Miss Gibbie Gault Part 18

"Never heard of Plato's /Republic/, or if he did has forgotten it." Mrs. Moon laughed, but as pus.h.i.+ng back a sigh. "His republic is Yorkburg and the mills. He can never go away. Often I wonder if it is worth it, the money he is making. He gives me everything on earth but what I want most."

Mrs. Burnham again bent over her work. "A woman has to pay full price for a successful husband," she said, presently. "Perhaps Mr.

Corbin's philosophy isn't all wrong. He has no wealth, no fame, no great position, but he has gotten something out of life many men miss."

"And his wife has gotten much some other women miss. Men who make money never seem to have time to enjoy it until too late. In business it's the game men love. They build big houses, fill them with fine furniture and servants, give their wives beautiful clothes and carriages--and then find they have no home. I wish I didn't feel as I do about money, but I've come to see it's the most separating thing on earth."

She stopped and laughed with something of embarra.s.sment. "This is a queer subject you and I have drifted into. We both have husbands of whom we should be proud, but--" Her lips quivered.

"Men say women don't understand. Perhaps they don't; but when Mr. Moon was not so busy and we could take the buggy, shabby though it was, and go for a long afternoon in the country and talk over our plans, and whether we could afford this or whether that, it was a far happier ride than I take now in the automobile.

He gave me one this spring, but he has no time to go with me."

Her eyes filled. "There are some things women understand too well."

For a moment there was silence, then she drew her chair closer to the open door. "But a woman shouldn't be silly, should she? I often think of what my old mammy told me the day I was married. 'Don't never forget, honey, that what you's marryin' is a man,' she said, 'and don't be expectin' of all the heavenly virtues in him. They ain't thar."

Mrs. Burnham laughed. "They are not. In a woman 'they ain't thar,'

either. Miss Matoaca Brockenborough says from observation there is something to be said on both sides." She looked up. "You knew Miss Matoaca was going away with Miss Gibbie Gault and Mary Cary, didn't you? She hasn't been out of Yorkburg for years and is as excited about it as if she were sixteen. She's going as Mary's guest, you know."

"Yes, I know." Mrs. Moon's voice was suddenly troubled. "It is all right, of course, but I can't understand why Mary keeps things so to herself. It isn't like her. She isn't rich. Her uncle is, but I'm sure it isn't his money she's spending. Last week Miss Ginnie Grant and her old mother were sent off for a month's stay in the mountains. I don't understand--"

"I don't either." Mrs. Burnham got up and smiled in the perplexed face before her. "But when the time comes we will all understand, and until then I'm willing to wait. Mary is acting for some one else, I suppose. Several people have been suggested, some men, some women.

Somebody said they'd heard a very rich patient of her uncle's out in Michigan was sending her the money to use as she saw best, and others say John Maxwell got some one to buy the bonds for him, but--"

"I don't believe it's John. Of course I don't know." Mrs. Moon got up. "I wish you would stay to dinner. We have peach cream to-day. It's very nice. You'd better stay."

"I wish I could. Peach cream is terribly tempting, but if I'm not at the table Mr. Burnham is as injured as if I'd done him a grievous wrong. He's the only child I have, you know, and I guess he's rather--"

Mrs. Moon smiled in the laughing face. "I guess he is. Good-bye."

Chapter XVI

MEN AND HUSBANDS

When Mrs. Burnham reached the house in which Miss Gibbie lived she hesitated for a moment, hand on the gate, then opened it and walked slowly up the brick box-bordered path to the steps of the pillared porch. The door was open, and inside was Miss Gibbie, the morning paper in her hand.

A quick, absorbing glance took in each detail of the well-kept grounds, the beds of old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers, the fine old trees and stately house, but not until the porch was reached did she look toward the open door.

As she neared it she lowered her parasol, and at its click Miss Gibbie's eyes peered over the top of the paper and looked at her.

"Good-morning! May I come in?"

Miss Gibbie put the paper on the chair by her side, took off her gla.s.ses, wiped them, put them back, and again looked at her visitor.

"Not until I look at you for half a minute," she said. "Raise that parasol and stand just where you are. There! That's right! In the doorway you look like a Roisart I saw some years ago in France.

I wanted to buy it, but the man imagined I was one of those fool Americans who value a thing according to its price, and charged what he thought he could get. He got nothing. Come in. Do you make you own clothes?"

"I make my summer ones." Mrs. Burnham's face lighted with amus.e.m.e.nt, and, as she took the chair Miss Gibbie pushed toward her, she brushed back the stray strands of hair the breeze had blown across her face, and fastened them securely.

"I told some one the other day you were an ill.u.s.tration of what I have always contended, and that is a woman can look well in very inexpensive clothes if she has sense enough to get the right kind.

I hear you have a good deal of sense."

"I have in some things." Mrs. Burnham laughed and took the fan Miss Gibbie held toward her. "I've shown it to-day by coming to see you. Of course I shouldn't, according to regulations, as you won't come to see me, but I wanted to see you and so I came. Do you mind--that I have come?"

The sweet, fine face of the questioner flushed and, at sight of it, Miss Gibbie smiled, then tapped it with the tip of the turkey-wing fan.

"I am glad you have come. You are so fresh and cool in that white dress it's good to look at you. Did you go to the lecture last night?

I hear the Mother's Club is made up of old maids and childless married women; but as they're the only ones who know anything about children nowadays, it's very proper they should issue edicts concerning them.

What was the lecture about?"

"'Lungs and Livers.' and it was fine. It really was. How to breathe properly and how to make your liver behave itself are things few understand, according to Doctor Mallby. I love to hear him. He gets so mad with ignorance and stupidity. You would have enjoyed him."

"I never go to organ recitals." Miss Gibbie waved her fan as if to brush away unpleasant suggestions. "Have you seen anything of the Pryors lately? Some one told me Lizzie Bettie was trying to make her mother and Maria go away. The whole business ought to be separated from each other. Nothing so gets on your nerves as seeing from each other. Nothing so gets on your nerves as seeing the same sort of faces day after day. And of course they wouldn't think it proper to smile under three months at least.

"They certainly seem to be grieved by their father's death. I had no idea how many people loved Mr. Pryor, or how--"

"Little his family guessed it. They took William for granted, like they take everything else in life. And now it's too late to let him know how they loved him. My dear"--Miss Gibbie leaned forward suddenly--"you love your husband? Then tell him so. If he is a good husband tell him that also. There's nothing a man can stand so much of as praise. A woman can make a good husband out of almost any kind of man if she will just go about it right."

"But suppose she doesn't know how? It takes a long time for women to understand men."

"Do they ever?" Miss Gibbie's penetrating eyes were losing no shade of the color rising slowly in Mrs. Burnham's face. "But isn't it because they spend so much time wondering why men don't understand them? The best of men, you believe, are selfish? They are. I am not one of the people who thinks the Lord did such a mighty work when He made man, but if a woman can make up her mind to marry him, it is generally her fault if she doesn't keep his love to the end--"

"Oh, I don't think so!" Mrs. Burnham's voice was vehement in protest.

"Of course you don't. You are a married woman. I am not. I did not say always. I said generally, and I mean what I say. My dear"--again Miss Gibbie leaned forward--"I have been young and now am old, and I have watched many lives. With only occasional exceptions a woman has just about the kind of husband she makes the man she marries become."

"I don't think that, either. A man's character is supposedly formed before he marries; and, besides, a woman ought not to be required to make the kind of husband she wants. She certainly can't make him intelligent, or brilliant, or able, just because she wants him to be."

"I never said anything about making a husband intelligent or brilliant or able. Many miserable wives have husbands of that kind. Any woman of sense wants a man of sense--but most of all she wants to be his first thought in life. And when she isn't it's usually because of selfishness or sensitiveness or stupidity on her part."

"But look at the men who are--who are--"

"Who are what?" Miss Gibbie's eyes met Mrs. Burnham's steadily.

"Unfaithful? And why? Oh, I know some men should be burned up like garbage taken from the kitchen door, but I'm talking now of the man who starts right, starts loving his wife. If there's anything in him she can make more. The more may not be much, but it's better than the less."

"But how?"

"My dear madam"--the turkey-wing fan made broad and leisurely strokes backward and forward--"you and asking me concerning that with which I have no experience, merely an opinion. I never felt equal to a.s.suming the responsibility of a man, not was I sure the reward was worth the effort. But listen!" The fan stopped. "Had I been willing to marry I should have felt the blame and shame were mine had I not kept the love my husband gave me and increased it with time."

Mrs. Burnham leaned forward. Her hands unconsciously clasped tightly.

"Tell me," she said, "how can one do it?"

"In what way, you mean? How should I know? Besides, it would depend on how much the wife loved her husband, how much she wanted to keep his love. The ways would be as varied as the types of man to be dealt with. I've never seen a man who valued anything he got too easily, anything that held itself cheap, and the woman who doesn't inspire some reverence--"

"But you said just now the woman ought to tell her husband how much she loved him."

"Did I? I thought I said she ought to tell him she loved him. Men love to pursue. Something still to be won, something that may be lost, is something he should never forget. Neither should she. I did say just now a man could stand a full amount of praise. I've known good husbands made of mighty unpromising material. A woman of tact and judgment can do much with little. I've seen them do it."