The Heel of Achilles
NELLY and Mrs. Martin were driving down to Hurlingham. The afternoon was at its height, and the long suburban highway was gay with parasols, and pleasantly responsive to high-bred hoofs and politely silent tires. Nelly had just emerged from a convent-school; and was full of that extensive knowledge of the world, which can be culled from monthly magazines and the conversation of young ladies who had enjoyed equal opportunities of learning how the world goes round. She was imparting to Mrs. Martin a complete code of morals and manners, comprehensive enough for all mankind, with a specialized branch devoted to a girl's behavior.
“You see,” she concluded, “if people would only think out a plan for themselves, all the gaucheries and mistakes and heartburnings which are supposed to be inevitable might be done without!”
Mrs. Martin's beautifully dressed head inclined toward her niece with a flattering air of attention to valuable remarks
“That would be charming,” she replied. “Experience would no longer be essential to the right conduct of life.”
“Yes. That's just what I think,” said Nelly, warming toward so promising a pupil. “So much nonsense is talked about experience. People say that one can't profit except by one's own. It's ridiculous. I am starting out with no practical experience at all; but I am just as well equipped as any so-called woman of the world.”
Mrs. Martin, herself one of the so-called, had encouraged the conversation to the point when it seemed ripe for discussion. She never spoiled an argument by refuting it before it had reached the stage when it was worthy of her steel. Some people called this “turning round on you.”
“It is possible, however,” she observed, gazing at the silver buttons on her coachman's coat, “that a person might be told all about how strawberries grow, what they look like, and how they taste; and yet the exact flavor, and the pains that an undue quantity of that fruit can produce, might come as a wholly unexpected sensation, if not an unpleasantly startling one. Of course, this is only a speculation,” concluded Mrs. Martin, with a charming air of passing it on for consideration by a fine intellect. Her niece accepted it with proportionate empressement. She opened and shut her pretty Watteau fan (a delightfully grown-up possession) before pronouncing upon Mrs. Martin's suggestion. Nelly was no impulsive, thoughtless schoolgirl.
A slow lightening of her face announced shortly that proper attention had been given to the proposition, and she and Mrs. Martin turned to each other with the mutual interest of donor and receiver.
“One could find out exactly what quantity of strawberries would cause pain, and stop before one had just reached that quantity,” said Nelly, trying obviously not to appear bored at the banality of Mrs. Martin's observation.
Mrs. Martin allowed herself to reply unhesitatingly that different digestions can accommodate different quantities.
Nelly pondered over this for some seconds, as it contained an undoubted truth which nothing short of Christian Science could deny with any conviction.
“But,” she said triumphantly, furling the harassed fan with a decisive click, “there must be a reasonable minimum, up to which no harm could possibly be done.”
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Martin. “There are some people to whom even a single strawberry causes serious inconvenience.”
“I suppose you mean that the only way to find out is by tasting?” answered Nelly, after a slight and somewhat baffled pause.
“Precisely,” said Mrs. Martin pithily. “Look at Mrs. Henrickson's new grays. Aren't they steppers?”
A lady of the mature age of nineteen is not to be put off with careless chit-chat when embarked on argument, however.
“All the same, there must be some way of finding out, or at least of guessing,” she said. “Thinking it out beforehand must do some good. For instance, I, who have planned out exactly how to manage my behavior, must be better off than a girl like Mouse, who plunges into things headlong.”
Mouse was another niece who was sharing Mrs. Martin's ægis.
“Mouse is very popular,” said her aunt, in a non-committal tone.
“But she is so often confused and loses her self-possession,” persisted Nelly.
“I don't think any one thinks that remarkable or to be regretted in a young girl,” answered Mrs. Martin, with beautiful serenity.
“I don't care! I'm sure Mouse would be more comfortable if she were always composed,” said Nelly, with undominated stubbornness. “Just think, if all the awkward scrapes she gets into found her ready with the right word, and sure of herself, how much pleasure it would give, both to herself and to everybody. No one can like feeling silly.”
“No doubt that is so,” murmured Mrs. Martin,
“For instance,” continued Nelly, “I don't want to flatter myself at Mouse's expense, but if any man should stare at me at Hurlingham, I should know what to say to him; and should say it, too, without blushing or anything.”
Mrs. Martin was quite spellbound and petrified for a few moments. Then she summoned sufficient voice to inquire rather faintly: “What?”
“I should say,” said Nelly, perfectly seriously: “'if you do not leave off staring at me I shall call a policeman.' And I should.”
“You wouldn't!” said Mrs. Martin.
“You wait and see!” answered her dashing charge, a light of battle and of anticipation in her eyes. “You'll be surprised. I sha'n't lose a minute.”
Mrs. Martin found herself reflecting that she had told Nelly's mother it would be “a pleasure” to chaperon her daughter. She glanced at her niece, and had a wild vision of what might happen if she let her go to Hurlingham with her theories unshaken. Then she mustered her forces together for pointed speech.
“Then you would be behaving like a shop-girl,” she answered. “Their code of manners differs from ours in more points than one, and that is one of them. Speaking to any unknown man, especially to a cad, would be the most terrible thing you could possibly do in any circumstances.”
“Do you mean I ought to say nothing at all?” said Nelly, startled out of all her calm.
“Certainly,” replied her aunt, with enormous weight. “First of all, it is very possible that the poor man might not be looking at you at all. Secondly, if he were, it might be through absent-mindedness, or something had gone wrong with your attire. Thirdly, if he were such a cad as to be staring at you offensively, the last thing you want to do, I should hope, is to scrape acquaintance with him.”
“Silence gives consent,” murmured Nelly mutinously.
“Speech gives encouragement,” retorted Mrs. Martin vigorously; “if not to acquaintance, at least to a scene. And that is the lowest depth of horror. For Heaven's sake remember that to make yourself conspicuous in any way is the most dreadful, fatal, and unforgetable thing that you can possibly do.”
There was a pause. Nelly was distinctly piqued. It was no use talking of her theories of life if her aunt was going to oppose them so high-handedly. She forgot that her information gave Mrs. Martin the advantage of knowing what to expect (which in this case, one must admit, was unusually advisable.)
“I still think,” said Nelly, with proper aloofness, “that a girl should vindicate her dignity. She should not take insults any more than she should take favors from a man, Any rate, I sha'n't. I'm quite determined.”
“Vindicate your dignity as much as you like, my dear,” said Mrs. Martin, flushed and thoroughly roused. “But not while you're with me. Please remember that I have mine to consider.”
The carriage came to a stop, and the two ladies descended in somewhat strenuous silence. As they crossed the lawn, a spick-and-span major came up and greeted them; and Mrs. Martin hailed this intervention with relief. He gazed admiringly upon Nelly's pretty face, and stooped to pick up her fallen fan with even too much haste, for he snapped two of its dainty carved sticks. Hotly and abjectly he apologized.
“It was awfully clumsy of me,” concluded the very pink major. “Do please let me have it mended for you.”
“Not the slightest need. I wouldn't think of it,” said Nelly, flushed, but very vigorous and determined.
“I must insist. It will make me absolutely wretched if you don't,” replied the encroacher, and looked it.
“Most kind of you; though it's of no consequence. Come, Nelly dear,” said Mrs. Martin, who remembered Nelly's views on accepting favors and vindicating dignity with some mental trepidation.
The major held the fan. Mrs. Martin longed to take her niece by her pretty arm. Nelly still stood, with a resolute mouth and eyes, in which shone the steady light of purpose.
“Say that I'm forgiven,” said the gallant soldier. Nelly's hard heart wavered. Then Mrs. Martin was assured that she had heard aright by the major's face, when Nelly, with the consciousness of consummate tact and savoir faire, said: “Thank you. Will you send it then to Mrs. Martin's? I know you won't forget to enclose the bill!”
Nelly explained with distinct soreness, afterward, that the remark conveyed the most delicate appreciation of the major's honor and her perfect trust in his right feeling.
But, as Mrs. Martin said, some things can only be explained by direct diabolic inspiration.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1941, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 82 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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