Page:The Pacific Monthly vol. 14.djvu/588

 THE ETHICS OF EMOTION

By Byron E. Cooney

WITH rare discrimination Mrs. DuFrane seated the ingenue from Dodgeville and the Professor side by side. The keen intuition of the experienced hostess tokl her she must protect her niece from any possible embarrassment, for there was no telling what thoughtless women or nonsensical boys might say to set the debutante ill at ease at this, her first dinner party.

"What Mrs. DuFrane chose to think of as "tongue-tieditis" was as much to be dreaded as parlor paralysis, and for this she had provided a preventive. The Pro- fessor was the preventive.

They were well on with the soup when the ingenue felt herself flushing to the brows at the consciousness that she had not uttered a word. Clever enough on occasion, she found it hard to fall to the mood of strange people in a strange house. Something must be done — she must say something, apt or awkward, smart or silly ; she must take a chance and enter the conversation.

The hostess was frowning at the Professor; the Professor was frowning back at the hostess; an ill-tempered admission that he had found a situation with which he was unable to cope. A peal of laughter burst from the rest of the com- pany at one of McViety's delicate bits of nonscLse; it echoed back at Mrs. Terril's ele"^er rejoinder, until the glasses seemed to tinkU together in merriment. The Pro- fessor was still frowning.

"Laugh — laugh and the world laughs with you," the ingenue had taken the desperate step and addressed her silent companion

"You think the advice good?" he asked, stupidly,

"I hadn't thought much aboiit it. I spoke onlj that I might be saying some- thing." Something about the kindly eyes beneath t le bushy eyebrows inspired her to candor. "But, now — why, yes. Laughter is the sanshine of life."

"And tears?"

"Tears are the clouds — the storms." . "A-hem." The Professor picked up an olive. B is eyes twinkled with the keen pleasure of contemplated sophistries. He had trapped his victim into delivering an axiom, and now he purposed to nail her to the croiis of her own philosophy,

"You have said that laughter symbolizes the su ashine of life, and tears the clouds- -briefly, laughter signifies happiness, tears unfiappiness."

"Assuredly."

Mrs. DuFrane cast an indulgent smile on the unconscious Professor. The ingenue's eyes were bright with the animation of debate, and the self-conscious expression had vanished. She no longer considered it necessary to eat with religious diligence, or to listen to the general conversation with counterfeited interest. When the West Pointer spoke to her she answered him shortly.

"Laughter, considered jDhysically, is a sudden exhalation of the breath, and a corresponding relaxation of the muscles of the lungs, throat and face. The act typi- fies a similar recession from a mental attitude. The associations of the laugh are not good. To be analytical, let us consider its cause and effect. Wliy do we laugh? What does the laugh accomplish? We invariably laugh because some person or thing has forfeited part of its dignity. Tell me what were the occasion of your merry laughs today."

"The funniest old woman in a poke bonnet." "Yes."