The Republican., 1897-06-03
THE MAKING OF A MAN.
BY oWENDonEN oVERToN.

nothing serious will come of it. But a
clever woman should be given some
thing to do, Another good rule is that
if a woman is not ignorant of life, she
had better have learned it from life and
not from books.
Olive Torrey was clever and had moth
ing to do. She lived at a frontier post,
and could go in neither for charity nor
clubs nor fads. She had a husband who
studied, and no children, SO there was
nothing for her in her home. She had
come straight from a southern Cali
fornia town-and there is less of life
to be seen there in a given period of
years than in any other spot on earth.
But she read-largely Balzac and
Thackeray and Crawford and Bourget;
which taught her 4 great deal that she
had no need to know. She dreamed
dreams of love at first, while she was a
bride; but they were not very realistic
dreams. She had to idealize her hus-
band vigorously to make them endure
even Il year; and no one can idealize
a husband successfully. Heis too much
on hand; more especially in a four
company post
She was a good woman-therefOre,
when she failed on the husband it did
not even occur to her to try on some one
else, though there were two promising
bachelors. Instead, she went at the
novels of manners again, and with new
DEVOTION and dwelt on the parts that
dealt with intrigue and ambition and
success in the world, and SKINNED over
the love parts. She did not believe in
them much now. So her mind became
filed with this sort of thing, and there
was no vent for it. She wanted to be a
brilliant, disillusioned young matron,
cOurted by diplomats, a power in salons
which ambitions were just a bit diff
cult of realization where she was.
Lieut.. Torrey would not be worked
up to her pitch. He read war records
nnd interior department reports, and
thought great thoughts about Indians.
and would have made himself nuisance
to the people at Washington, if they had
not become used to that sort of thing
and thick-skinned long ago. He was
an unpleasant kind of man, and a sol
dier neither in appearance nor by in
stinct, nor in actions. He was to the
service what the man who signs his let
ters "A Citizen" is to a local newspaper
He was always making petty objections
to and complaints against what's. And
what is should be bowed down to and
silently worshiped by a good officer In
short, he was not at all the sort of
man for his wife, and she did not need
TO be as clever as she naturally was
to find this out.
At four-and-twenty she thought she
was old and experienced, and quite
capable of handling amy sort of sharp
edged tools. Although she never posed
as unhappy, or thought herself partic-
ularly 50, the idea came to her that she
would like to have the making of a man,
to be the Egeria to some Numa. just
what she would make him she had not
determined. She would have to have
the man first. She got him. lie came
straight out from West Point, and ne
was hopeless-impossible.
Joe, don't you think young Gordon
is promising?" she asked her husband.
Gordon had come tive day before.
'Promising to be about like all the
Others" There was infinite contempt in
that call the others"-men with no
ideas.
Il don't know. 1t seems to me he has
a clever face, the face of a man-that
is, a man of the world, in embryo"
She was trying to see him in the light
of her own imaginings. 1t is quite hu
man and very feminine to persist in
trying to idealize those about one, and
only a great many dismal failures sue
ceed in curing one of the habit.
''It struck me that he had the face of
boy from West Point"
His wifes good nature was unfiag-
eing. "Now-yes. But he could be
made something Of"
ga major, if he lives"
Mrs. Torrcy was silenccd, but not
daunted.
Mrs. Torrey continued to think that
Thorne Gordon was good material to
work with. She liked his name. 1t
smacked of the statesman. She called
his face impressionable, when it was
Just weak. She saw secrecy in his eyes
-WnlCn were SnlIulnS. one ulSCONtIeu
evasion in his specch-which was trivial.
Physically, he did fairly well. He was
tall and slender in distinguished sort
of way. There was no cause for the dis
tinction; it was neither in himself nor
inherited If there had been any girls
at the post, he would have fallen in love
and married, and then Mrs. Torrey
couldn't have done anything with him.
AS it was, he came to her naturally. No
body else wanted him. She set to work
by giving him her books to read. He
knew enough West Point French to
CLEAN all the harm there is in Balzac
and Bourget. When Mrs, Torrey talked
life as therein portrayed, he talked lNe
as they showed it forth.
at seems to me that the greatest de-
light in living that a man could have,
would be to wind other men around his
finger"
at seems to me that it would be to-
wind women around his finger" her
ward would say.
"Only as a means to an end" she sug
gested.
-