CHAPTER XVI

SELF-DEVELOPMENT

IN the year which followed, Manning dropped into the habit of spending more and more time at his clubs. He developed two groups of friends with whom he played poker. He told Ellen about his games, his winnings and losses. She tried to take an interest in it for his sake. But as his absences increased and his attentions grew more conventional, a dumb misery began to smother her brain and render work impossible.

She had made no real progress in her work since her love-affair began. He had forged rapidly ahead and, then, when the nagging, quarrelling and unhappiness began, he too had stood still. He had learned to play a better game of poker, but his ambitions had waned.

She realized this with a sense of keen pain and made another desperate effort to regain their ideal. They had both intended to write plays. She had studied dramatic construction and had done a one-act piece which had been produced by a stage society of advanced thinkers.

She proposed to him a collaboration in a four-act drama of the marriage problem.

He jumped at the idea and they began the next day. He insisted on a thorough re-study of the fundamental tenets of feminism. She supplied the books with eager anticipation of his conversion to her faiths.

As he finished the reading of each revolutionary volume they discussed it together. His antagonism was invincible. He could find a dozen objections to every proposition her favorite authors propounded.

“Why do you try to antagonize every idea suggested?” she asked, finally worn out with his continuous pounding.

“It’s the only way to get the truth. It must be tested out. I try to see things the way these women view it. I see it the man’s way. I am a man, you know.”

“Try it my way,” she pleaded. “Can’t you use your imagination? Can’t you put yourself in my place?”

“Why should I?” he protested. “If I am to contribute anything to the thought of the world it must be as a man--not as a woman.”

In an endless wrangle over the question of the differences of the sexes the collaboration drifted gradually into personal quarrels which rendered work impossible.

He gave up in a temper at last, bolted the house and sulked for a week, refusing to call or be called.

She got him in a fit of depression, he answered the telephone and hurried to her apartment.

She held his hand in silence for a long time when the door had closed.

“Tell me, dear, what is the matter with us?”

“I don’t know,” he replied wearily.

“Is it all my fault?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Tell me honestly why you’re so unhappy and why I catch it and we quarrel?”

“You want to know the God’s truth?”

“Desperately--tell me.”

“Too much self-development!”

She flushed angrily.

“On your part or mine?”

“Both, I suppose,” he admitted.

“Mine principally?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” she urged, “go on!”

He twisted the muscles of his mouth and gazed out of the window.

“You see, it’s like this. The chief aim in your life is self-development. You have no time to devote to the development of your mate. A man is a vain brute. He needs to be petted and flattered. In his weak soul he wants a woman to make a fuss over him, to tell him he’s great, to inspire him to achievements.”

“In other words,” Ellen interrupted sneeringly, “he wishes to be worshipped while pretending to worship his mate!”

“By George! I hadn’t thought of it exactly that way, but I believe you’re half right. You see, while we are both bent on self-development we can’t be of much help to one another. We are sensitive. We’re forever and eternally dissecting ourselves. We live and move in an atmosphere of impatience and spiritual turmoil.”

She smiled eagerly.

“Let’s reform!”

“I will if you will.”

“It’s a go.”

They shook hands and settled to a hard evening’s work on the construction of the first tentative plot of the play.

They had scarcely begun when a faint knock was heard.

“Who on earth?” she murmured in astonishment.

“The fool next door,” Manning growled.

“Impossible. Field’s off to Japan again.”

Again the timid knock. It came fainter this time.

“You’d better go,” he urged. “Dora will let them in.”

She rose in time to stop the maid. She opened the door and gasped in astonishment.

A little miniature of herself stood trembling with fear.

“Is this my Aunt Ellen?” she faltered.

Ellen laughed.

“It must be, dear, if you say so. You make me think I’ve died and come to life again. You dear, adorable little thing; come in.”

“Thank you,” she sighed.

She carried a hand bag which appeared to be very light. She opened it with nervous, trembling fingers and drew out a crumpled letter.

Ellen edged her into the dining-room, shielding her from the range of Manning’s vision.

The girl handed her the letter and Ellen read it hurriedly. It was from her invalid sister in Texas, who had gone to the Far West for her health five years ago. The handwriting was clear, but bore the mark of physical weakness.

DEAR ELLEN:

This is my little girl Rose. I’m not getting well as rapidly as I hoped. I can’t see my baby grow into womanhood in this Godforsaken desert without a fight. Sam is making a bare living. I’ve read your wonderful book about woman. Won’t you get work for my Rose and give her a chance in life? She’s a dear, good girl and has learned to do first-class work on a typewriter. I send her to you in perfect faith that you love me and will help her.

Affectionately, your sister, ROSE O’NEIL.

Ellen looked at her tenderly.

“Your name is Rose, too?”

“Yes’m,” She answered lightly, and then gulped down the cry of loneliness at the thought of her mother.

Ellen watched her keenly.

“I hated to leave her,” she faltered. “I just wouldn’t come until she made me. But my brother’s ten years old now and he can help her some. I nearly cried my eyes out on the train. I was so lonesome----”

She choked and was silent.

Ellen slipped her arm around her tenderly.

“Well, you won’t be lonesome again, my sweet little Rose. You’re going to live with me.”

“Live--with--you?”

She couldn’t believe her ears. Her mother had merely told her that her famous aunt would help her to get work and make something of herself. She had loved this tall, distinguished aunt from the first sight and her happiness was complete at the joyous announcement that they could live together.

Rose drew Ellen’s head down and kissed her while the tears rolled down her cheeks. The older woman’s arms stole around the girl.

“My sweet little Rose,” she repeated softly, “you’ll bring, me luck. I’ve been lonely, too, of late.”

“I’ll do my best to help you,” Rose responded eagerly.

“Come into the library now and meet my friend, who is helping me write a play.”

“A man?”

“How did you guess?” Ellen laughed.

“Saw a hat.”

“Yes, a man.”

“May I fix my hair a little?”

“Certainly,” Ellen smiled indulgently, “you look so much like me, you must look your best always.”

“My mother always said so,” she whispered excitedly.

Ellen led her into the bedroom adjoining hers and threw on the light.

“This is your room, dear.”

“Oh, isn’t it beautiful--isn’t it wonderful!” she cried in rapture. “I’m so happy I’m afraid I’ll die.”

Ellen smiled.

“Brush yourself up and come right down.”

“In a jiffy!”

Ellen left her prinking at the mirror in joyous haste and reported to Manning the extraordinary arrival.

“And you are going to keep her here with you?”

“Yes. I fell in love with the silly thing the minute I saw her.”

“Don’t you think it will be awkward?”

“Not at all. That there is anything between us more than the friendship of fellow writers, she will not suspect for a moment.”

“I think it unwise,” he protested.

“Nonsense.”

“How old is she?”

“She must be twenty.”

“A very serious age; you’ll get into trouble.”

“She looks but sixteen and isn’t older in knowledge of the world. I can tell from the look in her frank young eyes.”

“Better send her to school.”

“I’ll teach her myself.”

“And make a new woman of her?” he asked with a touch of malice.

“Yes!”

“I’ve a premonition of trouble.”

“Forget it, boy,” she answered gaily. “I’ve recovered my spirits with the acceptance of this burden. There may be something in the old idea of self-sacrifice after all. Anyhow, it won’t be all self-sacrifice. She’ll do my typewriting.”

“She’s a stenographer?” he asked in alarm.

“Only a typist.”

“Oh, well, that may not be so bad.”

“What’s the matter with stenographers?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why the fire alarm in your voice at the thought?”

“I just can’t stand a girl stenographer; that’s all. You’ll find that the kid’s a serious mistake.”

He stopped in amazement at the vision before him. Rose had softly descended the stairs and entered the room with scarcely an echo of her light footfall on the thick carpet. Her face was flushed with excitement and the slender girlish figure was trembling in embarrassment.

He wondered if she could have heard his last unkind remark. She was smiling so sweetly it was impossible. He saw at once that she was so self-conscious from the excitement of the meeting that she had heard nothing.

“This is my friend, Mr. Manning, Miss Rose O’Neil,” Ellen said.

Manning sprang to his feet instinctively and took the soft little extended hand.

He was dumbfounded at the startling resemblance between them.

“I never saw anything like it in my life!” he exclaimed.

“Like--like what?” Rose stammered.

“Why, the resemblance between you two,” he hastened to explain, looking first at one and then the other.

“She’s your miniature?” he added with a nod toward Ellen.

“The most startling resemblance,” she agreed. “I suppose that’s why I fell in love with her at sight,” she added banteringly.

“Shouldn’t be surprised,” he agreed maliciously.

“My mother loved my auntie so, she was always talking about her. I reckon that’s why I look like her.”

She glanced at Ellen and blushed joyously at the idea of the resemblance.

“Her eyes are exactly the shade of yours,” Manning observed; “her hair the same, complexion the same.”

“A little freckled,” Rose complained.

“They’ll fade here, my child,” he reassured her, continuing the inventory, “and the funny thing is she walks just like you and talks like you.”

He paused and wrinkled his brow thoughtfully.

“I wonder now,” he added.

“Wonder what?” Rose asked.

“Nothing worth knowing, dear,” her aunt answered with a look of reproach at Manning.

“I was just wondering what your first ambition in life is?”

“Why, to work hard, make some money and help my mother.”

“And then?”

“Why--then--I’ll just get married, of course!”

Manning laughed immoderately and Rose blushed furiously.

“What’s the matter with that?” Rose asked simply.

“Nothing at all, my dear,” Ellen hastened to assure her. “Mr. Manning was trying to tease you.”

For two hours Manning persisted in question after question, which developed the girl’s old-fashioned ideals to Ellen’s annoyance.

She interrupted him at last with an emphatic dismissal for the evening.

“You can toddle home now, Mr. Man,” she said. “I want to talk awhile to my niece. I can’t get in a word with you here.”

He rose with a laugh, and at the door Ellen spoke in low tones.

“You’ve been very hateful to-night.”

“I didn’t mean it, I assure you. I was only showing you the size of the job you’ve cut out for yourself in her education.”

“I’ll attend to that without help.”

“Shall I cease to call?”

“Please--don’t quarrel, dear man. We began all over again to-night.”

“To-morrow, then, we work in earnest?”

“Yes; beginning at nine.”

“With a friendly wave of his long arm he said:

“Good-night!”

And all the way home he chuckled over the funny contradiction in the miniature edition of Ellen and the mind inside the miniature.

Ellen talked for another hour to her worshipful little niece and kissed her good-night without the slightest premonition of the tragic train of events which her coming had set in motion.