[Illustration: An elderly dame]
"Stung!" said Stanton.
Rheumatism or anger, or something, buzzed in his heart like a bee the rest of the night.
Fortunately in the very first mail the next morning a postal-card came from Cornelia-such a pretty postal-card too, with a bright-colored picture of an inordinately "riggy" looking ostrich staring over a neat wire fence at an eager group of unmistakably Northern tourists. Underneath the picture was written in Cornelia's own precious hand the heart-thrilling information:
"We went to see the Ostrich Farm yesterday. It was really very interesting. C."
III
For quite a long time Stanton lay and considered the matter judicially from every possible point of view. "It would have been rather pleasant," he mused "to know who 'we' were." Almost childishly his face cuddled into the pillow. "She might at least have told me the name of the ostrich!" he smiled grimly.
Thus quite utterly denied any nourishing Cornelia-flavored food for his thoughts, his hungry mind reverted very naturally to the tantalizing, evasive, sweetly spicy fragrance of the 'Molly' episode-before the really dreadful photograph of the unhappy spinster-lady had burst upon his blinking vision.
Scowlingly he picked up the picture and stared and stared at it. Certainly it was grim. But even from its grimness emanated the same faint, mysterious odor of cinnamon roses that lurked in the accompanying letter. "There's some dreadful mistake somewhere," he insisted. Then suddenly he began to laugh, and reaching out once more for pen and paper, inscribed his second letter and his first complaint to the Serial-Letter Co.
"To the Serial-Letter Co.," he wrote sternly, with many ferocious tremors of dignity and rheumatism.
"Kindly allow me to call attention to the fact that in my
recent order of the 18th inst., the specifications
distinctly stated 'love-letters', and not any
correspondence whatsoever,-no matter how exhilarating from
either a 'Gray-Plush Squirrel' or a 'Banda Sea Pirate' as
evidenced by enclosed photograph which I am hereby
returning. Please refund money at once or forward me
without delay a consistent photograph of a 'special edition
de luxe' girl.
"Very truly yours."
The letter was mailed by the janitor long before noon. Even as late as eleven o'clock that night Stanton was still hopefully expecting an answer. Nor was he altogether disappointed. Just before midnight a messenger boy appeared with a fair-sized manilla envelope, quite stiff and important looking.
"Oh, please, Sir," said the enclosed letter, "Oh, please,
Sir, we cannot refund your subscription money because-we
have spent it. But if you will only be patient, we feel
quite certain that you will be altogether satisfied in the
long run with the material offered you. As for the
photograph recently forwarded to you, kindly accept our
apologies for a very clumsy mistake made here in the office.
Do any of these other types suit you better? Kindly mark
selection and return all pictures at your earliest
convenience."
Before the messenger boy's astonished interest Stanton spread out on the bed all around him a dozen soft sepia-colored photographs of a dozen different girls. Stately in satin, or simple in gingham, or deliciously hoydenish in fishing-clothes, they challenged his surprised attention. Blonde, brunette, tall, short, posing with wistful tenderness in the flickering glow of an open fire, or smiling frankly out of a purely conventional vignette-they one and all defied him to choose between them.
"Oh! Oh!" laughed Stanton to himself. "Am I to try and separate her picture from eleven pictures of her friends! So that's the game, is it? Well, I guess not! Does she think I'm going to risk choosing a tom-boy girl if the gentle little creature with the pansies is really herself? Or suppose she truly is the enchanting little tom-boy, would she probably write me any more nice funny letters if I solemnly selected her sentimental, moony-looking friend at the heavily draped window?"
Craftily he returned all the pictures unmarked to the envelope, and changing the address hurried the messenger boy off to remail it. Just this little note, hastily scribbled in pencil went with the envelope:
"DEAR SERIAL-LETTER CO.:
"The pictures are not altogether satisfactory. It isn't a
'type' that I am looking for, but a definite likeness of
'Molly' herself. Kindly rectify the mistake without further
delay! or REFUND THE MONEY."
Almost all the rest of the night he amused himself chuckling to think how the terrible threat about refunding the money would confuse and conquer the extravagant little Art Student.
But it was his own hands that did the nervous trembling when he opened the big express package that arrived the next evening, just as his tiresome porridge supper was finished.
"Ah, Sweetheart-" said the dainty note tucked inside the
package-"Ah, Sweetheart, the little god of love be praised
for one true lover-Yourself! So it is a picture of me
that you want? The real me! The truly me! No mere pink
and white likeness? No actual proof even of 'seared and
yellow age'? No curly-haired, coquettish attractiveness that
the shampoo-lady and the photograph-man trapped me into for
that one single second? No deceptive profile of the best
side of my face-and I, perhaps, blind in the other eye? Not
even a fair, honest, every-day portrait of my father's and
mother's composite features-but a picture of myself!
Hooray for you! A picture, then, not of my physiognomy, but
of my personality. Very well, sir. Here is the
portrait-true to the life-in this great, clumsy,
conglomerate package of articles that
represent-perhaps-not even so much the prosy, literal
things that I am, as the much more illuminating and
significant things that I would like to be. It's what we
would 'like to be' that really tells most about us, isn't
it, Carl Stanton? The brown that I have to wear talks loudly
enough, for instance, about the color of my complexion, but
the forbidden pink that I most crave whispers infinitely
more intimately concerning the color of my spirit. And as to
my Face-am I really obliged to have a face? Oh, no-o!
'Songs without words' are surely the only songs in the world
that are packed to the last lilting note with utterly
limitless meanings. So in these 'letters without faces' I
cast myself quite serenely upon the mercy of your
imagination.
"What's that you say? That I've simply got to have a face?
Oh, darn!-well, do your worst. Conjure up for me then, here
and now, any sort of features whatsoever that please your
fancy. Only, Man of Mine, just remember this in your
imaginings: Gift me with Beauty if you like, or gift me with
Brains, but do not make the crude masculine mistake of
gifting me with both. Thought furrows faces you know, and
after Adolescence only Inanity retains its heavenly
smoothness. Beauty even at its worst is a gorgeously
perfect, flower-sprinkled lawn over which the most ordinary,
every-day errands of life cannot cross without scarring. And
brains at their best are only a ploughed field teeming
always and forever with the worries of incalculable
harvests. Make me a little pretty, if you like, and a little