_ CHAPTER IV. THE WIDOW'S RIVAL
"WHY," said the widow, gazing thoughtfully at the ruby-faced woman with the gigantic waist-line, who sat beside the meek little man on the bench opposite, "do men marry--those?"
The bachelor glanced into the violet eyes beneath the violet hat.
"Perhaps," he said insinuatingly, "because they can't get--somebody else."
"Nonsense," replied the widow poking her parasol emphatically into the sand. "With all the chance a man has----"
"Chance!" cried the bachelor scoffingly. "Chance! What chance has a man got after a woman makes up her mind to marry him?"
The widow dug the sand spitefully with the point of her violet sunshade.
"I didn't refer to the chance of escape," she replied, icily. "I was speaking of the chance of a choice."
"That's it!" cried the bachelor. "The selection is so great--the choice is so varied! Don't you know how it is when you have too many dress patterns or hats or rings to choose from? You find it difficult to settle on any one--so difficult, in fact, that you decide not to choose at all, but to keep them all dangling----"
"Or else just shut your eyes," interrupted the widow, "and put out your hand and grab something."
"Of course, you shut your eyes!" acquiesced the bachelor. "Whoever went into matrimony with his eyes open?"
"A woman does," declared the widow tentatively. "She knows exactly what she wants, and if it is possible, she gets it. It is only after she has tried and failed many times that she puts her hand into the matrimonial grab-bag, and accepts anything she happens to pull out. But a man never employs any reason at all in picking out a wife----"
"Naturally!" scoffed the bachelor. "By that time, he's lost his reason!"
The widow rested her elbow on the handle of her sunshade, put her chin in her hand and smiled out at the sea.
"Yes," she said, "he has. He has reached the marrying mood."
"The--what?"
"The marrying mood. A man never decides to marry a girl just simply because he loves her, or because she is suitable, or because he ought to marry her, or because she is irresistible or fascinating or in love with him. He never marries at all until he gets the marrying mood, the matrimonial fever--and then he marries the first girl who comes along and wants him, young or old, pretty or ugly, good or bad. And that explains why a lot of men are tied up to women that you cannot possibly see any reason for having been married at all, much less married to those particular men."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed the bachelor, "I'm glad I've got past the age----"
"But you haven't!" declared the widow emphatically. "The marrying fever is, like the measles or the appendicitis, liable to catch you at any age or stage, and you never know when or why or how you got it. Sometimes a man takes it when he is very young and rushes into a fool marriage with a woman twice his age, and sometimes he goes all his life up to sixty without catching the contagion and then gets it horribly and marries his cook or a chorus girl young enough to be his granddaughter. Haven't you seen confirmed bachelors successfully resist the wiles of the most fascinating women and turn down a dozen suitable girls--and then, just when you thought they were quite safe and entirely past the chance of marriage as well as their first youth, turn around and tie themselves to some little fool thing without a penny to her name or a thought worth half that amount? That was a late attack of the matrimonial fever--and the older you get it the harder it goes. Let me see," added the widow thoughtfully, "how old are you?"
"I haven't lost my ideals--nor my teeth!" declared the bachelor defensively.
"What is your ideal?" asked the widow leaning over and peeping up under the bachelor's hat brim.
The bachelor stared back at her through lowered lashes.
"It's got on a violet hat," he began, "and violet----"
"Is that a ship out there?" asked the widow, suddenly becoming interested in the sea.
"And violet----"
"Oh, dear!" she interrupted petulantly. "Of course, you've got ideals. All men have ideals--but they don't often marry them. The trouble is that when a man has the marrying fever he can clothe anything in curls and petticoats with the illusions he has built around that ideal, and put the ideal's halo on her head and imagine she is the real thing. He can look at a red-headed, pug-nosed girl from an angle that will make her hair seem pure gold and her pug look Greek. By some mental feat, he can transform a girl six feet tall with no waist line and an acute elbow into a kittenish, plump little thing that he has always had in mind--and marry her. Or, if his ideal is tall and willowy and ethereal, and he happens to meet a woman weighing 200 pounds whose first thought in the morning is her breakfast and whole last thought at night is her dinner, he will picture her merely attractively plump and a marvel of intellect and imagination. And," the widow sank her chin in her hand and gazed out to sea reflectively, "it is all so pitiful, when you think how happy men could make marriage, if they would only go about it scientifically!"
"Then what," inquired the bachelor flinging away his cigar and folding his arms dramatically, "is the science of choosing a wife?"
"Well," said the widow, counting off on the tips of her lilac silk gloves, "first of all a man should never choose a wife when he finds himself feeling lonesome and dreaming of furnished flats and stopping to talk to babies in the street. He has the marrying fever then, and is in no fit condition to pick out a wife and unless he is very careful he is liable to marry the first girl who smiles at him. He should shut his eyes tight and flee to the wilderness and not come back until he is prepared to see women in their proper lights and their right proportions."
"And then?" suggested the bachelor.
"Then," announced the widow oratorically, "he should choose a wife as he would a dish at the table--not because he finds her attractive or delicious or spicy, but--because he thinks she will agree with him."
"I see," added the bachelor, "and won't keep him awake nights," he added.
The widow nodded.
"Nor give him a bitter taste in the mouth in the morning. A good wife is like a dose of medicine--hard to swallow, but truly helpful. The girls who wear frills and high heels and curly pompadours are like the salad with the most dressing and garnishing, likely to be too rich and spicy, while the plain little thing in the serge skirt, who never powders her nose, may prove as sweet and wholesome--as--as home-made pudding."
"Or--home-made pickles," suggested the bachelor with wry face.
The widow shook her parasol at him admonishingly.
"Don't do that!" cried the bachelor.
"Do what?" inquired the widow in astonishment.
"Wave your frills in my eyes! I had just made up my mind to propose to Miss Gunning and----"
The widow sat up perfectly straight.
"Do you really admire--a marble slab, Mr. Travers?"
"And your frills," pursued the bachelor, unmoved, "like salad dressing----"
"I beg your pardon."
"Or garnishings----"
"Mr. Travers!"
"Might be merely a lure to make me take something which would disagree with me."
The widow rose and looked coolly out over the waves.
"I can't see," she said, "why you should fancy there could be any chance----"
"I don't," sighed the bachelor. "It isn't a matter of chance, but of choice."
The ice in the widow's eyes melted into sun in a moment. She turned to the bachelor impulsively.
"Why do you want to marry me?" she asked.
The bachelor rose and looked down at her critically.
"Well," he said, "for one thing, because you're just the woman I ought not to marry."
"What!"
"You're too highly spiced----"
"Billy!"
"And you'd be sure not to agree with me----"
"Billy Travers!"
"And because----"
"Well? Go on."
"Because----" The bachelor hesitated and gazed deep into the violet eyes.
"Please proceed, Mr. Travers."
"I won't!" The bachelor turned his back on her defiantly.
The widow came a little nearer and stooped around to peep under his hat-brim.
"Please--Billy!" she breathed softly.
"Well, then--because I'm in the marrying mood," he replied.
But the widow was half way to the hotel before he knew what had happened. _