# The Red Book Magazine/Volume 38/Number 6/Two Hearts That Beat As One

from The Red Book Magazine, Apr 1922, pp. 31–37, 157–162. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted.
Two Hearts That Beat As One
By Booth Tarkington
Illustrated by Arthur William Brown
IN her childhood Muriel Eliot felt that she was different from all other children; and as she grew older, her consciousness of the difference increased. She thought about it frequently, with a grave and secret self-congratulation, but in her own opinion not with any vanity. That is to say, her understanding of vanity was that it concerned the body and material things—people were vain of their beauty or riches, and Muriel held beauty and riches in actual contempt, although she possessed both. At least, she expressed this view upon her sixteenth birthday, when she began the writing of a book about herself, not intended for immediate publication but to be discovered in its hiding-place and given to the world after her death.
“Sixteen! I am Sixteen today! How far away Sixteen used to seem, how long the path I trod that led to it! And now that I have reached the goal I find that new paths reach ever onward and open before me.... How much there is still to be learned.....
“How often in former olden days have I experienced the longing to write the records of my intime self just as I am—and not as I appear to the family and others! But I was not ready then because I did not know myself..... But now the time has come and although no living eye but mine own will read these words..... until the last strains of my life thread are snapped I feel that it ought to be started..... So I will write of myself intime in this white book papa has presented me with..... He doubtless thought it would be employed like an ordinary diary..... being my father mais que voulez vous
“The self I show to others of the outer world is a self that is like a masque of my self intime. That outer self of mine is considered rather inscrubatle I believe. I know as well as anybody what my mirror shows me and once a man told me in bitterness he believed I was full of vanity..... He is far away now and being a lofty Senior at Exeter probably still has that opinion, but I wonder what he would say if he could see these pages! I care no more than the winds that play what my mirror shows me than the winds that play!
“'Vanitas! Vanitas! Omnium vanitas,' the sage quoth, and I, too, scorn vanitas..... To care what my mirror shows me or costumes and equipages and the family position would be nothing but vanitas. But what is my real self, that self intime?
“As I look about me and see beneath the surface of the other girls I find that some are often guilty of hypocricy, and though others may be less so, all live only in the present they read nothing.. they chatter and laugh..... and are merely shallow. The boys are less guilty of hyporcricy but equally shallow. I do not write this down in haste as if I had not thought about it thoroly..... They seem not to possess the power of thinking.....
“From my earliest childhood I have felt that my self intime was not like theirs. They are merely animals with some knowledge of behavior taught by their parents and school. For instance, there is not a single one of them I could expect to understand what I am writing now, than they could be expected to fly like orioles in the skies of laughing April..... La jeunesse ne savait rien.....
“I wonder when the unfolding years have past what my older self intime will think of these pages when I look back upon them at twenty or even twenty-two. Will I say, 'There, little girl, you afford me some amusement?' Or will I be a little touched and turn away quickly? I do not know but I know that my thoughts are very lonely..... Perhaps somewhere in the world there is One who will understand.... perhaps.”
MURIEL, at twenty, knew more about spelling than she did at sixteen; she was two inches taller, and she had become even prettier, but her view of herself had not essentially changed, though naturally she felt that it had deepened. Her loneliness among the shallows was still profound, and while her expression of it was of course more sophisticated than the first entry in the white diary, the sense of being different was the same.
“The wastes of stale marshland
Murky, flat, infinite,
Stretch uselessly to the flat sea.
In the middle of it all
There stands one figure. Is it ice
Or stone? What is that statue
So alone in universal shallows?
Is it I? Is there another anywhere
In distant wastes and other shallows?
If there were, would that be You?”
This “You” to whom she addressed her inquiry was a being still undefined, that misty “One who will understand,” the possibility of whose simultaneous presence in the world she had surmised at sixteen. The unfolding years had failed to unfold him, although a young gentleman just across the street had offered and even pressed himself as a candidate for the position. Nothing could have been more unfortunate than this fact that he lived across the street from Muriel, who had no eyes for anything so familiar.
“It was a lesson, Renfrew,” Muriel replied, “a lesson in perfect and complete uncongeniality. The man I could care for—"
In spite of that, there were times when he did not lack what at least appeared to be encouragement from her, and there was one summer Sunday afternoon, in particular, when, as the closing episode of a disagreement in which the families of both were involved, Muriel showed him so nearly tender a kindness of word and manner that he was indeed too greatly encouraged. Sitting with him in the shade of a mulberry tree on her lawn, the next morning, she discovered what an exorbitant conclusion he had drawn from her impulsive moment of friendliness.
“Renfrew Mears!” she said, interrupting him with the emphasis of sudden dismay. “What was that you called me?”
“Why, only 'Dear,'” he explained, a little surprised. “I just thought—I mean I was thinking—I thought it would be all right to call you 'Dear,' or anything like that, this morning. I thought 'Dear' would be the best to start with.”
“To start what with?”
“Things—things like that,” he replied, hesitating nervously. “I mean, starting things like calling you 'Dear' and everything like that. Of course, though—” But here he paused, a slightly troubled puzzlement shading the brilliant cheerfulness of expression he had hitherto worn. “Of course, though—of course—”
“'Of course,' what?”
“Of course if you'd rather we didn't use such—such terms—if you'd rather we didn't use those terms—”
“What terms?”
“'Dear,'” said young Mr. Mears. “I mean 'Dear' and terms like that. I wasn't going to call you any of 'em before anybody yet. I was only saying it to you, like this, without anyone around.”
“But why were you saying it to me?”
“Why?” he repeated, his puzzlement obviously increasing. “Well, I thought it would be—I mean I suppose they do.”
“Who do?”
“Why, everybody that—that—I mean when it happens like this.”
“Something seems to be the matter with you,” Muriel said, with a frankness not infrequent in the conversations of young people who live across the street from one another. “You were trying to explain why you called me 'Dear,' but you're getting incoherent.”
“No, I'm not,” he protested earnestly. “I'm not getting that way at all. I am telling you why I called you that.”
“Well, then, do it, please.”
“Well, I didn't know you'd think my calling you anything like that might be in bad taste.”
“I hardly see it in that light,” she said. “What on earth makes you think taste has anything to do with it?”
“Well—well, anyhow, that's the only way I could account for it,” he returned uncomfortably. “I didn't realize your taste was old-fashioned, Muriel.”
“Old-fashioned?” she cried, “I?”
“Yes,” he said. “I mean like my grandmother.”
At this she uttered a slight outcry.
“What?” he inquired.
“You find me like your grandmother?” she said with recovered suavity.
“I mean I do this way,” he replied. “I mean I don't think she ever called my grandfather anything but 'Mr. Mears.' My father says he never heard her call him anything else in his life. They probably neither of 'em ever called each other by their first names, because Grandfather always called her 'Mrs. Mears,' too. Father says they did it when they were alone together just the same as other times. I suppose it was the fashion then, or the way they were brought up, or something like that.”
“But you said I was like your grandmother!”
“I meant about things like that.”
“Good gracious!” she cried. “I never called your grandfather “Mr. Mears!' I never saw him!”
“No, I know you didn't. I mean she probably thought it wasn't in good taste to call him 'Dear,' the way you do, Muriel.”
But at this, Muriel made gestures of desperation. “I don't call your grandfather 'Dear,' do I? He's dead, isn't he?'
“Yes,” said Renfrew. “I meant the way you think it isn't good taste to call people 'Dear.'”
“Do you?” she asked. “Do you think it's good taste to call people 'Dear'? Have you decided to go about calling everybody 'Dear'?”
“Why, no,” he said in deepening perplexity. “I wasn't going to call anybody that except you.” And he added: “I didn't understand you didn't believe in it.”
This additional remark of his appeared to be an unfortunate one; for Muriel's naturally high color was enriched, not with a tender sentiment, but with exasperation. “Believe in it!” she cried. “So it was your idea until just now that I believed in letting everybody call me 'Dear'?”
“Why, Muriel!” he exclaimed. “Do you suppose I'd want you to let anybody else call you that?”
“Anybody else but whom?”
“Anybody else but me,” he answered mildly. “I'm afraid I don't just express myself as clearly—”
“You certainly don't!” she interrupted. “I asked you why you said 'Dear' to me, and you said you called me that because you didn't realize I was like your grandmother. No, I don't consider that particularly clear!”
“But what I meant,” he said, passing a hand over his forehead, “I meant she didn't believe in it with her husband.”
“Her husband!” Muriel cried. “She didn't believe in it with her husband?”
“She thought it wasn't good taste,” Renfrew continued. “But—you—well, of course you already call me by my first name. You always did. As a matter of fact, Muriel, we couldn't either of us call each other by anything but our first names without feeling foolish, and I thought—”
“Stop!” Muriel commanded. “What connection is there between what your grandmother called her husband and what you called me?”
“Why, simply this,” he said patiently, “—I mean, simply this: if you feel the way she did about those things, why, of course I'd try to be like Grandfather about it, but I don't suppose you'd want to go to the lengths they did. Don't you think it would sound foolish if I called you 'Mrs. Mears'?”
“No, I don't,” she replied with almost startling celerity. “I think it would sound insane!”
He seemed relieved, though he was surprised at the vigor with which she had expressed herself. “Well, I do, too, Muriel,” he said. “I didn't really believe you'd want to carry it as far as that, but I'd have done it if you'd wanted me, too, though.”
“You'd have done what?”
“Called you 'Mrs. Mears,'” he said, smiling fondly—too fondly, as it proved; for Muriel rose to her feet with much the effect of leaping into the air.
“What!” she cried.
“What is it, Muriel? What's the matter?” he asked solicitously, rising too.
“Explain yourself!” she said. “What do you mean by saying you would call me 'Mrs. Mears' if I wanted you to?”
“Oh, I didn't mean now,” he said. “I meant after we're married.”
“Renfrew! I don't care for that sort of facetiousness.”
RENFREW was beginning to be seriously disturbed. “But I wasn't trying to be facetious,” he said. “I wouldn't joke about a thing like this, Muriel. Not about our being—our being—” He paused.
“Go on. About our being what?”
He laughed plaintively.. “Why,” he said, “I mean after yesterday afternoon, when we—when you—”
“When I what?”
“When you said—well, when you said what you did.”
“I said nothing of any particular importance, it seems to me.”
“You didn't?” he cried incredulously. “Muriel, didn't you mean it? Why, you said—”
“I saw that both your family and mine had been taking your little sister's quarrels with my little brother too seriously. I saw that even I had been rather foolish about it, and I—well, I admit you seemed to have been more sensible about it than the rest of us. I believe I told you so. Do you consider that of any overwhelming importance, Renfrew?”
“Yes, but—” he said, and again rubbed his troubled forehead.
“But what?”
“Why, it was the way you said it. You asked me— You wanted to know why I let you be so foolish. 'Why do you let me?' That's what you said, Muriel.”
“Yes. What of it? What's that got to do with your talking about calling me 'Mrs. Mears'?”
He stared at her, apprehension becoming poignant in his eyes. “Why, didn't you mean it?”
“Certainly I did. I meant I hoped you'd be kind enough to laugh at me if you saw me taking the children's quarrels too seriously in the future. I admit that I'm apt to be too serious about such trifles. What has that to do with—”
“You didn't mean it?” he interrupted.
“I certainly didn't mean any more than that.”
“Oh!” he said piteously. “Oh, my!”
“Is it possible you thought— Good heavens! You thought I meant—”
“Why, yes,” he said. “Of course I did.”
SHE made without words a sound half regretful, half indignant, frowned at him in silence for a moment, then spoke. “Renfrew, I don't know what to say to you for making such a—oh, such a preposterous mistake as that! How on earth could you think such a thing?”
“I don't know,” he said, turning his stricken eyes away from her. “I just did. I don't know how it happened.”
“You thought I meant I was willing to be engaged to you!”
“Yes. I guess I—did.” And still looking away from her, his attitude being not without a pathetic dignity, he murmured: “I beg your pardon.”
“I suppose you'd better,” she said quietly. “And I suppose after this I'll have to be careful never to show you any special friendliness.”
But here he was able to turn and face her with some show of spirit. “Oh, no, I sha'n't make the same mistake again. You don't think it's so pleasant I'd want to go through it every day or so, do you?”
“But how could you think such a thing?”
“I said I didn't know how it hap—”
“Never mind!” She cut him off thus sharply, walked a dozen impatient steps away from him, turned and came back, her color higher than ever. “Didn't I tell you only last week I'd never seen any man I'd dream of marrying?”
“Yes. But I thought you were just sort of talking, Muriel. Probably most every girl says that, now and then.”
“Oh, then you think I'm like 'most every girl,' do you?”
“No, indeed, I don't.”
“Well, I hope not!” she said with natural indignation. “And the man I marry wont be like 'most every man,' either!”
“I suppose you mean he wont be like me,” Renfrew said, smiling unhappily. “I suppose he—”
“If he ever comes,” Muriel interrupted, “he'll be a man I can talk to on my own plane, a man that will understand me. That's all I ask: just that one thing. And if it ever happens—if it ever happens—”
“Well, what then?” Renfrew asked as she paused.
“I would follow him,” Muriel said, her eyes glowing. “I would follow him to the ends of the earth! I would! At his lightest word!”
“I don't see what for,” her dejected neighbor remarked in a tone slightly argumentative. “I don't see what you'd want to follow him for.”
“There!” Muriel cried. “That's like you, Renfrew; you don't even understand my figures of speech!”
“And this—this other man—he would?”
“He'd understand more than that,” Muriel returned quickly. “He would know my thoughts before I spoke them.”
“I don't see how he could. Not unless he was a—”
“That's just it,” she said. “He'd be a mind-reader of my mind, because he'd think the same sort of thoughts that I think. He'd care for the same things. He'd like the same books, the same things in art and in music and in—”
“Well, for instance,” Renfrew interrupted, “I don't see why I couldn't do that. If you'd tell me—”
“He wouldn't need to be told! Last week at Mrs. Coy's musical evening after she played Rachmaninoff's 'Prelude,' you sat beside me and said you were glad ¢hat was over!”
“I didn't know you'd mind, Muriel.”
“No!” she cried. “You didn't! He'd have known I care more for that 'Prelude' than for anything else in all music.”
Renfrew looked at her wistfully. “What else would he have to know, Muriel?” he inquired. “Would it be anything you think I could learn?”
She shook her head. “I'm afraid not, Renfrew.”
“Why couldn't I?”
“Do you remember the other day, when I was talking about the new movements in art and literature, the revolt?” she said. “I told you I was a radical in art, just as I am in economics and politics. Do you remember my speaking of that?”
“I—well, I think so. It seems to me you said something like that,” he returned doubtfully.
“You're not quite sure, though, are you?” she said; and straightway answered herself: “No, you're not! And when I spoke of my loathing of all the Victorian standards, you hadn't the slightest idea what I was talking about; and I saw you didn't, so I made an experiment. I went on talking about those things for a little while and you kept on looking as blank as the side of our house there. Then I deliberately changed the subject, and you brightened up right away. Do you remember what I changed the subject to? I asked you who you thought would win the baseball championship!”
“Well, but I saw you didn't take any interest in that,” Renfrew said plaintively. “I stopped talking about it as soon as I noticed how you looked.”
“Yes—just as I stopped talking about the things that interest me when I saw how you looked! It was a lesson, Renfrew.”
“How was it?” he asked. “What was it a lesson in?”
“In perfect and complete uncongeniality,” Muriel replied. “The man I could care for—”
But Renfrew had begun to feel some uncongeniality with this topic also. He had lately fallen from a great height, and was conscious that his spirit needed repairs in a philosophic solitude. Moreover his worshiped lady had never looked more cruelly pretty than at this moment, so he found himself unable to hear calmly anything further of the future gentleman who was to have her for a follower.
“Well, if you don't mind, Muriel,” he said suddenly, “I believe I'll go home.”
“If you don't mind, I'm not known as 'Gus' any more, Renfrew.... I stood it for a while as a child, but my real name is Keith.”
With that, he walked directly to the gate, crossed the street, and a moment later disappeared within his own front door, not having once looked back at her.
Amazed, Muriel stared after him. “Well, thank you!” she murmured, and likewise retired into her own house and to her own apartment. “Of all the queer—” she said, having reached that seclusion, but did not complete the sentence. Instead, she glanced out of the window at the large and simple house opposite, complacent among the old trees that shaded it, and her annoyed eyes seemed to find the place guilty not only of uncongeniality, but of queer manners as well. Then she sighed the sigh of a pestered person and took up a book by a French revolter.
THE abrupt gentleman who had just left her found no such solacing relief from his own thoughts. Alone in his room, he gave some painful attention to a mirror, his expression manifesting a strong disapproval of what he found there. For the glass showed a young man who had done his mortal best to make a fine appearance, that morning, and now every item of special gloss was a special mockery of him for the fatuous mistake he had made. The smoothness of his careful hair, unrumpled even in the hour of tragedy. culminated in a gleam like the shaming brightness of a returned engagement-ring. “Oh, my!” said Renfrew. He had no talent for expressing misery; he merely said “Oh, my!” and sat down upon a stool.
If Muriel had seen him then, his sufferings would have left her unmoved, not because of any hardness of her heart, but on account of Renfrew's lacking the talent just mentioned. People who have the usually instinctive art of making their unhappiness understood by others obtain remarkable consolations, and history would be pleasanter reading if its great agonies had been better expressed to contemporaries. The tumbrils of impassive nobles went down the Rue St. Honoré in 1793, and the unsatisfied street-crowds cheered the guillotine; but when Mme. Du Barry was taken that way, she made a great and piteous to do: she gave everybody clearly to understand that she was about to be killed and didn't want to die. The mob straightway became so sick with pity that the route of the tumbrils had to be changed. Nevertheless it is probable that many of the condemned had actually suffered more than Mme. Du Barry, and if these had made their feelings as evident as she did, no doubt the Terror would have been sooner destroyed.
“Oh, my!” was the utmost eloquence Renfrew had attained even in Muriel's presence. “Oh, my!” was the highest pitch of drama reached now in his own chamber; and no other key to the depth of his feeling can be offered; yet who will say that “Oh, my!” may not be the outcry from a depth more profound than that from which we hear the most magnificent roars of grief in epic purple?
“Oh, my!” Renfrew said, and said no more; but for all his speechlessness, he was none the less a ruin
After a while he rose and from habit automatically went to look out of the window at Muriel's house; then as that too well known edifice seemed to wear an unfamiliar and discomposing aspect, he depressed his gaze and watched the approach of a pedestrian along the pavement on the Mears' side of the street. This was a person of somewhat unusual though not what is called eccentric appearance, a young man with a noticeable air, so to speak. That is to say, he had the air of being a noticeable young man, and it was this very air that made people notice him. He wore it even as he walked along alone, with nobody in the nearer view, and he seemed to know, with amused tolerance, that he was being noticed as usual; hence it may be possible that he was noticing himself. His features, figure and dress, all well enough and customary, were in no way unusual; yet at sight of him Renfrew was instantly disquieted by a notion that if Muriel saw this person she would define him as “distinguished looking,” that most fatally significant of all girlish definitions.
“How d'ye do, Gus—Keith, that is?” he said. “I guess you never looked up Molly Graham, did you?”
The noticeable pedestrian walked with a lounging, careless, long stride, swinging a stick, covering the ground rapidly, but he abated his pace suddenly at Renfrew's gate, came within and walked up to the front door. Thereupon, as he happened to glance upward, the surprised observer at the window recognized him as a wandering native of the town and long since lost to view, but once a companion of his own childhood.
Renfrew went downstairs gloomily and took the caller out of the hands of an uncertain colored housemaid and into the library.
“Well, Gus,” Renfrew said in a voice from which all traces of despondency had naturally not disappeared, “I'm glad to see you. Where do you live now?”
“Where do I live? There's only one place in this country where one does live.”
“You mean Chicago, Gus?”
“Well, no, I mean New York,” the noticeable young man returned, smiling indulgently. “And if you don't mind, I'm not known as 'Gus' any more, Renfrew. It never was my real name.”
“Wasn't it? Why, I remember your family all called you 'Gus,' and in school—”
“Oh, yes. It was the name of—of one of—one of my relatives, and I stood it for a while as a child, but my real name is Keith.”
“'Keith'?” Renfrew repeated in some surprise. “'Keith'? Why, I didn't know—”
“Haven't you ever seen it?” the caller inquired. “Keith Green? I'm Keith Green, you know.”
Renfrew was puzzled. “'Keith,'” he said. “It seems funny; I always thought you were just named Gus Green, and so—”
“No, no,” Mr. Green interrupted, a little impatiently. “It's been Keith Green for years. Really, haven't you seen it?”
“'Seen it'?” Renfrew echoed, a complete blank. “Why, how could I see it? Where would—”
“Don't you see The Blue Ikon?”
“The blue what? Is it something you invented?”
“It's a magazine,” Mr. Green explained gently. “I write for it, and I'm supposed to be quoted rather extensively, you see.”
“Is that so? Why, whoever would have expected you to turn out to be a writer, Gus!”
“If you don't mind letting it be 'Keith,'” the other suggested; “I've grown so used to it, you see.”
“Well, I'll try to remember,” said Renfrew. “Do you just write, or have you got some regular business?”
At this, Mr. Green looked at him irritably for a moment, but decided to be good-natured. “I 'just write,' Renfrew.”
Renfrew, visibly melancholy and not cheered by the information, seemed to be at a loss for something to say, but presently asked how Mr. Green happened to find himself “out in this part of the country.”
“Why, I was going through to see Bnukrink,” the caller explained. “I'm writing a study of Bnukrink, and he's on tour, lecturing, you see. It struck me it would be a rather amusing thing to stop off here a day or so and look up some of the people I used to know, just to find how they fitted my youthful impressions of them, you see. You see, when my family left here, I was only a boy of fourteen, and what I really want is to study my own reactions to my new impressions of these old shallows—if you understand what I mean, Renfrew.”
“I suppose so,” Renfrew returned absently. “Who'd you say you were on your way to study or something?”
“Bnukrink.”
“Ben what?”
“No, not 'Ben.' Bnukrink.”
“What's he do?”
“He's Bnukrink,” said Mr. Green. “That's enough, of course. As a detail, he's lecturing—oh, not popularly; he hasn't that atrocious complex! Don't think it for a moment!”
“I don't seem to follow you,” Renfrew said. “What did you say he gives lectures on?”
“On the newer radicalism. Of course everyone who has the slightest power to think is a radical. You've heard that, haven't you, even out here?”
“Well, I have heard something like that,” Renfrew said, and a faint apprehension made its appearance in his eyes as he looked at this former comrade. “Do you mean you're' a radical in—”
“In everything, of course.”
“You mean in other things besides politics, for instance?”
Mr. Keith Green laughed with a slight annoyance. “It seems rather queer,” he remarked. “Yes, it does seem a little queer!”
“What does?”
“Why, to come out here to the town I really grew up in, and find myself having to explain who I am nowadays.”
“You mean other places they already know who you are nowadays?” Renfrew asked, with no satirical implication.
“I mean that one rather takes it for granted that what one is in New York, you see, should rather go for the rest of the country, too.”
“I see,” his host returned vaguely. “Yes, I suppose New York is considered quite a center, nowadays. What I meant, though, was to ask you whether you're a radical about things like literature and all so on.”
“My dear fellow!” Mr. Green laughed again. “I believe I'm rather thought to be the originator of the revolt, in this country, at least. Of course there are other groups that claim that honor, but I believe it's rather generally conceded that I was the first in America to tear down the Victorian standards.”
At this, Renfrew seemed to be a little startled. “The 'Victorian standards,'” he repeated. “What—what does that mean exactly, Gus? I mean Keith. What's it about?”
“Good gracious! Haven't you ever heard the phrase before?”
“Well, yes, I believe I have. I've heard it once or twice lately, in fact; and that's why I wanted to know what it's about.”
“'Victorian' is simply a word we use to describe the lowest commonplaces of art and literature, you see. We use it because art and literature and so-called morals reached their lowest phase under Queen Victoria.”
“You mean in this country, too.”
“Yes.”
“But—but she wasn't ever over here, was she, Keith?”
“Who wasn't?”
“Queen Victoria,” said Renfrew.
“But that would hardly matter, would it?”
“You mean she did as much harm in the United States as she did in her own country? I never realized she had so much influence over here.”
“It was her epoch.”
“I suppose so,” Renfrew assented meekly. “Are you a radical for instance about—about music, too?”
“Yes. There's only one single composition of the really non-revolutionary type that I can endure, you see. It just happens to be my favorite of all musical compositions.”
“What's the name of it?”
“Rachmaninoff's 'Prelude.'”
“Oh!” Renfrew said blankly. “It's your favorite, is it?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Green. “It still makes me feel, you see.”
Renfrew's disquieted gaze was little reassured by this reply, but for some moments he appeared to meditate; then he asked: “Have you been anywhere else: since you got in? I mean, have you been to see any other people you used to know when you lived here?”
“No. I was just strolling out through this old neighborhood and remembered your house when I saw it, so I thought I'd come in and find out if you still lived here and what you were like.”
“I suppose you wont stay in town long, probably?”
“Only a day or so.”
“Well, there certainly isn't a great deal to see,” Renfrew said quickly. “I suppose you'll look up one or two of the other boys you used to know, and see how they turned out, too?”
“Yes, and a few of the girls. I'm rather more interested in reacting to the girls, in fact. I suppose I might explain I'm called a feminist. I'm really a woman's man.”
“Are you?” the blank Renfrew said. “'A woman's man'?”
“It only means I'm supposed to understand 'em rather readily; I'm supposed to be rather a sharp at understanding what they don't say,” Mr. Green explained—with his indulgent smile. “I don't like to seem to beat the tom-tom before myself too much, Renfrew, but I'm supposed to have quite a following among women on that account.”
THE innocent eyes of his host still widened. “A following? Do they—do they really follow you?”
“Oh, not always,” Mr. Green laughed. “At least, I came here alone, you see. I suppose I'll find most of the girls married, wont I?”
“Practically all,” Renfrew assured him. “Practically all of 'em are either married or gone some place else to live. Yes, they're all either married or moved—practically.”
“I suppose so. I'll have to look over a telephone book to—”
“Let me see,” Renfrew interrupted reflectively. “There might be one or two left. Yes, I believe there are. Why, yes; there's Molly Graham; she's still living.”
“'Living!'” Mr. Green exclaimed. “I should think nearly all of them might very well be at least living!”
“I meant more like living here in town,” Renfrew explained. “If I were you, I'd go and see Molly Graham; she'd be mighty pleased to have you look her up, and she's still living where she used to, over on Connecticut Street, not more than six or seven blocks from here.”
MR. KEITH GREEN looked thoughtful.
“I remember Molly,” he said. “She was the one that broke her nose, and it wasn't set properly and—”
“Yes,” Renfrew interrupted. “But you'd hardly notice it now, and it helped to make her mighty intellectual. You'd enjoy her because you could talk to her on—on, your own planes.”
“I dare say,” the caller returned without enthusiasm; then his smooth young brow was shadowed with an effort of memory. “What's become of that awfully pretty one?”
“Which—which one was that?” Renfrew asked in a sinking voice. “I don't seem to remember any—”
“She was a little younger than we were,” said Mr. Green. “I mean that really lovely one.”
“I don't—I can't seem to—I don't just exactly place her.”
“Why, yes,” the oiler insisted. “She was a thoughtful little thing—used to read verse and essays, even as a child. You remember: she lived right around here.”
Renfrew stared falsely. “Around here?'” he echoed with elaborate incredulity. “You don't mean in this neighborhood?”
“Why, I remember!” the caller exclaimed. “Why, certainly! She lived across the street from you.”
“Across the street?” Renfrew murmured. “Across the street from—”
“Certainly, she did. Of course you remember. What became of her?”
“'What became of her?'” the host repeated feebly. “But which house do you mean?”
“That one,” the other said, pointing toward the open window, which revealed no house but Muriel's. “Who lives there now?”
“Over there?”
“Yes, in that house yonder.”
“Oh,” said Renfrew. “There's a family named Eliot lives there now.”
“That's it!” Mr. Green cried heartily. “That was her name. Her other name was—it was Muriel. Muriel Eliot. Is she married?”
“Well, no. No, she hasn't married yet.”
Mr. Green laughed genially. “Hardly had time, I should say. She's only nineteen or twenty, isn't she?”
“I guess she must be,” Renfrew said doubtfully. “Yes, she's somewhere around that age, probably.”
“Is she as pretty as she used to be?”
“What?”
“I said: 'Is she as—'”
“Well, fairly,” said Renfrew. “Yes, I believe she's fairly good-looking.” And with that, he changed the subject, speaking with an appearance of some enthusiasm. “I'll tell you who you ought to look up,” he said. “You ought to go and see Joe Myers. You remember Joe, don't you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, of all the people you used to know here,” Renfrew went on briskly, “Joe Myers is the one you'd take the greatest interest in. He's started out in business for himself, and everybody says it's wonderful the way he handles insurance and real estate. You'd probably find him in his office, if you—”
“No,” Mr. Green interrupted, rising. “I don't care deeply about insurance and real estate, you see. I think I'll just step across to—”
“Oh, but Joe Myers isn't ordinary insurance and real estate,” Renfrew protested. “He's worked up his whole business for himself in only a couple o' years, and he's considered the most rising young man in town. I shouldn't be surprised you could write up an article or something, about him, Gus, if you—”
“No, thanks,” Mr. Green said coldly. “I don't write about that sort of thing—not precisely! I'm not interested in the Rotarian type of complex.”
“What on earth is that?”
“Never mind,” the caller returned. “Do you suppose I'd find Muriel Eliot in if I went over there now?”
“Well, I—” Renfrew shook his head |nervously. “Of course you might, but I think she takes a nap about this time.”
“I think I'll try it,” Mr. Green said, moving to the door. “My name may possibly mean something to her, you see. I'm glad to have had this little chat with you, Renfrew. You haven't changed much. Good-by.”
“I do wish you'd go and see old Joe Myers,” Renfrew urged, following him into the hall and to the front door. “You'd be pretty sure to find him in his office, and Joe might feel hurt if he heard you were in town and didn't look him up. If you like, I could telephone him and—”
But Keith Green was already on his way to the gate. “No, thanks; not now,” he called back. “Good-by, Renfrew!”
He went on, crossing the street with his lounging stride, swinging his stick, and humming a lively tune in a debonair ease of mind that was sufficient contrast to the state of mind he left behind him. Renfrew remained in the doorway, watching with a desolate eye until he saw the noticeable young man admitted to the house opposite. Five minutes passed; Mr. Green did not reappear, and the deduction that he was to remain longer became inevitable. Renfrew said, “Oh, my!” and retired from the door.
AGAIN, in his own room, he looked at his mirror with pain, then paced the floor. “Gus Green!” he muttered. “That ole Gus Green!” And his memory renewed for him the points of a backyard confidential interview with Gus Green when they were both fourteen. “Did you ever notice anything funny about me?” Gus had inquired, musingly. “Well, there is. I'm different from everybody else in the whole world. I don't know just how, but I know I am. I have different thoughts from other people, and I'm different every way there is. Don't tell anybody I said so, though.”
THAT Mr. Green had changed his mind about this seemed improbable, and by a fateful coincidence he was now in the presence of another outstanding person; for although Renfrew had been so distinctly informed that he could never “understand” his fair neighbor, at least he had long since comprehended in what light she appeared to herself as different from all other people. Poor Renfrew could only walk the floor and picture the dramatic greeting exchanged by these two congenialities, each unique, yet so strikingly a mental twin of the other. For it was all too clear to him that in the meeting of Muriel and Gus Green, predestined mates encountered. By a coincidence as painful to Renfrew as it was remarkable, there had arrived the very man whom Muriel declared she would follow to the ends of the earth at the lightest word of invitation.
“He would know my thoughts before I spoke them,” Muriel had said; and the picture that now rose in Renfrew's mind was of Muriel and Gus-Keith Green seated in the Eliots' living-room, facing each other and looking at each other almost in silence, yet communicating amply.
After a while Renfrew stopped walking the floor, to listen. From outdoors there came the sound of two childish voices, one known to him as that of his nine-year-old sister Daisy, and the other as that of Master Robert Eliot, Muriel's fat little brother. They were shouting across the street to each other.
“Oh, Rah-ha-burr-hurt!” Daisy called. “Oh, Rah-ha-burr-hurt! C'm on over!”
“Wha' for?” Robert called in response.
“I got somepthing to show you!”
“What is it?”
“It's a dead frog in our grass,” Daisy informed him.
“What?”
“A dead fraw-hawg! C'm on over.”
“I can't,” Robert shouted.
“Why not?”
“I got to go in to lunch. We got comp'ny to lunch.”
“What?” Daisy cried.
“We got comp'ny.”
“Who is it?”
“It's some man,” Robert shouted. “I guess he's visitin' my sister. She said I had to be on time! G'by!”
“Oh, my!” said Renfrew, and rising, went to stare pathetically from his window.
THERE are times when a house across the street can be as mysterious as a sealed cavern; when that familiar facade opposite, ordinarily so frank and cordial, becomes inscrutable. The neighbors know that something important is going on inside—a policeman may have entered the front door; and eyes like searchlights sweep every inch of the imperturbable front, only to discover that even the windows have become opaque. Thus, for that whole day and the next, the house of the Eliots withheld everything from the plaintive gaze of young Renfrew Mears.
He would stare across the street for half an hour at a time, but saw only brick and slate and glass. The house took on the mood of secrecy that sometimes seizes upon houses. They decide to appear lifeless, and while one is looking at them nobody goes in or out; they may be empty—and yet, in the curtained living-room, a hideous thing may be happening: Mr. Green may have just grasped Muriel's hand with an air of permanence. The outside of the house, even at such a moment, expresses nothing whatever; whereas it ought to crack from foundation to roof and fall apart in uproarious lamentation.
ON the third evening after the day of Mr. Green's call, Renfrew dismally bestirred himself to drive to a Country Club dance, and almost the first person he beheld upon his arrival was Gus-Keith himself. Muriel stood beside him, on the smooth floor of an open pavilion, and both were talking busily to a group gathered about them during a pause in the dancing.
“Oh, my!” Renfrew thought, halting in the darkness beyond the pavilion. “Announcing it already!”
And he turned to go away, but bravely checked the impulse. “Oh, my!” he thought. “I've got to get used to it. I might as well begin.” Then, with all the fortitude he had, he went up the steps to the dancing floor, and joined the group about his lovely neighbor and her new friend.
“How d'ye do, Gus—Keith, that is?” he said, giving Mr. Green a flaccid hand. “I guess you never looked up Molly Graham, did you?”
“No, I certainly didn't.”
“I suppose not,” Renfrew assented, shaking his head. “No, I suppose not.” Then he found courage enough to turn to Muriel. “Good evening,” he said, and he was not the happier to find her expression unexpectedly gracious as she inquired: “Have you a cold, Renfrew?”
“No. Why should you think I've got a cold, Muriel?”
“Your voice,” she said. “Are you sure you haven't?”
“It wouldn't matter,” he returned. “I'm all right, though. I mean so far as having a cold's concerned. You needn't be afraid of catching anything.”
“I'm not,” she laughed.
“Then—well—” He hesitated.
“Well what?”
“I don't suppose there'd be any use asking you to dance with me?”
“Why not?” she asked, and as the musicians at that moment assaulted the night with a renewal of their uproarious disharmonies, she embraced the sad young man firmly in the customary manner and moved away with him in the dance. He looked once into her brilliant eyes, sighed profoundly, then kept his gaze from her. This would be his last dance with her, he thought.
Now, here should have been an aspect of romance: the unhappy young lover and a beautiful girl, lost to him forever, dancing their last dance together. That is to say, in an older day a romantic poet could have written of it: “The Last Minuet,” “The Last Waltz,” or even “The Last Quadrille.” But what could a romantic poet do with Renfrew and Muriel, children of today? Is there romance in “The Last Toddle,” “The Last Fox Trot,” or in “The Last Cat Flop” or in “The Last Chicken Dip,” or in whatever next month's jiggling may be called? Neither were Muriel and Renfrew, as they danced their last dance together, romantic to the actual eye; the movements required of them buffooned all dignity: their appearance was that of a pair of low-comedians, so perfectly have the “new young people” destroyed the romantic graces. And yet, though the outward aspect of the two dancers was merely burlesque, neither of them knew it; for they had never seen the dead graces, nor knew such things had been; and true romance was still with them, though not upon them. It was hidden in the heart of the despairing young lover, for in such a place it still lives on, and always will, unchanged.
“WHAT makes you look so miserable,” the lady inquired, “if you haven't got a cold?”
“Oh, Muriel!” he murmured. “That's no way to talk to me, is it?”
“Pshaw!” she said. “You needn't try to make me think you haven't got over it. Three days is plenty of time for any man to cheer up in, after a girl's rejected him.”
“I guess I could stand that part of it,” he returned. “It's the rest of it.”
“The rest of what?”
He shook his head, still keeping his eyes averted from her. “Don't think I'm too dumb, Muriel,” he said. “There are some things I can understand without being told. I—I hope you are happy.”
“Certainly I am. Why shouldn't I be?”
“Muriel,” he said piteously, “I already know it, but think at least you might tell me! It'd be easier to hear it from you, because that would settle it!”
“What makes you so mysterious?” she asked. “I haven't an idea what you're talking about!”
“About Gus,” he said.
“'Gus?'” she repeated in a tone that was suddenly rather irritable. “Do you mean Mr. Keith Green?”
“I didn't mean to call him Gus, Muriel. I beg your pardon.”
“What for?”
“For calling him Gus. I know he doesn't like it, but it just slips out. I wont do it again, Muriel, and anyhow not with you, because I expect this is probably the last time I'll ever dance with you. I expect I mightn't even have a chance to talk with you again.”
“No? Are you planning to join the Trappists?”
'What?”
“Never mind. What was it you said that you understood about Keith Green?”
“I see!” he said despairingly. “You wont tell me!”
She stared at him, and frowned, but whatever she might have been about to say, the opportunity was lost, for at that moment a youth approached them and casually tapped Renfrew upon the shoulder. He did nothing more, made no salutation, said nothing at all, had no expression upon his countenance except a kind of blandness; yet by the code, Muriel and Renfrew were obliged to stop dancing, even at this important crisis in their lives; Muriel had to accept the bland youth as a dance-partner, although she did not desire him, in place of Renfrew, and the latter was dismissed. He retired to the outskirts and onlookers, coming to a halt beside Mr. Keith Green.
“I suppose,” said Renfrew, making what seemed to him an inevitable inference, “I suppose you don't dance.”
“No, not all the time,” Mr. Green responded. “I do when I feel like it. I was just waiting for Joe: he said he had to dance with his sister; then he'd get up a table for bridge.”
“Joe?” said Renfrew. “Joe who?”
“Joe Myers.”
“Oh, you did look him up?”
“Yes. He brought me out here to-night.”
“What!” Renfrew exclaimed. “Joe did? You didn't come with her?”
“Her?”
“With Muriel,” said Renfrew. “You didn't come with her?”
“'Muriel'?” Mr. Green gave him a side-glance of disapproval. “You mean the little Eliot?”
“'Little'?” Renfrew cried. “'Little'?”
“Oh, I suppose her inches are ample,” the other admitted. “It's a figure of speech. But why should I be surmised to go anywhere with the little Eliot?”
“You really didn't?”
“I? Why should you think so?”
“Why—why—” Renfrew stammered. “Haven't you been over there all the—I mean, you—you stayed to lunch, didn't you? You talked about being a radical, didn't you? And music—and Queen Victoria's standards, and—”
Mr. Green's eye had grown cold; his sensitive mouth expressed a slight distaste. “I suppose you people out here take these little women seriously. You take little Miss Eliot for quite an impressive person, no doubt,” he said.
“You didn't?” Renfrew cried.
MR. GREEN permitted himself to laugh shortly. “It seemed to me you were rather discouraging about my going over there, Renfrew; and I hadn't talked to her five minutes before I saw you were right. Then her mother asked me to lunch—”
“Her mother did?”
“Yes, and I couldn't get out of it, on the spur of the moment; but I made an escape right afterward, and found old Joe Myers a great relief.”
“You found Joe a relief?”
“Yes, after an hour and a half of little Miss Eliot. And I must say,” Mr. Green added with an expression approaching pained irritation, “I must say, I never met a more pretentious little vacuum in all my life!”
“Look here!” Renfrew began. “I wont allow—”
“Excuse me,” said Mr. Green abruptly. “Joe's signaling: he's got a table in the clubhouse. Au plaisir!”
Thereupon he departed, leaving Renfrew engaged in repairing a mangled brain. Never, except as the result of war or alcohol, was there seen a more dazed young man; and automatic instinct alone impelled him to zigzag among the shuffling couples upon the waxed floor until he reached Muriel, and tapped her partner's shoulder. The bland youth obediently paused in mid-gyration and went away, while Muriel and Renfrew clasped each other impersonally and meandered in eccentric orbits.
“You changed your mind, it seems,” she observed. “A few minutes ago you mentioned that you were never going to dance with me again.”
“Well, I thought so then,” he returned nervously. “I wanted to say something to you, though, and I thought this would be a chance.”
“Well, say it.”
“Muriel—” he began, but found progress difficult. He wished to tell her that if she was suffering from unrequited love, he was the person of all the world who best knew how to sympathize and extend the compassion of a fellow-sufferer; but as a befitting vocabulary was not always at Renfrew's command, his kind intentions were balked by a series of hesitations. “Muriel—I—well, Muriel—if you —if you—you—”
Oh, dear!” she said. “What is it?”
“It was about Gu—Keith Green.”
THE annoyance, even irritation, with which she had previously greeted his enunciation of the fateful name, again became visible in her expression. “Oh!” she said. “You're going back to that.”
“Well, I didn't quite call him 'Gus' this time, Muriel. I corrected myself, and I wont do it again.”
“But good gracious, what do I care what you call him?”
“Why, you seemed to, a little while ago.”
“I didn't! I was only satirizing Mr. Keith Green's own superb annoyance.” And with that she spoke with a sudden sharpness. “What did you mean by sending him over to see me, anyhow?”
“I? I sent him?”
“He said you told him we still lived there. Why couldn't you have made up something—anything?”
“What!”
“And of course,” Muriel went on pettishly, “of course Mamma had to come in and ask him to lunch, just as I thought I was getting rid of him!”
“You wanted to?” he cried. “You wanted to get rid of him?”
“Did I?” she said, and laughed with most musical unamiability.
“You didn't—you didn't even like him?”
“Like him!” she echoed. “Why, in all my life I never saw anything like his conceit. In all my life I never met such a pretentious little bundle of vanity! If there's one kind of idiot I hate more than another, it's an intellectual prig without the intellect!”
Renfrew was solidly befuddled, for here was something no one could have explained to him so that he could understand it. And yet in a corner of the clubhouse, a hundred feet from the dancing pavilion, an elderly gentleman at a table was telling a story illuminating just such a matter. “You see,” said this elderly person, continuing the narrative to his friends, “I thought that in bringing two such celebrities together I'd give them both a real treat. They had distinguished themselves in almost precisely the same way; they had each the same sort of preëminence, and were admired for the same things. So I introduced General Dumont to General Archer and left them together to enjoy their natural congeniality. They didn't stay together long, though! Within the next hour each of them had sought me out to ask why I'd abandoned him to be bored by such a jabbering old ninny! I suppose that each preferred to be the only general present.”
But the parable of the two generals would have been lost upon Renfrew Mears even if he had heard it.
“Oh, my!” he murmured as the musicians gave over their outlandish clamors. “May I have the next?”
“Yes,” Muriel assented. “What did you say, 'Oh, my!' for?”
“Nothing,” he answered rapturously. “Oh, Muriel!”
“What?”
“Oh, my!”
Another of Booth Tarkington's inimitable stories will bring Muriel and Renfrew back to you in an early issue. You will find it well worth watching for.
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 1946, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 77 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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