More Dolly Dialogues/A Fatal Obstacle

HAT I can't make out," I observed (addressing myself to Lady Jane), "is why women don't fall in love with me. I'm all a man should be, and a reasonable number of things that he shouldn't."

Lady Jane always tries to be polite.

"Perhaps it's just that you don't find it out," she suggested after a moment's consideration.

"I shall adopt that view," said I cordially. "It will add a spice to the most formal greeting."

"It'll make you do awfully silly things," remarked Dolly, with an air of experience.

Lady Jane was looking thoughtful. "Mamma says love comes with marriage," she went on presently.

"Yes, generally," I assented. "Not," I added, turning to Dolly, "that three in a brougham is really comfortable, you know."

"One has to invite him sometimes," Dolly murmured. "Oh, but I'm sure mamma meant"

"Mamma meant that you'd been flirting with the curate, Jane."

"Dorothea dear!" gasped Lady Jane.

"The secret of love lies, I suppose, in unselfishness" (I threw out the suggestion in a tentative way).

"That's what makes Archie such a good husband," said Dolly.

"It must, of course, exist on both sides, Lady Mickleham." "Oh, no, that's tiresome. It's like getting through the door—nobody'll go first."

"True. You spend all your time trying to be allowed to do what you don't want to do; and the other party does the same."

"Mr. Shenton says that the power of sympathy is the real secret of it." Mr. Shenton, by the way, is the curate.

I glanced at Dolly and shook my head; she nodded approvingly. Thus buttressed, I remarked deliberately, "The power of sympathy has wrecked far more homes than it has—er—blessed. I would, on the whole, back it against the Victoria Cross."

"I think I could love a man just for being good," mused Lady Jane.

"Oh, you impossible kind of an old dear!" Dolly gurgled affectionately. "Besides, that's no use to poor Mr. Carter."

"I am not so very bad," said I. "Come, now, we'll run through my vices and"

"I think I forgot to water that fern," said Lady Jane rather suddenly.

"There was once a governess" I began, thinking to beguile Dolly's leisure with the story. Lady Jane had left us.

"I know about that; Mrs. Hilary told me."

"Then you're quite friends now?"

"Not particularly, but one must talk about something. There was another girl in love with you once, too."

"Why not have told me at the time? I should have enjoyed it."

"I mustn't tell you her name." I did not speak for a moment. "Well then, it was Agatha Hornton."

"Agatha Martin that is?"

"I suppose she thought that, as you were hopeless" (Dolly was seeming a good deal amused at something), "she might as well marry Captain Martin."

"One can be unhappy without being absurd," said I, rather crossly. "Dear, dear! 'Having known me to decline'"

"Decline? I didn't say she absolutely asked you!"

"I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance cramps my conversation. Was she very fond of me?"

"She thought you handsome," said Dolly conclusively.

"It was a grande passion?"

"Oh, no. She'd been very well brought up. But she just adored you."

"She was a nice girl—a thoroughly nice girl. I never thought much of Martin. Ugly fellow, too."

"She used to bore me awfully about you. You see, I was her great friend, and she knew she could trust me."

"Not to give her away?"

"Yes," said Dolly, gently caressing the Japanese pug that the Admiral Commanding on the Pacific Station has recently sent her.

"It's beautiful how you women stand by one another," I observed. "What was it that particularly attracted her in me?"

"I really cannot think," said Dolly. "Any more than I can think what attracted Oh, do you mind ringing the bell? It's Fushahima's tea-time."

"I wish she took it a minute later," said I, as I obeyed. "Martin was a very dull chap, you know."

"Something seems to have set you thinking of Captain Martin."

"I met them all coming back from church (they were coming back, I mean) a Sunday or two ago. Four, aren't there?"

"Five. Three girls and two boys."

"Getting big too, aren't they?"

"Fine children, Mr. Carter," observed Dolly cheerfully.

"She was certainly a clever girl—in those days."

"Ah, in those days!" Dolly murmured, with an indulgent smile—one that means you can go on if you like, but that you are obviously rather foolish.

"Idyllic happiness," said I, resuming my seat, "comes to very few of us, Lady Mickleham."

"Well, one marries, or something, you see."

"There is, of course, one's career."

"Archie's quite keen on being an Under-Secretary."

"I may not understand, but I am willing to admire. Why didn't the girl encourage me? I expect that's all I wanted."

"Well, what do you mean by encouragement?" asked Dolly, pulling Fushahima's ears. She is always alive to the artistic value of the brute creation.

"What I mean by it is conveying, however delicately, that I was the only man in the world she ever did or could care for. Isn't that what you used to mean by it, Lady Mickleham?"

"You can take Fushahima, Pattern," said Dolly.

"Yes, my lady."

"Not too much cream in her milk."

"Very good, my lady."

"What were you saying, Mr. Carter?"

"I forget, my lady."

There was a moment's silence—sometimes there should be.

Then I took my tea and stood on the hearthrug, drinking it.

"Solitude, I believe, has its consolations, when one looks at other people's families. Besides, it's surprising the number of little luxuries I get for nothing."

"For nothing?"

"Well, out of Mrs. Carter's dress allowance. It's quite moderate—only four hundred a year—but it keeps a cab, and buys a little drawing, perhaps, and so on. It's a great comfort, I assure you."

Dolly began to laugh gently.

"She'd have exceeded it, and I never do more than anticipate it," I pursued.

"I've sometimes wondered at your extravagance."

"Ah, well, you understand it now."

"Did the allowance include frocks for the girls?"

"Pray curb your imagination, Lady Mickleham."

"You quite shuddered!"

"I had visions of short stiff frocks and long black stockings—like a family group at the Royal Academy, all legs and innocence, you know."

"Yes, and all named Carter!" sighed Dolly, with a commiserating air.

"You don't like the name?"

"Not much."

I looked at Dolly. I think we must have smiled.

"I might have known there was some such reason," said I.

"I do wonder what's become of Jane, and why they don't bring Fushahima back," said Dolly.

"It's always a comfort to get at the real reason of anything. Now if my name had been Vavasour—or"

"I don't mind 'Mr. Carter' so much, but 'Mrs.Carter' sounds horrible," Dolly explained.

"Girls being, as we all know, in the habit of writing the competing names in conjunction with their own Christian names on the backs of envelopes and the fly-leaves of library books, in order to see how they look, I can well understand that, if it came to a choice between Carter and"

At this point, before I had fully developed my remark. Lady Jane came back. She sometimes does by accident what the Dowager would do on purpose. Heredity, I imagine.

"I've been thinking about it," said Lady Jane, "and I'm quite sure it's goodness of heart."

"A fatal obstacle," I said, shaking my head despondently.

"Another!" murmured Dolly, with a lift of her brows.

"Shining through, you know, Mr. Carter," added Lady Jane.

"I really don't see the use of continuing the conversation."

"You must encourage him, Dorothea," said Lady Jane, with a smile.

Dolly laughed. I won't swear she didn't blush just a trifle.

"Oh, I've given up trying to do that, long ago, Jane dear," said she.

"She used to succeed far too well, you know. Oh, but pray allow me to hand you a cup of tea."

I went away soon afterwards. I had to pay a call—on the Martins.

Copyright, 1901, by the S. S. McClure Co., in the United States of America.