't think my sisters did. Not promiscuously." "If they did you'd be the last one that knew about it," the sapient Pat informed him. "And I hate the word 'promiscuously.' Besides, it isn't true. I don't. Not any more." "Great grief, Infant! You talk as if you'd been at this sort of thing for uncounted years!" "I've been over twelve for some time, you know," she observed lightly. "Perhaps it's as well that you reminded me. You seem so permanently young to me. However, speaking medically, I should say cut it out, Infant. Cut it out for good. It's no good for you. It's no good for any young girl; but particularly not for you." She knitted her pretty brows at him, thinking it through. "I get you, Stephen," she said presently. "Though I'm not so different from other girls, only a little more so than some, maybe. But you're right. Sometimes I've felt like a nervous wreck. I wish that I didn't know so much about myself. Or else that I knew a little more." "You know quite enough. At any rate you spend quite enough time thinking about yourself. Where do you suppose all this leads to, Pat?" "I don't know. Lots of time to think about that, isn't there? I suppose I'll get married and have a lot of kids some day. I like kids." "It would probably be the best thing for you." [Pg 157] "Do you think so? But I'd be a rotten wife, Bobs," she added, a cloud settling down upon her expressive face. "What kind of a training have I had to marry and have children to bring up?" "About the same as most of your set, haven't you?" "Yes; and look at them! There isn't one of them that's true to her husband." "Great Lord, Pat——" "Now, I have shocked you." "Yes, you have. Not the fact—though it isn't a fact so sweepingly—but that you at your age should know it or think it." "Oh, I don't mean necessarily that they go the limit. But they're all out for a flutter with any attractive suitor that comes along. Bobs, tell me something; if a married woman goes necking around isn't she more likely to—to go farther than a girl is?" "Depends on the individual. It isn't the safest of pastimes for anyone, as I've suggested to you." "But it's such fun to make 'em crazy," returned the irrepressible Pat. "Only," she added pensively, "it isn't such fun when you feel kind of crazy yourself. Yet it is, too. When I get married I'm going to everlastingly settle down and never look sideways at any other man. Bobs, what makes you think I ought to marry a man thirty years old?" "It's about the right age for you. It will take a man of some wisdom and self-control to manage you, little Pat." "More grandfather stuff!" she muttered fretfully. "I don't want to marry a settled old thing. I want someone with some fun left in him." "Two or three years from now thirty won't look so senile." [Pg 158] "Probably not. Dee's marrying a man over thirty. Bobs, do you like Dee's engagement?" "No; I don't," he answered, and straightway wished that he had not been betrayed into that frankness. "Neither do I. Jimmie James thinks he's first cousin to the Almighty. Dee won't stand for that." "She seems devoted to him." "Oh, she'll see it through. Dee's a good old girl. But I wish she wouldn't. Have you told her what you think about it?" "Certainly not!" "Well, don't bite me. Would you have if she'd asked you?" "Perhaps. I doubt it." "I'd have thought she'd have come to you. Dee's awfully impressed with you, Bobs. Lots more than I am. Would you tell me if I came to you?" "Of course." "Why the difference, I wonder? Never mind, old dear. I'll make you a promise right here that I won't marry anyone without your consent. Only, you'll have to give your consent if I want it very much, you know. Won't you, Bobs?" "Probably," he said. She waved him a kiss and was gone. He returned to his interrupted task. In the midst of a test which should have absorbed all his attention a sudden query jarred itself into his brain. How had Pat known that he thought it desirable for her to marry a man of thirty? Certainly he had never told her so. He had never told anyone so. Except Mona. <hr /> [Pg 159] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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