The Green Mouse
"Jack--darling--I--I love you so!"
Flavilla was sketching on her camp-stool when they returned.
"I'm horridly hungry," she said. "It's luncheon time, isn't it? And, by
the way, it's all right about that maid. She was on her way to serve in
the tea pavilion at Mrs. Magnelius Grandcourt's bazaar, and her runabout
broke down and nearly blew up."
"What on earth are you talking about?" exclaimed Drusilla.
"I'm talking about Mrs. Magnelius Grandcourt's younger sister from
Philadelphia, who looks perfectly sweet as a lady's maid. Tea," she
added, "is to be a dollar a cup, and three if you take sugar. And," she
continued, "if you and I are to sell flowers there this afternoon we'd
better go home and dress.... _What_ are you smiling at, Mr. Yates?"
Drusilla naturally supposed she could answer that question.
"Dearest little sister," she said shyly and tenderly, "we have something
very wonderful to tell you."
"What is it?" asked Flavilla.
"We--we are--engaged," whispered Drusilla, radiant.
"Why, I knew that already!" said Flavilla.
"Did you?" sighed her sister, turning to look at her tall, young lover.
"I didn't.... Being in love is a much more complicated matter than you
and I imagined, Flavilla. Is it not, Jack?"
XVI
FLAVILLA
_Containing a Parable Told with Such Metaphorical Skill that the Author
Is Totally Unable to Understand It_
The Green Mouse now dominated the country; the entire United States was
occupied in getting married. In the great main office on Madison Avenue,
and in a thousand branch offices all over the Union, Destyn-Carr machines
were working furiously; a love-mad nation was illuminated by their
sparks.
Marriage-license bureaus had been almost put out of business by the
sudden matrimonial rush; clergymen became exhausted, wedding bells in the
churches were worn thin, California and Florida reported no orange crops,
as all the blossoms had been required for brides; there was a shortage of
solitaires, traveling clocks, asparagus tongs; and the corner in rice
perpetrated by some conscienceless captain of industry produced a panic
equaled only by a more terrible _coup_ in slightly worn shoes.
All America was rushing to get married; from Seattle to Key West the
railroads were blocked with bridal parties; a vast hum of merrymaking
resounded from the Golden Gate to Governor's Island, from Niagara to the
Gulf of Mexico. In New York City the din was persistent; all day long
church bells pealed, all day long the rattle of smart carriages and hired
hacks echoed over the asphalt. A reporter of the _Tribune_ stood on top
of the New York Life tower for an entire week, devouring cold-slaw
sandwiches and Marie Corelli, and during that period, as his affidavit
runs, "never for one consecutive second were his ample ears free from the
near or distant strains of the Wedding March."
And over all, in approving benediction, brooded the wide smile of the
greatest of statesmen and the great smile of the widest of statesmen--
these two, metaphorically, hand in hand, floated high above their people,
scattering encouraging blessings on every bride.
A tremendous rise in values set in; the newly married required homes;
architects were rushed to death; builders, real-estate operators,
brokers, could not handle the business hurled at them by impatient
bridegrooms.
Then, seizing time by the fetlock, some indescribable monster secured the
next ten years' output of go-carts. The sins of Standard Oil were
forgotten in the menace of such a national catastrophe; mothers' meetings
were held; the excitement became stupendous; a hundred thousand brides
invaded the Attorney-General's office, but all he could think of to say
was: "Thirty centuries look down upon you!"
These vague sentiments perplexed the country. People understood that the
Government meant well, but they also realized that the time was not far
off when millions of go-carts would be required in the United States. And
they no longer hesitated.
All over the Union fairs and bazaars were held to collect funds for a
great national factory to turn out carts. Alarmed, the Trust tried to
unload; militant womanhood, thoroughly aroused, scorned compromise. In
every city, town, and hamlet of the nation entertainments were given,
money collected for the great popular go-cart factory.
The affair planned for Oyster Bay was to be particularly brilliant--a
water carnival at Center Island with tableaux, fireworks, and
illuminations of all sorts.
Reassured by the magnificent attitude of America's womanhood, business
discounted the collapse of the go-cart trust and began to recover from
the check very quickly. Stocks advanced, fluctuated, and suddenly whizzed
upward like skyrockets; and the long-expected wave of prosperity
inundated the country. On the crest of it rode Cupid, bow and arrows
discarded, holding aloft in his right hand a Destyn-Carr machine.
For the old order of things had passed away; the old-fashioned doubts and
fears of courtship were now practically superfluous.
Anybody on earth could now buy a ticket and be perfectly certain that
whoever he or she might chance to marry would be the right one--the one
intended by destiny.
Yet, strange as it may appear, there still remained, here and there, a
few young people in the United States who had no desire to be safely
provided for by a Destyn-Carr machine.
Whether there was in them some sporting instinct, making hazard
attractive, or, perhaps, a conviction that Fate is kind, need not be
discussed. The fact remains that there were a very few youthful and
marriageable folk who had no desire to know beforehand what their fate
might be.
One of these unregenerate reactionists was Flavilla. To see her entire
family married by machinery was enough for her; to witness such
consummate and collective happiness became slightly cloying. Perfection
can be overdone; a rift in a lute relieves melodious monotony, and when
discords cease to amuse, one can always have the instrument mended or buy
a banjo.
"What I desire," she said, ignoring the remonstrances of the family, "is
a chance to make mistakes. Three or four nice men have thought they were
in love with me, and I wouldn't take anything for the--experience. Or,"
she added innocently, "for the chances that some day three or four more
agreeable young men may think they are in love with me. One learns by
making mistakes--very pleasantly."
Her family sat in an affectionately earnest row and adjured her--four
married sisters, four blissful brothers-in-law, her attractive
stepmother, her father. She shook her pretty head and continued sewing on
the costume she was to wear at the Oyster Bay Venetian Fête and Go-cart
Fair.
"No," she said, threading her needle and deftly sewing a shining, silvery
scale onto the mermaid's dress lying across her knees, "I'll take my
chances with men. It's better fun to love a man not intended for me, and
make him love me, and live happily and defiantly ever after, than to have
a horrid old machine settle you for life."
"But you are wasting time, dear," explained her stepmother gently.
"Oh, no, I'm not. I've been engaged three times and I've enjoyed it
immensely. That isn't wasting time, is it? And it's _such_ fun!
He thinks he's in love and you think you're in love, and you have such an
agreeable time together until you find out that you're spoons on somebody
else. And then you find out you're mistaken and you say you always want
him for a friend, and you presently begin all over again with a perfectly
new man----"
"Flavilla!"
"Yes, Pa-_pah_."
"Are you utterly demoralized!"
"Demoralized? Why? Everybody behaved as I do before you and William
invented your horrid machine. Everybody in the world married at hazard,
after being engaged to various interesting young men. And I'm not
demoralized; I'm only old-fashioned enough to take chances. Please let
me."
The family regarded her sadly. In their amalgamated happiness they
deplored her reluctance to enter where perfect bliss was guaranteed.
Her choice of rôle and costume for the Seawanhaka Club water tableaux
they also disapproved of; for she had chosen to represent a character now
superfluous and out of date--the Lorelei who lured Teutonic yachtsmen to
destruction with her singing some centuries ago. And that, in these
times, was ridiculous, because, fortified by a visit to the nearest
Destyn-Carr machine, no weak-minded young sailorman would care what a
Lorelei might do; and she could sing her pretty head off and comb herself
bald before any Destyn-Carr inoculated mariner would be lured overboard.
But Flavilla obstinately insisted on her scaled and fish-tailed costume.
When her turn came, a spot-light on the clubhouse was to illuminate the
float and reveal her, combing her golden hair with a golden comb and
singing away like the Musical Arts.
"And," she thought secretly, "if there remains upon this machine-made
earth one young man worth my kind consideration, it wouldn't surprise me
very much if he took a header off the Yacht Club wharf and requested me
to be his. And I'd be very likely to listen to his suggestion."
So in secret hopes of this pleasing episode--but not giving any such
reason to her protesting family--she vigorously resisted all attempts to
deprive her of her fish scales, golden comb, and rôle in the coming water
fête. And now the programmes were printed and it was too late for them to
intervene.
She rose, holding out the glittering, finny garment, which flashed like a
collapsed fish in the sunshine.
"It's finished," she said. "Now I'm going off somewhere by myself to
rehearse."
"In the water?" asked her father uneasily.
"Certainly."
As Flavilla was a superb swimmer nobody could object. Later, a maid went
down to the landing, stowed away luncheon, water-bottles and costume in
the canoe. Later, Flavilla herself came down to the water's edge,
hatless, sleeves rolled up, balancing a paddle across her shoulders.
As the paddle flashed and the canoe danced away over the sparkling waters
of Oyster Bay, Flavilla hummed the threadbare German song which she was
to sing in her rôle of Lorelei, and headed toward Northport.
"The thing to do," she thought to herself, "is to find some nice, little,
wooded inlet where I can safely change my costume and rehearse. I must
know whether I can swim in this thing--and whether I can sing while
swimming about. It would be more effective, I think, than merely sitting
on the float, and singing and combing my hair through all those verses."
The canoe danced across the water, the paddle glittered, dipped, swept
astern, and flashed again. Flavilla was very, very happy for no
particular reason, which is the best sort of happiness on earth.
There is a sandy neck of land which obstructs direct navigation between
the sacred waters of Oyster Bay and the profane floods which wash the
gravelly shores of Northport.
"I'll make a carry," thought Flavilla, beaching her canoe. Then, looking
around her at the lonely stretch of sand flanked by woods, she realized
at once that she need seek no farther for seclusion.
First of all, she dragged the canoe into the woods, then rapidly
undressed and drew on the mermaid's scaly suit, which fitted her to the
throat as beautifully as her own skin.
It was rather difficult for her to navigate on land, as her legs were
incased in a fish's tail, but, seizing her comb and mirror, she managed
to wriggle down to the water's edge.
A few sun-warmed rocks jutted up some little distance from shore; with a
final and vigorous wriggle Flavilla launched herself and struck out for
the rocks, holding comb and mirror in either hand.
Fishtail and accessories impeded her, but she was the sort of swimmer who