Ars Amoris

I

JAMIE ALLISON was one of those who take their theories seriously, and by too much speculation grow pale over nice points of moral and aesthetic casuistry. But old Thaddeus Bourne was still, on the whole, a romantic person; there was a gentle aroma of worldliness about him, the grace of the sentiment of remembered vanities, a flavor of old letters, and the faded garlands of past revelings; the continual flower in his buttonhole seemed like a votive offering to the memory of a romance.

For these reasons, and because the fire in the club reading-room burned with a speculative air, it came about that they fell to discussing the theory and practice of love-making, and that Thaddeus spoke as follows: —

“Very few men are good love-makers nowadays, if you look at them from the point of performance, and not of success. They succeed; yes, they succeed! It is much to be regretted. But in the first place, in their choice of a subject, they are always putting up with the crude dictates of chance. Secondly, they say to themselves, ‘We will be frank and downright. We will simply state this case to the other party, and credit her with equal knowledge of her desires or interests.’ Thus they take their business habits into it. They regard love-making as the preliminary negotiations to a contract. As business men they keep the ultimate issue so much in view as to disregard the process as an end in itself. Therefore women find them, as a rule, disappointing. For love-making is not business, but art. It has the same definition as the other arts, namely, the nice treatment of the emotions. Now, women appreciate art. They have instinctive insight into technical perfection, and they don’t wish to be made love to on business principles; and yet the loveliest and the best are constantly being wooed and won in the crudest fashion. They suppose the fault must lie in the nature of men, in the native inadequacy and ineptitude of men, and they put up with it because they think they have to. There was more grace and delicacy in it in my day.”

Whereupon Allison went away, taking the subject seriously.

In his own rooms he settled himself in a chair, stretched his feet on the low window-sill, and looked out at the afternoon May sunlight, shining broad and bright down the middle of the street, and filtering through delicate new maple leaves to the sidewalk. The air was moist and fresh, and the syringas were sprouting on the lawn.

“If you ever mean to get a result,” he thought, “you must have a system.

“The nice conduct of love-making, then, falls into three divisions: —

“First: Choice of Subject, that is to say, the lady.

“Second: Study of the Subject’s special demands, that is to say, her tastes and likings.

“Third: A large division under the general head of ‘Method;’ under which it must be decided whether the subject should be treated in (a) the realistic manner, that is, with accurate detail; or (6) the impressionistic, that is, with an eye mainly to the general atmosphere, a devotional manner, for instance, being regarded as more important than a minute attention. So far, good!”

Here Allison paused and reviewed his statement. It seemed to him that any really thoughtful love-making must, at one time or another, touch upon all these points, and that this was the logical order. As to the First Division, or the Choice of Subject, it seemed to be settled already by the fact that he had been in the habit of considering himself already in love. Nevertheless, this must be examined. Fay Allison was his cousin, more or less distant; they had grown up together, though some years apart; therefore the choice was originally not discriminating, but accidental. This had to be admitted, but it seemed outweighed by the fact that he felt no inclination to unmake the choice.

“In fact,” concluded Allison, “excepting a small primary lapse of the theory, why is n’t Fay an especially welladapted subject ? She is not used to artistic love-making. Our relations have been off-hand, matter-of-fact, amiable, but brutal. The superiority of artistic love-making will be only the more distinct. She will appreciate the difference. Is it not, though accidental, a well-made choice? Check off ‘Subject.’

“Second Division, or Study of the Subject’s Peculiarities. Now, Fay is a girl of remarkable vivacity of mind, and also of remarkable self-poise. She is frank, but reserved, aware of her good looks, but not self-conscious. Check off Division Two.”

“Division Three, or Method.” Under this head Allison made the following miscellaneous notes: —

“1. A compliment should always have the air of passing a remark, — a certain purposelessness about it.

“2. The definition of love-making, namely, ‘nice treatment of the emotions,’ has two parts: First, her emotions; second, my emotions.

“3. Go and see Mrs. Mavering.” So ended Allison’s notes, with the enigmatic entry,— “Go and see Mrs. Mavering.”

II

Mrs. Mavering came to Hamilton some years back. She lived alone, on Charles Street, behind St. Mary’s Church. It was said in Hamilton society that she had married unhappily, but that perhaps was nobody’s business. She was some relation of the Suttons. As to her age, Thaddeus Bourne, who knew everything about everybody, said thirty, — because it would not have been believed if he had said twenty-five, and because it would have been believed if he had said thirtyfive; so prone to evil is the world, so acutely polite was Thaddeus. She was worldly after Thaddeus’s own heart, with the touch of sentiment which Thaddeus considered ultra-worldly. As for Allison, he thought she was like the Persian poets, or the Calculus, something one would wish to know about, if one knew how, and life were not so short.

“Humility is the beginning of wisdom,”he reflected, mounting Mrs. Mavering’s steps. The window in her drawing-room was partly open, but a light fire snapped on the hearth, and Mrs. Mavering was regarding her feet severely, which were planted against the andirons. Allison did not think her expression promising;

“Might I inquire,” he asked, “ what’s the matter ? ”

“I was arguing whether or not my feet were wet.”

“Does n’t that sort of knowledge come by intuition?” asked Allison timidly.

“No. It depends on other shoes, likelihood of sore throat, and a number of things.”

Certainly Mrs. Mavering was not in a good humor. Allison made haste with his preliminaries.

“Mrs. Mavering,” he said, “I’m the scum of the earth.”

“Cream,” corrected the lady scornfully.

“No,” said Allison. “I want to convince you of my humility.”

“You can’t do it.”

“But I have a special purpose in it. I want to ask your advice, and if you think I’m rampant with conceit, you won’t give it till you ’ve combed me down. You take so much pains to comb me down, and I thought it would save time. I ’m after a special kind of lore, and I’m going to sit at your feet for it.”

“Oh, well,” she said after a pause, “that’s different.”

“You see, Mrs. Mavering,” Allison began, “I’m in love, of course.”

“Oh! You’re in love, of course!”

“Yes. And if Fay can be persuaded to take me seriously, it will probably be the only love-making I shall ever do. Consequently, I want to do it as well as possible. I want to consider what is the best possible way. Will you criticise the idea ?”

“In the first place, it’s not humble,” said Mrs. Mavering. “Humility would tell you that it will take the best lovemaking you can do to get her anyway.”

Allison shook his head.

“That is n’t the point. Listen and I’ll expound. In ideal love-making the final outcome is a matter about which the lover has prayerful hopes, but he deserves no success who does not make each step of his progress excellent in its kind. He must love art for art’s sake. But this is the point. The art of love-making at present is in a deplorable state. Women accept crude, careless love-making because they have to. Men make use of it because women accept it, and it is consequently effective. Now this is where the root of the evil lies. The art of lovemaking is lost through utilitarianism. Now my theory is, first, that the initial step for the reformed lover is to learn to subordinate the end to the means; to devote himself simply to study and understand the tones, qualities, and chords of his lady’s character, and how to apply his own to them to the most harmonious result. You understand all that. Secondly, my theory is, that women may be trusted to appreciate the difference, and see that it is effective.”

“A woman wouldn’t accept a particular man, to show appreciation of his method, when she liked another one better,” suggested Mrs. Mavering.

“No, and it would n’t do any good if she did. She must fall in love with the man who does his wooing best; other things being equal she must do it always, or else my theory is wrong.”

“ I see. That would be a pity. Other things never are equal. You want me to criticise your theory ? It’s better than likely.”

Allison thought a moment. “No, not now. I want you to help me understand Fay.”

Mrs. Mavering sat a long time silent, with her chin on her hand. The humorous mouth looked as if sensitive with memories that would not be laughed at, and the long eyelashes drooped. “Oh, well,” she said at last, “I can do that;” and she talked very cleverly about Fay, to Allison’s great satisfaction.

He was not sure that he understood Mrs. Mavering any better than before. Strictly speaking, that was not important, of course. To the reformed lover all other women ought to be enigmas merely, mysteries uninquired into, but worshiped vaguely and incidentally, as the pedestal of a particular divinity.

Mrs. Mavering, however, continued to lie in the background of his mind, like the Persian poets, or the Calculus, even while he entered old Christian Allison’s dominant residence on Temple Square, with its green lawn and elm trees in front, and tennis court at the side.

Fay came flying down the stairs. She looked even more brilliantly radiating than usual, a Greek goddess in a white sweater, and swinging a racket.

“What a prig you are, Jamie!” she cried impatiently. “Why didn’t you wear your tennis jeans instead of that everlasting thing you call a coat ? Besides, you have n’t been here for a week.”

Allison was about to call attention to the inconsequence of the “besides,” to correct the “week” into three days, and casually to remind her, in detail, of the special kind of idiot she had been on that last occasion; but he caught himself and took up his role.

“ I know it, Fay,” he said gently. “I’m sorry.” He paused and looked at her a moment. “If you did n’t look so particularly pretty I might be able to go away now and change.”

Fay opened her eyes wide, and stood by the door with flushed face, hesitating and tapping her foot with the racket.

“I did n’t mean to be cross, Jamie,” she said, and then laughed. “You ought to give me warning when you are going to be nice. Will you really go and change ?”

“After all,” he reflected a quarter of an hour later, fishing in the back of his closet for flannels, “that was nothing but the ‘soft answer turning away wrath.’ There was nothing really artistic about it. I’ll have to do better.”

III

With frequent conversation with Mrs. Mavering, who listened languidly to his discourses on the separate elements of Fay Allison’s soul, and seemed inclined to bridge over his distinctions, Allison pursued his theory, racked his brains for devices, and searched the poets for inspiration. The Petrarchan sonneteers he thought irreproachably good form, but difficult to apply. Fay did not seem susceptible of allegorical treatment. The effect of the “Method” on her was odd. She left off wearing sweaters and dropped her slang. She fell to going about more soberly, more quietly; to glancing at Allison with startled or questioning eyes. Finally she seemed to grow constrained and even repellent. She made no comment on the “Method.” Allison doubted gloomily whether she noticed the “ Method ” at all. Mrs. Mavering thought she did. “Why,” she said, “if you go on handling her like Venetian glass and keeping up the atmosphere of an Italian sonnet, what do you suppose she thinks about it ? Do you imagine you are making love to a china image? The trouble with your Italian sonnets is, that they make love to china images which are not required to move. If you insist on our sitting still, we may submit, or we may like it, but you must n’t refuse us some commotions of our own.”

“We should n’t refuse or require anything,” answered Allison. “Whatever you do ought to be right to us.”

“And do you suppose we feel complimented with a guaranteed approbation ? You surround us with a rosy mist. I don’t say we are not comfortable in the mist, but still might n’t even a Virgin in her shrine sometimes long to have her worshipers disapprove of her, and wish the incense were more tart ?”

“That’s another idea,” Allison muttered gloomily. “ Doyou think the ‘ Method’ is all wrong?”

Mrs. Mavering stood at the window with her hands clasped behind her, looking out on the leaves dripping with the June rains. On sodden, coldly depressing days, and in moments when the memory of one’s experience tastes badly in the mouth, it sometimes seems possible to know too much of the realism of life; the incense and withdrawal of a shrine seem not unenviable. Experience! In a little while our lips are dumb, and our individuality has already almost ceased to interest us. Possibly Mrs. Mavering thought the actual heart of womanhood needed something other than a recognition of its citizenship, or even its common humanity; possibly she was not generalizing at all, for the face that looked out of the window in the gray afternoon was a face that few who knew Mrs. Mavering were acquainted with, and one of which Allison was quite unaware. Only Thaddeus Bourne, passing by in the mist, looked up at the face, took off his hat and kept it off till he reached the corner.

“No,” said Mrs. Mavering, “I think it must be right.”

IV

Toward the last of July, the Suttons, across the square from Christian Allison’s, gave a ball. The Suttons were famous for their chrysanthemums, which are vulgar flowers, and suggest magnifying glasses and analyses, their spiky petals standing out over-distinctly.

Allison and Fay left the house together, crossed the square silently, and sat down on the steps of the porch in the shadow of Christian Allison’s tuberose bushes, which Christian had planted for other purposes.

“Jamie,” she said, “I’m going to surprise you.”

“You always surprise me. The right attitude of love does not differ very much from surprise.” But Fay did not even look bewildered, as she had usually done when Allison defined his enamored condition. She looked determined.

“I want you to go and tell Mrs. Mavering that I am not old enough to be so clever as that. She will understand. Will you ?”

“I will do whatever you want me to, of course,” he said placidly. “ You need n’t tell me why. It is a test of faith.”

She made a movement of impatience, and went on hurriedly: —

“You don’t care for me! Not even as you used to! You make believe until you don’t know what you mean yourself. You only care for your little game. You make experiments on me. Don’t do it anymore. I don’t think it’s good for me. You don’t care for me any more than Petrarch did for Laura. You don’t! You don’t! The only real woman you care for is Mrs. Mavering, and the joke is that she knows it, but it’s a dull joke, it’s a dull joke.”

“ Oh, now! ” broke in Allison. “ Don’t drag things around in the dirt! Why do you think that?”

“Because she gave you bad advice.”

They rose, and Allison said gravely, “That about Mrs. Mavering is neither kind nor true. But then, the rest is n’t true either, and that’s more cheerful. I love you both ways, Fay, my star, and my girl. Why do you give motives to another woman that you would n’t act on yourself ?”

Fay laughed.

“Oh, but I would, Jamie! I would!”

She caught her breath with a sob, and added, “There’s only one way,” and disappeared.

Allison turned back across the square to the Sutton house, and threaded his way among the dancers, chaperons, and such manner of obstruction, in search of Mrs. Mavering. He found her in a corner behind the chrysanthemums, sparring composedly with Thaddeus Bourne.

“I should like Mrs. Mavering,” said Allison. “ How long have you had her ?”

“Well, Jamie,” said Thaddeus, “I imagine you’ve come about the right time. I’m the most interesting person there is for half an hour, but my half hour is nearly up. I shall go and find Mrs. Sutton. She likes my old stories the fortieth time better than the first. I ’in a jester, Mrs. Mavering; by profession, a poor, motley Yorick. I jingle my bells and take my leave. But Jamie looks like a melancholy Dane.”

And Thaddeus departed, seeking the serene certainty of Mrs. Sutton’s approval.

“Have you had a tiff with Dulcinea ?” said Mrs. Mavering, after a long pause.

“That’s just it!” groaned Allison. “Am I quixotic ? And what then ? Look here, Mrs. Mavering! She says, in the first place, she’s not old enough to be so clever as that. As what ? What does she mean ? And what did she want me to tell you that for?”

Mrs. Mavering rested her cheek on one finger, and made no answer.

“In the second place, she says I don’t care for her so much as for a little game I’m playing. Now, that is n’t so.”

“Oh, that is n’t so! But was n’t that the doctrine ?”

“No! In the third place, she says if I’m in love with any actual person, it’s you. That is n’t so, either.”

“Oh, that is n’t so, either!”

“Well,” said Allison penitently, “wait a moment. In the fourth place, she says you gave me bad advice. Now, she is wrong; but what I want to know is, has she the right to be wrong that way ?”

Mrs. Mavering laughed softly.

“Perhaps she has. She has quick instincts. ‘Clever?’ Perhaps not. She has been growing capable, at least. The trouble is that she does n’t understand herself, and she thinks that I do — understand myself — but I don’t.”

“In the fifth place,” persisted Allison, “she says there’s only one way to follow in love. Is n’t there ? What is the way ? ”

Mrs. Mavering was silent a moment, and then said quietly, “I don’t know. I did n’t find it.”

She rose, and added, “You need n’t be down-hearted. She will look for you tomorrow.”

Then Mrs. Sutton appeared around the chrysanthemums, saying, “Rachel, your carriage;” and old Thaddeus Bourne followed, to ask if Cinderella would leave a slipper; and Allison departed, wondering what might be the status of his theory now; and each person of the story, as of other stories known to the chrysanthemums that night, went his or her several ways, with his or her several thoughts, and opinions probably wrong.

“The hearth was cold when Cinderella went home,” said Mrs. Mavering to Thaddeus Bourne. “She sat down again among the ashes.”

As her carriage drove away Thaddeus stood still on the sidewalk and shook his head thoughtfully.

V

Toward the end of October the shaded streets of Hamilton had a golden glow from the autumn leaves, still hanging, or already lying crimson and yellow on the sidewalks. It is a cheerful season, for one reason, because, after all, it is only a cool and quiet pause. It closes and locks no door forever.

when our “youth’s sweet-scented manuscript” is closed, cannot see ourselves in happy categories with the mallow, the parsley, and the crisped anise, who will open on another spring their freshly scented manuscripts.

Mrs. Mavering and Thaddeus Bourne came from St. Mary’s Church into the street together. The sounds of the Lohengrin March died away behind them. Thaddeus was saying that Jamie would make love to his wife now on an elaborate theory, — on several theories, — and that it would be an immense success.

“I humbly claim a share in the success. The theory was mine.”

Mrs. Mavering did not answer. They passed down the street rustling through the fallen leaves.

“Sadness is disloyalty to life,” said the old man at last.

She answered almost inaudibly: “It comes on me suddenly at times. A dream of my own fell to ashes ten years ago. Forgive me. I have been foolish, and now I am tired.”

“You had better take me home to lunch with you,” said Thaddeus. “I’ll jingle my bells to amuse you. I’m superannuated in the useful service of folly. Well, well! My motley is faded, my cap and bauble are worn old things, but they will last my time.”