The Box of Tricks

by Owen Oliver

THE BOX OF TRICKS.

By OWEN OLIVER.

IT is not easy to me to get angry, and my brother's wife is not easy to be angry with. She looks like a grown-up baby, and she is so innocent and surprised when I point out her misdeeds, that I generally end by fancying myself the offending party. Bob chuckles on these occasions. He calls her "the box of tricks."

There are limits, however, to my amiability, and possibly—I don't feel sure!—to my sister-in-law's artfulness. When I found that she had inveigled me into a cruise in their yacht under entirely false pretences, I resolved that all her wiles should not save her from my severe displeasure when I could catch her alone.

She eluded me, by attaching herself to her other guests, until we had passed the light-house. Then the yacht became very lively, and the other guests disappeared in rapid succession, except a tall, good-looking young lady in pince-nez. She seized Mrs. Bob by the arm and rushed her out on deck; and old Bob rubbed his hands gleefully.

"The box of tricks is going to catch it this time," he observed.

"She's going to catch it a second time," I stated, and started in pursuit, with a view to securing the next innings.

I discovered the two ladies standing in the lee of the smoking-room. They were arguing with such animation that they did not notice me.

"It's abominable!" the tall young lady protested. "Perfectly atrocious!"

My sister-in-law looked at her with simulated innocence.

"It is a little rough," she said, catching at the handrail, and shaking her pretty head at the great green waves that greeted us at the harbour mouth. "Oh-h-h!" She threw her hood over her head to fend off a shower of spray.

"I meant you,'" said the tall young lady, balancing herself like a sailor. "You know perfectly well that I don't mind the weather."

"I think I do!" my naughty sister-in-law confessed. "I"—the ship gave a lurch—"I'm sure I do." She made a dart for the hatchway and disappeared, white-faced, but smiling and unrepentant.

"Serves her right!" the tall young lady muttered; but her tone was less unfriendly than her words, and she laughed unwillingly. Then she turned and saw me.

"She will not be able to introduce us for a little while," I observed. "So perhaps you will allow me——? I have the misfortune to be her brother-in-law." I do not remember that I had ever introduced myself to a lady before, but I felt that I had a good excuse in the circumstances—and the lady.

"Oh!" she said; "but surely you are not Professor Lorimer?" I am not old for a "professor," and I look younger than my age.

"Unless I have lost my identity! "I declared. "I gather that my bad little relative has kidnapped you too?"

The young lady smiled slowly.

"I did not know that I had a companion in misfortune," she said. "But, of course, it is a consolation. I think we have been associated before, in a way. We had a long controversy in the Academical Record. I am Margaret Fane."

I stared at her like a boor in my surprise. She was very unlike my idea of a lady who had written a treatise on Conic Sections; and still more unlike my notion of an advocate of "Woman's Rights" and female suffrage, the subjects upon which our controversy had taken place.

"You scarcely look the character," I confessed.

"How like a man!" she cried. "A woman who is not his humble slave must be a monster, of course, and wear dowdy frocks and short hair, and square-toed shoes!" She held out a tiny foot in a ridiculous, pointed, French shoe defiantly. The yacht rolled heavily just then, and her balance suffered. Fortunately I caught her and deposited her on the seat. She watched me struggling not to laugh at her.

"That is like a man too," she applauded me. "He doesn't triumph over the fallen. I concede that, and also his physical superiority. But mentally! Now, you are twice Lucy's size, and yet you have let her kidnap you; and you daren't even shake her!"

"I'm not sure that I won't," I said, "when she's well enough to be shaken. She told me that Bob and she were going for a quiet little cruise, and asked me to come and finish my book in peace on board. The anchor was up when I put my foot on deck; and I found that she had a regular party, principally women."

"That's exactly my case," said Miss Fane. "Only it seemed to me that they were principally men! She knows that I object to men."

"And she knows that I object to women. At least, I don't exactly object to them; they are an admirable, if illogical sex. What I really object to is Lucy's intention to marry me to one of them."

"Oh-h! Does she?"

"She does, really!"

"Which one?" Miss Fane inquired.

"I haven't the least idea."

Miss Fane laughed merrily.

"That's exactly my case, professor. She wants to marry me to someone—an enemy presumably—if the wretch has one!"

"Upon my word, I don't believe she has," I confessed.

"No. I really don't believe she has! We'll say to a friend who needs a little harsh discipline! But she has not informed me of her selection. However, I do not apprehend any danger."

"You may be able to defend yourself," I said; "but I am not so secure. Women are attractive creatures. A man is never safe unless he runs away!"

"There!" she cried triumphantly. "And yet you claimed, in your articles, that men had more moral courage than women! Now, I am only a poor weak woman; but I am not afraid that any man will marry me against my will."

"But aren't you afraid of being willing," I inquired.

"Certainly not," she asserted. "In the present state of the laws—the man-made laws—-I am very unwilling, and likely to remain so. I shall work in my cabin, and have no more to do with them than civility requires; or, if I do, it will only be to tantalise Lucy and make her think that she is succeeding in her evil designs." Miss Fane laughed a laugh which did not strike me as that of a blue-stocking. "She will be so mad when she is undeceived, the little monkey!"

"That's a capital idea," I pronounced. "I think I might try it; but you mustn't."

"Indeed! Why not?"

"It wouldn't be quite fair to the poor man, unless he was in the joke."

"No-o; but I can't very well tell him."

"You've told me," I pointed out. "We might kill one bird with two stones, don't you think? Besides, there are a lot of things that I should like to discuss with you."

She looked at me without the pince-nez. They were drenched with spray, and she had taken them off and was wiping them. She looked still more charming without them.

"We shall quarrel violently, of course," she stated, "but—if you really mean it—we understand each other, of course——"

"Of course," I agreed. "Decidedly."

"And she really does deserve to be taken in."

"Exactly," I said. "Precisely."

"It will annoy her so much because—— Yes, I really think we might, because she is so silly. I simply can't make her understand how utterly impossible it is for me to contemplate mar—such an absurd thing—in the present state of affairs. She thinks that a woman is only made to be married. It is absurd!"

"Preposterous!" I agreed. "She thinks just the same about men. I've often tried to make her understand the position; but it's no use."

"And," said Miss Fane impressively, "I believe—I positively believe—she's always extolling you to the skies. I'm almost sure that we are the snares which she has laid for each other."

Miss Fane laughed ironically.

"Ah!" I said. "Umph! I shouldn't wonder! I took Lucy fishing once, I remember. She'd never make a fisherman. She's too loquacious; and she puts all 'the poor fish' back in the water! Still, I observed that she selected her bait with excellent judgment!"

"You flatter yourself!" Miss Fane exclaimed.

"I assure you that I only alluded to you," I declared.

"That's just like a man!" she cried. "They will swallow any amount of flattery themselves, and they never realise that women see through it in a moment. So you need not trouble to compliment me, except before Lucy, just as part of the play, you know—— I am afraid she is rather ill. I think I'll go and heap coals of fire on her deceitful little head."

"Oh, Bob will look after her. You'd better stay and heap them on mine. About this question of moral courage, now?"

We argued about moral courage, the civic disabilities of women, the relative value of masculine reason and feminine instinct, why no lady ever buys a comic paper, and how Ellen Thornycroft Fowler came by man's prerogative of humour. We had passed on to the subject of hatpins when the dinner-gong sounded. She had ten in her hat, and maintained that they were not for ornament, but for use; or that, if they were for ornament, men ought to be grateful to women for looking nice. "Frumps will never get women their rights," she added emphatically.

"And if they would," I told her, "you wouldn't buy them so dear! And you couldn't!"

We had the saloon to ourselves for dinner. Everyone else was prostrated, except Bob; and he was "having a peck with Lucy," as he described it. They are preposterously attached to each other.

"A man's moral courage," I observed.

"The courage is Lucy's," my companion contradicted. "She dares to let him see her when she is green."

"She has plenty of moral courage," I confessed. "She vows that she proposed to Bob, because he stood off on account of her money." Lucy was a great heiress, and the big yacht was hers, in fact. "I believe it's true to the extent that she surprised him into proposing to her. But her moral courage does not qualify her for a vote. She knows twice as much about politics as Bob does——"

"Twice nothing!" Miss Fane suggested.

"Exactly. But if you gave her a dozen votes, she'd vote for anyone he told her to."

"And he'd tell her to vote just how he knew she wanted to! Besides, they're not a fair case to argue from. They are absolutely suited to each other, and really in love."

"You believe in love, then?" I inquired. I could not quite reconcile this with her articles.

"Yes," she said briefly. "I never quarrel with facts."

"That isn't quite the point," I protested. "That the world is blessed—or otherwised—with a fact called 'love,' we all know. The question is its reality and value. In their case you called it 'real,' and I gathered that you put some considerable value on it."

Miss Fane paused in her attack on a pink ice.

"I am putting a weapon in your hands," she said, "but—yes. In their case, I do. Their case is very exceptional. They are like people with a sixth sense or a dual personality. I believe that such freaks of Nature exist; but I refuse to base a theory of life upon such abnormal instances. If every married couple were a 'Bob-and-Lucy,' I shouldn't worry about Woman's Rights. Her Bob would see that she got them; and it wouldn't matter much if she didn't. So I should just look out for my 'Bob'! And you wouldn't 'object to women.'"

"You have convinced me already that there is an exception to my rule," I stated.

"You were bound to say that. So it doesn't count." She renewed her onslaught on the ice.

"Yes," I agreed. "I was. I never quarrel with facts. And the exception does count; more than the rule sometimes!"

We spent the next day making exceptions to our rules about the opposite sex. The Channel was in a merry mood, and made a plaything of the two-thousand-ton yacht. Even the great liners were pitching like little boats, and white foam was jumping over their bows in torrents. No one else showed up on deck except Bob. He spent part of his time on the bridge—he was chief officer on a liner when he met Lucy, and he loves to do a little navigation—and the rest of it in his sick wife's cabin.

"There's nothing much the matter with 'the box of tricks,'" he assured us. "She's afraid to face you two, that's all. I propped her up with pillows for half an hour and played piquet with her, and she cheated me out of half a sovereign!"

"She's frightfully bad really," Miss Fane told me, after she had paid her a visit. "She only manages to put on a bright face to him because she won't spoil his pleasure. A man couldn't do that."

"I believe you are feeling very bad really," I said chaffingly, "but your woman's moral courage won't let you desert me and spoil my pleasure."

"Well," she confessed unexpectedly, "I'm not ill; but I feel just a little doubtful, since I went below."

"And I'm walking you about!" I cried remorsefully. "You poor thing!"

I went for cushions and rugs, and tucked her up in a long deck-chair, and sat beside her.

"Now," I said, "if you're well enough to talk, own that a man has his uses."

"I'm quite well enough to talk. I feel very comfortable and cheerful now. Thank you!" She smiled very pleasantly. "Yes. A man has his uses. That's the worst of it. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman."

"My dear Miss Fane," I said, "you have put the whole truth in a nutshell."

"No, no! It is true; but it is only part of a truth—nowadays. I don't suppose it was ever all the truth; not even in prehistoric savagery. I suspect there were always women like Lucy!"

"Eve," I instanced.

"She is Eve-ish, isn't she?" We both laughed. "Still, in early times it was perhaps seven-eighths of the truth, and in the classic days three-quarters—later Rome excepted. In the Middle Ages it was more than half the truth. If a woman had power, it was not by rights, but by her Eveishness."

"The way appointed by Nature," I asserted. "But you forget. Nature doesn't stand still. Men and women are different from what they were."

"I doubt it," I demurred.

"Well, their relations are different, anyhow. There is less 'domesticity' and more 'business'; less 'love' and more 'friendship'; but friendship is unripe yet. Marriage is only one of many careers for a woman now. The relations of men and women have altered, altered more than the world recognises. That is what 'Woman's Rights' mean; not a change, but the recognition of a change; of the equality of women with men. Dependence is no longer possible to a woman who has been independent, who has earned her living, as I do. The relation should be equal—well, approximately equal."

"Ah!" I cried. "Never mind the fractions. The question is what relation? You can't make the main tie of human life a mere matter of business. It isn't so even between man and man or woman and woman. What is the relation to be?"

"Well—it ought to be friendship, if——" She paused.

"If," I said. "Isn't that the point?"

"If they would forget the 'man and woman' nonsense."

"If they could," I corrected. "And they can't. Miss Fane, you are a very clever young lady; the only woman's-rightist I have ever met who had common-sense; or who remained absolutely womanly. Is platonic friendship possible?"

She crossed her hand over the rug on her knees and looked at me.

"It is possible, I think," she stated; "but—you never know."

"Then," I said, "you and I are sailing in uncharted seas."

"I think——" She looked thoughtfully at the waters. "It is getting calmer, I think. Shall we walk?"

"No," I said. "We'll take our bearings in these dangerous waters where we are sailing."

She was silent for a little while.

"We are sailing towards uncharted seas," she said at last. "And I want you to understand why I cannot sail there. I particularly wish you to know—to know perfectly clearly—that it is not because I undervalue the prospect of your friendship. It would be pleasant to me to be friends with you, but I—I have vowed never to take the risk of such a friendship, slight though it may be."

"I do not undervalue the risk," I said; "but I could not overvalue your friendship."

She looked at the sea again.

"The argument has taken a rather personal turn," she remarked; "but I don't quarrel with facts, as I told you. It is a personal question between us; and you have a right to know my mind. I knew a man and a woman who tried it once; knew them well." She caught my eyes. "No. I was not the woman. She was a fellow-student. She wasn't so good at scribbling about Woman's Rights as I; but she believed in them more. I don't mean that I am not an honest believer; but I am less of a recluse; more a woman of the world; more inclined—too much inclined—to see both sides of a question. I try to be practical and tolerant. I will give you an example. She would regard Lucy as a slave, because she hasn't a vote. I recognise that Lucy has her rights. You see that I am a sensible suffragist, professor."

"My dear Miss Fane," I said, "if I told you all that I see in you——! You are most sensible and most practical; and I don't believe there is any real difference between us."

She laughed suddenly.

"And so, of course, I am sensible! That's a man all over! Well, she wasn't very sensible, and she was utterly unpractical. The Rights of Woman were a sort of religion to her. Platonic friendship was an item of the creed. With him it was only a means to an end. When she found out that she was the end, she dropped the friendship. He went to the bad. People said that it was her fault." She clasped and unclasped her hands. "It was."

"You think that she ought to have married him! To have sacrificed her—your principles?"

"I think the sacrifice was called for. She didn't care for anyone else; and she had been his intimate friend. She had sailed with him on 'the uncharted seas' for five years, taken the risk of those who sail there. And she was fond of him in her cold way, she owned it to me; but there was a clear understanding, she said, and marriage was contrary to her principles. Oh! What's the good of 'understandings' and 'principles' when you ruin a man's life! Your dearest friend! I couldn't have done it. I couldn't have done it—liking him as she did. You are very generous, professor; and very straight—I like that man's word. However remote, however unlikely, friendship means the risk of spoiling a man's life. Can I take it?"

"You cannot take it," I pronounced, "unless you are prepared to insure him against the risk; and unless he is prepared to insure you."

"But I don't want to be insured."

"Then you meet the case by insuring him. Let's be concrete and practical. You can meet the risk of our friendship by insuring me."

"Or by not embarking upon it," she observed—not, I thought, with emphasis.

"You have told me that you never quarrel with facts," I reminded her. "Have we not in fact embarked, and set sail as friends?"

"A—a little way," she confessed, with a delightful flush.

"Very well," I said. "We will drop metaphor. You are my friend. Do you wish to discontinue the friendship?" She shook her head. "But you don't like the risk to me—there isn't any to you, of course?" I waited for an answer, but I did not obtain one. "Will you spare me the risk? Insure me?"

"I don't see——" she began.

"Oh, yes, you do! The insurance is that in a contingency which you regard as very unlikely, you would not 'ruin my life'; that, if you liked me well as a friend, and did not like anyone else as anything more, and I asked you to marry me, you would say 'Yes.' I understood that you would feel bound to do so."

"Rather than ruin anyone's life. That was what I meant."

"I should not ask you unless it meant everything to me. Is it a bargain?"

"I—I suppose it must be—if we are to be friends."

"And we are."

She adjusted her rugs and struggled with a pillow. I lifted her head and put the pillow right.

"Are we?" I insisted, as I laid her back.

"You know we are," she said. Her voice trembled and her eyes blinked. I drew her to me.

"Will you marry me, darling?" I begged. "Not because you promised, but because I love you and you love me. You know you do."

"Yes," she said, with a choke. "I know I do!"

We were sitting hand in hand watching the sea grow smooth, and the red sun drop below the horizon, when a white little face peeped between our shoulders, and my sister-in-law's coaxing voice whispered in our ears.

"God bless you and make you very, very happy!" she said. "I wonder if you know how much I wish it, dears?"

"I wonder if you know what a good woman you are, Lucy!" I said.

"Come and sit beside us," Margaret told her. "We couldn't bear anybody else; but we shall love to have you with us, dear."

Old Bob grinned when he saw us.

"So you've scored again," he remarked, "you box of conjuring tricks!"

"Shall I tell you how it's done?" she asked, putting her arm through his. "It's just—just being fond of people."

Which is the trick of life!