The Course Of True Love

( Originally Published 1917 )

RODNEY MARTIN himself, as luck would have it, opened the front door with his pass key and came in just as Mary was descending into the lower hall from his father's library.

" Mary! " he exclaimed delightedly. " You here? What in thunder's the matter with John-son? "

" One question at a time, please," said Mary, collecting herself as rapidly as possible. " What's Johnson got to do with it?"

" Why, I left my telephone numbers with him," explained Rodney; " so he could call me up the very moment you came in."

" You sound like a doctor going to the theater," said Mary.

" Same principle," echoed Rodney; " S.O.S. ; C.Q.D., and all the rest of it. Safety first, you know."

Mary parried and fenced as best she could; this was going to be a somewhat earlier opportunity of putting through their scheme than she had bargained' for with the old magnate upstairs. Rodney showed only too plainly that he had something on his mind. He drew her into a small reception room on the first floor, and made her sit down. It was a little pink and gold room which was never used except for a cloak room when dinners were given, or the housekeeper engaged a new servant. Lately Mary's type-writing machine had come to figure incongruously as a part of its furnishings, since the clicking keys bothered Mr. Martin in his library, and Mary came down here often to write.

Despite her bargain with the old gentleman up-stairs she made a brave attempt to ward off some-thing that she saw was inevitable, here and now. She took the lines in her own hand, and tried to steer the conversational craft safely through the rapids.

" Rodney," she said, " tell me what you have been doing to-day."

He told her.

" Well, I call that a very unprofitable twelve hours," said Mary firmly. " Rodney, why don't you do something worth while, why don't you go into some business? Have an office with your name on the door. Be somebody. It would please your father so."

Rodney was dressed in the correctest masculine fashion, Mary noted — gray spats, a braided English morning coat, a huge white carnation in his buttonhole, and quite heavenly trousers. He wore a tie from Charvet's. Rodney was a nice boy, and had nice manners. He was only twenty-four, and his face had a certain quaint, frank charm in spite of his funny little mustache. He was by no means brainless, Mary was sure, not-withstanding his father's theories; only undeveloped by reason of the kind of life he had led, and its appallingly frictionless conditions.

At the present moment he had an unaccustomed air of resolution that pervaded all the little room, and made Mary retreat behind the typewriting desk, quailing in spite of herself. { As she sat down, to her astonishment, she beheld Rodney turning the key in the door that led into the hall. The room became thus a cul-de-sac, and her exit was barred, unless. she should scream to a police-man through the window. But of course she couldn't do that; and besides she suddenly re-membered the twenty-five hundred dollars. Was she earning it easily, or with shocking difficulty? She could not have told you. Aloud she said:

" Why, Mr. Martin, what are you doing? "

" I want to talk to you," said Rodney, coming towards her. " I've been wanting this opportunity for days, and now that I've got it, I don't propose to be interrupted. That's why I locked the door."

Mary's little brain worked like lightning. Well, she must accept the challenge now, it seemed. Her business manner, as she sometimes called it, disappeared. Instead she assumed the fluttering airs of a timid ingenue, overdoing it, she feared in her trepidation, for any one but a boy as madly in love with her as Rodney was. Mary may or may not have heard of the paradox about acting promulgated by the famous Diderot, a compatriot of her French countess of that after-noon; --- namely, that you acted best when you were completely yourself, and not when you emotionally lost yourself in your acted part. As Rodney went on, Mary, when she thought of the twenty-five hundred dollars, every now and then, unconsciously followed the school of Diderot; later she could not have certified which method guided her through her scene.

Rodney had come over to her, and now stood facing her, his eyes eager and full of light.

" I want to talk to you," he said impetuously. " Mary, will you marry me? "

" Why, really," began Mary shyly, looking sidewise and enjoying herself curiously well.

" You love me, don't you? " queried the boy, warmly.

" I don't know what to say," hesitated the girl, feeling her ground.

" Say yes," cried Rodney, waiting feverishly to hear her answer.

It came at last shyly, " Yes,' whereupon Rodney cried, " You angel," joyfully, and tried to grab her. But things must not go quite so fast, Mary thought intuitively, and drew away a little from him, though to tell the truth she would willingly have let him catch her, as she felt now.

" No, no ; wait a moment," she said, eluding him.

We'll be married right away," went on Rodney unabashed.

" But suppose your father disapproves," said Mary.

" He won't know anything about it until we're married — and then what could he do? " objected Rodney.

He might cut you off," suggested Mary sagely.

" Would you care? " asked Rodney.

I? No, no, indeed," said Mary hastily. " I was thinking of you, dear."

" Don't you bother about me," cried Rodney. " We'll be married tomorrow, and then come home for the parental blessing."

" No, I couldn't do that," said Mary. " It wouldn't be right. I'm his private secretary. He trusts me, and brings me here to his home, and then to find I'd married his son on the sly — No, Rodney, we couldn't do that."

" You do make it sound rather bad," said Rodney. " I shouldn't want to treat father badly. We've always been pretty good friends, he and I. I guess I'd better tell him - in a week or so —"

Mary's self composure had been rapidly re-turning during this colloquy, and she was surer of what she wanted. Indeed it piqued her a little that Rodney should have made such a proposal to her, so that now her own inclinations and the old gentleman's upstairs ran in the same channel. She spoke up quite resolutely:

" Why, Rodney, if you love me, you will want to get this awful suspense over with."

" But suppose he does object? " Rodney argued, seeing his light of happiness grow dim.

" Even then I wouldn't give you up," said his sweetheart.

"Mary!"

" You could go into business," she went on; " make a big man of yourself; make me proud of

." You talk just like the heroine in a play I saw last night," protested Rodney. She wanted the hero to go to work, and he did, and then for four acts everybody suffered."

" Don't you want to work? " asked Mary anxiously.

" I should say not," Rodney answered quite seriously. " Imagine going to bed every night, knowing you'd got to get up in the morning and go to business."

"You'd be happier, wouldn't you?" queried Mary, " if you had a job? "

" Please don't talk like father," protested Rodney. " He's preached a job at me ever since I left college. Why should I work? Father made millions out of soap, and is forever complaining that he's always had his nose to the grindstone, that he's never known what fun was, that it's all made him old before his time. I can't see the sense of following an example like that-- I really can't. He's got enough for you and me and our children and their grandchildren. I've explained all this to him, but I can't seem to make him understand. But it's simple — why work when there's millions in the family? And why even talk of it, when you and I are in love? "

He leaned hungrily toward her, stretching out his arms to her, and finished on a note of genuine appeal: " Come, kiss me, Mary."

But Mary drew back from him quickly. " No, you mustn't," she said firmly. Not till you've spoken to your father."

You won't even kiss me till I tell him? " " No."

" And you will when I do? "

" Yes."

" Then I'll tell him right away," cried the valiant lover, striding to the door.

" Oh, Rodney, you're splendid," applauded Mary, " and don't be afraid."

" Afraid ! " echoed Rodney scornfully. But he paused a moment at the door and said:

" You don't think I'd better wait till the morning?"

" No, I don't," said Mary; " and don't be silly about his gout. He really is a very patient in-valid."

Rodney stood a moment with his hand, on the knob, plucking up resolution. As he lingered there, a violent knocking sounded on the other side, and his father's voice could be distinctly heard crying " Ouch in an extra loud tone in the hall.

" Speaking of the patient invalid," whispered Rodney, looking back at the girl for whom he was so greatly daring.

" If you don't ask him now I'll never marry you," whispered Mary, forming her words as distinctly as was possible under the circumstances.

" Open the door," cried the elder Martin angrily in the hall.

" I'm coming, father. Coming," quaked Rodney, as he turned the key.

The door was no sooner opened than his father strode into the room sternly, uttering the ejaculation " Ouch " twice, and the polite phrase " the devil," at least once as he . crossed the thresh-old.

"Why was that door locked? " he demanded, scowling.

" Was it locked? " asked Rodney innocently.

" You young fool, didn't you just unlock it? " roared his father.

" So I did," said Rodney nervously.

Mary in the meanwhile had retreated to her typewriter, and now began typing violently.

Stop that noise," shouted Mr. Martin.

The noise ceased immediately, and Rodney looked at her discouraged. She motioned to him to go on. Meanwhile Martin painfully limped to a chair by a small table and sank into it, his foot giving him another twinge.

"Ouch! Oh, my poor foot!" he moaned. Rodney hastily picked up a footstool and came with it to his father.

" I'm afraid your foot hurts," he ventured propitiatingly.

"Not at all — I just pretend that it does," growled his father.

" I hoped you were better," said the son sincerely.

" Well, I'm not. What's that you got there? " " A footstool — I thought it might make you more comfortable."

" Comfortable? How much do you want out of me now?" his father asked shrewdly.

" Why nothing, father," Rodney answered.

" Well, anyhow the answer is, not a nickel—" " You do me an injustice," protested Rodney,

" I'm just sorry to see you in pain."

Well, you want something — that's certain —"

Why do you say that?" Rodney quavered.

" I know you --and whatever it is you can't have it."

Rodney turned appealingly to Mary, who ignored him. He turned back to his father again, and tried to muster up his courage to the sticking point.

" Well, as a matter of fact, I did want —" he began, clearing his throat.

Oh ! Now we're getting to it," Martin retorted. " Well, what is it? "

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE 45

" I wanted to have a talk with you — an important talk —"

Curious ! That's just what I wanted to have with you. I've wanted it all day. And now we'll have it — Miss Grayson ! " he called to Mary.

" Yes, sir," said Mary meekly.

" Get out ! "

She went without a glance at Rodney, who stood looking after her dejectedly, not knowing that his. love's intention was to give him moral support by listening in the hall.

" Now what do you mean by overdrawing your allowance again?" she heard Mr. Martin say„ when the door was closed.

Why," innocently answered Rodney, " it simply proves that I was right when I told you my allowance was too small."

" What! " ejaculated his father, quite evidently aghast.

" And if my allowance is too small for one, it's much too small for two," the boy continued ingeniously,

" For two? "

" Father, has' it ever occurred to you that I might marry? " inquired Rodney.

" Of course it has. You're fool enough for anything," growled his father.

" I don't consider a man a fool because he's married," said Rodney.

" That's because you've never tried it."

" I intend to try it, just the same," said Rodney.

" Oh, you do, do you? Who is the girl? " " The girl? " repeated his son nervously.

" Yes, girl. You're not going to marry an

automobile, or a polo pony, or an aeroplane, or

any other of your idiotic amusements, are you?

You're going to marry a girl, aren't you? Some

blue-eyed, doll-faced, gurgling, fluttering little

fool. Oh, why doesn't God give young men some

sense about women?"

" I object very strongly to your speaking in that way of Miss Grayson," spoke up Rodney angrily.

" Miss Grayson? Miss Grayson — you're not going to marry a typewriter? "

" Yes, sir."

" Does she know it?"

" Yes, sir."

" Ohl Of course she knows a good thing like you when she sees it —"

" I won't listen to you talk of Miss Grayson in that way—"

" You've got to listen. I won't permit any such absurd ridiculous marriage. Thank Heaven you had sense enough not to elope —"

" I wanted to, but she wouldn't. She insisted on your being told; so you see what an injustice—"

" Injustice — can't you see she wanted me to know so that if I disapproved and cut you off, she'd not be stuck with you on her hands? "

" Please, father —" pleaded Rodney; and then dropped his hands at his sides and turned to go, adding, -" It's quite useless."

" No, my boy. Wait a minute," said Mr. Martin. " Remember I'm your friend, even if I am your father. Don't you believe it. It's only your money she wants."

" I know it isn't," replied Rodney proudly.

" I'll prove it is," said his father, pushing an enameled electric bell that stood near him on the table.

" What are you going to do? " cried Rodney nervously.

" Send for Miss Grayson," said his father grimly. " I'll tell that scheming secretary that if you persist in this marriage I'll disinherit_ you, and then you watch her throw you over," he amplified for Rodney's benefit.

" Even if you are my father, you shan't insult the girl I love," protested Rodney hotly.

"Poppycock! You're afraid to put her to the test. You're afraid she will chuck you," retorted his father.

But Rodney answered quietly: " I'm not afraid, father. You're mistaken."

' Johnson appeared meanwhile in answer to the bell, and in a surprisingly short time, and with a queer look on his usually imperturbable face,, if they had only noticed it, returned with Mary Gray-son under his escort. Mary looked from father to son with an elaborately assumed air of innocence, and inquired :

" You wanted me, Mr. Martin?

She saw Rodney, out of the tail of her eye, make a movement toward her and say, Mary," in a pleading tone, then heard his father interrupting him curtly. " My precious son," he told her, "has just informed me that you and he intend to get married. Is that right? "

" Oh, sir," she began timidly, almost losing her composure a moment, to think of the pass that things had come to with her connivance. She was not sure, moreover, if the soap king had not really been in earnest in his fulminations as they floated out to her in the hall. Either his acting or his gout must be genuine to-day, she began to fear.

" Because I wish to tell you," began again, " that if he marries you he'll not get one penny of my money. And that means he'll starve. I suppose you realize that? "

Mary turned to Rodney, who was standing up very straight near the window looking on Fifth Avenue, one hand catching the braided lapel of his coat, as his eyes devoured her with such real love and confidence showing on his face that she could not resist. his love's appeal to her. She took in all this, and even, with curious distinctness, noticed that the white flower in his coat had fallen loose a little, as she turned to his father and answered him courageously:

" Then at least we'll starve together."

She was rewarded by the exultation in Rodney's voice as he exclaimed, " Mary! "

" You see, father," he added, for the old gentle-man's benefit..

" Making a grand-stand play, eh," went on the soap magnate remorselessly to Mary, before my idiot of a son. You think I'm so fond of him that I'll relent. Well, you're wrong. Neither of you will ever get a nickel out of me."

We shan't starve," declared Rodney.

" Well, what can you do to keep from starving? " demanded his father. " You're not a producer. You' never will be. You're just an idler. You couldn't earn five dollars a week. But you'll have a chance to try. You'll get out of my, house tonight, or I'll have you thrown out."

" Now, father —"

" Not another word, sir, not another word," cried his father; and stamped out angrily into the hall.

Mary gave an involuntary sigh of relief: the scene was over. As for Rodney he turned to her with a weird glee.

" It's getting more like that play every minute," he chuckled.

"Oh, Rodney, Rodney, what have I done? I'm so, so sorry," snivelled Mary.

" You haven't done anything," Rodney answered. "Neither of us has. Father didn't seem to give us a chance to ; he did it all- " Oh, Rodney, Rodney," Mary sighed again.

" You were bully the way you stuck up for me," said her lover. "'When you said we'd starve together, I just choked all up."

" Please don't, Rodney," protested Mary, quite genuinely touched; and Rodney went on:

" Just because he's got a lot of money he seems to think there isn't any left for other people, but I'll show him. I may not have much at the start, but watch my finish—"

" What are you going to do? " she asked him excitedly.

"I'm going to work."

" You are really? "

" Yes, indeed—Father couldn't make me do it, but you can. I'll work for you."

" Oh, you are splendid," Mary cried. " Shall you get a position? "

" I should say not I Work for some one else? No ! I'm going in business for myself - for you. I'm going to show the stuff that's in me. Of course we can't get married till I've made good. Will you wait? "

" Yes, dear," said Mary shyly.

"You're a dandy," cried Rodney, moving nearer to her.

"What business are you going into?" she asked.

" I don't know yet," said Rodney. " I'm going upstairs to pack a suit case and think. Wait here for me. I'll be back in fifteen minutes," he sang out, grabbing her and kissing her hastily but heartily.

" Oh, oh—please —" Mary protested.

" Don't mind, Mary, I'll get you used to 'em," he called from the doorway.

She threw herself back on the Louis XV sofa, next the yellow typist's desk, and waited, in a sudden revery. The carved, wooden rim of the sofa back just fitted a chink in her coiffure comfortably : and she lapsed into that curious state of introspection that comes sometimes with bodily and mental relaxation. What did she think of herself for what she'd done this evening? Was she any better than an adventuress? Was she not cajoling a young man into proposing to her for the love of money? Would Rodney's father really reward her as he had promised to do? Strangely enough it would not have seemed so bad, she felt, if she didn't like Rodney. Well, if the old man didn't pay, let him keep his money: she shouldn't care. It was something to have won a love like Rodney's love for her. There was something very lovable about Rodney Martin.

In a moment Rodney himself bounded in again on her day dreams. There was the thud of a heavy kit bag dropped on the marble floor of the hall by the front door, and then he ran in to her impetuously, with his arms open.

" Mary, sweetheart ! " he cried.

He held her away from him a moment to regard her face.

" The pater's upstairs dressing for dinner," he rattled on. " I shan't even say good-by to him. Serve him right. I'm going to take a stage down to the Harvard Club this very night. Can't afford cabs now.

" Rodney," whispered Mary conservatively, " you must work hard and be brave."

"And can't I do that for the sweetest sweetheart in the whole world?" he demanded rapturously, folding her again in his arms. He hugged her greedily to him, and she yielded to him a little despite herself. There was something fresh and clean about the boy, and certainly his kisses were not distasteful. The arms she felt around her were a man's arms and very strong .

In the end Rodney decided he would have a cab anyway, and so he and Mary left the house of the soap king in each other's company, without fare-wells. It was their last ride together, so to speak, and a very blissful one for the young lover. Rodney was going to take a room at the Harvard Club, but first they spun across the somber park to Mary's apartment, somewhere in the West 70's, and Rodney bade her a rapturous good-night, while the motor throbbed and the taximeter spun.