The Social Secretary

Mrs. Carteret said she would call for me at five minutes to one. But it was ten minutes after when she appeared, away down at the corner of I Street. Jim was walking up and down the drawing-room; I was at the window, watching that corner of I Street. "There she blows!" I cried, my voice brave, but my heart like a big lump of something soggy and sad.

Jim hurried up and stood behind me, staring glumly over my shoulder. He has proposed to me in so many words more than twenty times in the last three years, and has looked it every time we've met--we meet almost every day. I could feel that he was getting ready to propose again, but I hadn't the slightest fear that he'd touch me. He's in the army, and his "pull" has kept him snug and safe at Washington and has promoted him steadily until now he's a Colonel at thirty-five. But he was brought up in a formal, old-fashioned way, and he'd think it a deadly insult to a woman he respected enough to ask her to be his wife if he should touch her without her permission. I admire Jim's self-restraint, but--I couldn't bear being married to a man who worshiped me, even if I only liked him. If I loved him, I'd be utterly miserable. I've been trying hard to love Jim for the past four months, or ever since I've really realized how desperate my affairs are. But I can't. And the most exasperating part of my obstinacy is that I can't find a good reason or excuse for it.

As I was saying--or, rather, writing--Jim stood behind me and said in a husky sort of voice: "You ain't goin' to do it, are you, Gus?"

I didn't answer. If I had said anything, it would have been a feeble, miserable "No"--which would have meant that I was accepting the alternative--him. All my courage had gone and I felt contemptibly feminine and dependent.

I looked at him--I did like the expression of his eyes and the strength and manliness of him from head to foot. What a fine sort of man a "pull" and a private income have spoiled in Jim Lafollette! He went on: "Surely, I'm not more repellent to you than--than what that auto is coming to take you away to."

"Shame on you, Jim Lafollette!" I said angrily--most of the anger so that he wouldn't understand and take advantage of the tears in my eyes and voice. "But how like you! How brave!"

He reddened at that--partly because he felt guilty toward me, partly because he is ashamed of the laziness that has made him shirk for thirteen years. "I don't care a hang whether it's brave or not, or what it is," he said sullenly. "I want you. And it seems to me I've got to do something--use force, if necessary--to keep you from--from that. You ain't fit for it, Gus--not in any way. Why, it's worse than being a servant. And you--brought up as you've been--"

I laughed--a pretty successful effort. "I've been educating for it all my life, without knowing it. And it's honest and independent. If you had the right sort of ideas of self-respect, you'd be ashamed of me if you thought I'd be low enough to marry a man I couldn't give my heart to--for a living."

"Don't talk rubbish," he retorted. "Thousands of women do it. Besides, if I don't mind, why should you? God knows you've made it plain enough that you don't love me. Gus, why can't you marry me and let me save you from this just as a brother might save a sister?"

"Because I may love somebody some day, Jim," said I. I wanted to hurt him--for his own sake, and also because I didn't want him to tempt me.

The auto was at the curb. He didn't move until I was almost at the drawing-room door. Then he rushed at me and his look frightened me a little. He caught me by the arm. "It's the last chance, Augusta!" he exclaimed. "Won't you?"

I drew away and hurried out. "Then you don't intend to have anything to do with me after I've crossed the line and become a toiler?" I called back over my shoulder. I couldn't resist the temptation to be thoroughly feminine and leave the matter open by putting him in the wrong with my "woman's last word." I was so low in my mind that I reasoned that my adventure might be as appalling as I feared, in which case it would be well to have an alternative. I wonder if the awful thoughts we sometimes have are our real selves or if they just give us the chance to measure the gap between what we might be as shown by them and what we are as shown by our acts. I hope the latter, for surely I can't be as poor a creature as I so often have impulses to make myself.