Platonic Affection

by H. B. Marriott Watson

 

PLATONIC AFFECTION

By H. B. Marriott-Watson.

MISS FLETCHER stretched her beautiful arms toward the fire. “We are vastly too sentimental,” she declared, with decision.

The young man looked at her and deliberated. “I don't don't know that I agree with you,” he said.

“My idea is that fiction has misguided us,” continued Miss Fletcher. “You know the effect of traditions and popular influences. For example, will that old fable of the country rector's daughter ever die?”

“The country rector's——” queried her companion.

“Yes; you know in fiction the country rector's daughter is always beautiful. That is the first absolute and supreme rule to which there are no exceptions. But in life——'”

“I was wondering if your father was a clergyman,” he said, seeing she hesitated.

“Oh, there you are!” said Miss Fletcher, pouncing on him triumphantly. “There's a case of what I mean. Men consider it right and proper to pay neat compliments to women quite apart from what they really think.”

“I assure you I do think——”

“It's all that sickly sentimentality,” hurried on Miss Fletcher, “which assumes a certain relation of the Sexes. Assumption! It is presumption. How I hate that false note of chivalry!”

“So do I,” he agreed eagerly. “I despise it. Women should be treated like men.”

“In a spirit of camaraderie,” Miss Fletcher said, casting a suspicious glance at him.

“It's the only dignified way,” he assented.

“But to presuppose that because a man is a man and a woman a woman there are necessarily any relations between them.”

“There sometimes are—tiresome relations.”

“Is simply ridiculous,” pronounced Miss Fletcher, ignoring him.

“For my part,” said the young man, “I frankly confess that I can look on a beautiful woman quite unmoved.” He stared coldly at Miss Fletcher. “And beauty, after all, is only skin deep,” he added contemptuously.

Miss Fletcher had turned her head away and was regarding the door, as if she had heard the approach of some one. But it was a comfortable hour after dinner, and there were no interruptions. When she turned round again she developed her argument.

“Beauty, of course, is desirable in everything,” she remarked judicially. “But its importance is exaggerated.”

“Grossly,” he said emphatically. “I wouldn't give——”

“I think it might be as well not to err on the side of extravagance,” said Miss Fletcher dryly. “Of course, a beautiful woman, like a beautiful picture, or a piece of furniture, is nice to look at.”

“That's it; she's nothing more than a beautiful piece of furniture,” said the young man, nodding.

Miss Fletcher frowned; very prettily, of course. “I think it's quite time that the fallacy of classing women among goods and chattels was outgrown,” she said severely.

“It ought to be,” he said humbly.

“For my part, I take the greatest pleasure in seeing a beautiful woman.”

“So do I,” said the young man eagerly, and fixing his ardent gaze on her.

Fletcher shifted her position, and looked somewhat put out; she gazed at the door again. It was the young man who resumed the conversation.

“What you say is very true, and it has often occurred to me. Handsome is as handsome does. Of course, beauty in the abstract is to be admired. But how insensate is this worship of beauty, and this artificial cultivation of it by women! They should throw off the trammels of tradition and the novel, and frankly declare their indifference to the other sex.”

“Ye-es,” assented Miss Fletcher.

“And with that would go, as concomitant, economy. The amount spent on finery would be less; milliners', dressmakers', and linen drapers' bills would decrease.”

Miss Fletcher took up a firm stand. “Women don't dress for men,” she said loftily.

“Why do they dress?” inquired the young man.

“To—oh, for their own self-respect,” she declared.

“Oh!” This was rather a facer. There did not seem to be any way round it, and Miss Fletcher, seeing him reduced to silence, very kindly unbent. She continued the disquisition. “The whole thing, in effect, resolves itself into this—that women have other interests of considerably more importance than that of mere marriage. They're not always thinking of men and marriage, as the trashy novels make them out.”

“Then you believe in the possibility of platonic affection?” he asked.

“Most certainly,” said Miss Fletcher.

“So do I,” he said cordially. “I thoroughly believe in it. What is to prevent a man and a woman, even a young man and a pretty woman, being good companions?

“Nothing in the world except stupid conventions,” said Miss Fletcher.

“Which wise people ignore,” continued he. “Say they. have opinions in common on—any subject, as, for instance, this very matter we're talking of.” He paused.

“Yes,” said Miss Fletcher faintly.

“Well, then,” he resumed, with animation, “they are good friends, having tested each other. The man has absolutely no admiration for the woman—physically, that is.”

“Yes,” said Miss Fletcher dubiously.

“But intellectually, yes. He admires her point of view, and he is sympathetically en rapport with her.”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Fletcher, more decidedly.

“But, naturally, sympathy of that dispassionate kind produces no excitement. It is a torpid, amiable feeling of good fellowship, of comradeship, of——”

“Comradeship,” said Miss Fletcher, with some decision, “implies a good deal. One doesn't give one's friendship to every corner.”

“Certainly not,” he agreed. “Only to those who understand you and are naturally sympathetic. Suppose, for example, for one minute that the case applied to you and to me.”

“I'd much prefer——” began Miss Fletcher; but in the ardor of his argument he did not hear her.

“We stand in the position of people who have nothing to do with this silly sentiment. When I look at you I am not always admiring or thinking that you would look better if you hadn't a smut on your nose.”

Miss Fletcher hurriedly raised a hand toward her face, and then as hurriedly dropped it.

“I'm not bothering about your clothes, except only in so far as is fitting for self-respect. I'm simply regarding you frankly as a comrade, as a——”

“T—I don't think it is necessary to make personal application of the theory,” said Miss Fletcher, a little confusedly.

“No, and I'm not doing so,” he explained. “But it helps me to put things in a concrete form. Just let me suppose. Now in the case I'm speaking of, proximity would, of course, raise no thrill in one. I can be as near as possible.” He edged nearer to Miss Fletcher, who stirred uneasily. “And it does not affect my attitude toward you. I can hold your hand without a tremor.” He held it.

“Please don't,” urged Miss Fletcher, faintly struggling and now softly colored. But he was in the wings of his argument, and of course did not notice.

“I have absolutely no ulterior feelings,” he insisted. “My pulse is undisturbed by the juxtaposition. How much more sensible than the foolish sentimentality of which you speak so wisely, and which sets silly hearts a-bobbing! We can thus exchange views rationally, as if you were my sister or another man.” Miss Fletcher wrested gently for her hand. And naturally,” he declared, with emphasis, “I don't pay you silly compliments attributing to your beauty, and all sorts of things you haven't got any——”

Miss Fletcher wrenched her hand away decidedly, and rose, her cheeks incarnadine.

“Excuse me, I'm going to join Mrs. Green,” she said haughtily, as she swept from the room.

The young man watched her slim figure disappear. “Just as it was getting interesting,” he remarked sadly.