The Old Maids' Club. Israel Zangwill
Silverdale," said Lillie sharply, "I hate puns. They spoiled the Bachelors' Club."
His lordship, who was the greatest punster of the peers, and the peer of the greatest punsters, muttered savagely that he would like to spoil the Old Maids' Club. Lillie punned herself sometimes, but he dared not tell her of it.
"And what will be the subscription?" he said aloud.
"There will be none. I supply the premises."
"Ah, that will never do! Half the pleasure of belonging to a club is the feeling that you have not paid your subscription. And how about grub?"
"Grub! We are not men. We do not fulfil missions by eating."
"Unjust creature! Men sometimes fulfil missions by being eaten."
"Well, papa will supply buns, lemonade and ices. Turple the magnificent, will always be within call to hand round the things."
"May I send you in a hundred-weight of chocolate creams?"
"Certainly. Why should weddings have a monopoly of presents? This is not the only way in which you can be of service to me, if you will."
"Only discover it for me, my dear Miss Dulcimer. Where there's a way there's a will."
"Well, I should like you to act as Trier."
"Eh! I beg your pardon?"
"Don't apologize; to try the candidates who wish to be Old Maids."
"Try them! No, no! I'm afraid I should be prejudiced against bringing them in innocent."
"Don't be silly. You know what I mean. I could not tell so well as you whether they possessed the true apostolic spirit. You are a man—your instinct would be truer than mine. Whenever a new candidate applies, I want you to come up and see her."
"Really, Miss Dulcimer, I—I can't tell by looking at her!"
"No, but you can by her looking at you."
"You exaggerate my insight."
"Not at all. It is most important that something of the kind should be done. By the rules, all the Old Maids must be young and beautiful. And it requires a high degree of will and intelligence——"
"To be both!"
"For such to give themselves body and soul to the cause. Every Old Maid is double-faced till she has been proved single-hearted."
"And must I talk to them?"
"In plain English——"
"It's the only language I speak plainly."
"Wait till I finish, boy! In plain English, you must flirt with them."
"Flirt?" said Silverdale, aghast. "What! With young and beautiful girls?"
"I know it is hard, Lord Silverdale, but you will do it for my sake!" They were sitting on an ottoman, and the lovely face which looked pleadingly up into his was very near. The young man got up and walked up and down.
"Hang it!" he murmured disconsolately. "Can't you try them on Turple the magnificent. Or why not get a music-master or a professor of painting?"
"Music-masters touch the wrong chord, and professors of painting are mostly old masters. You are young and polished and can flirt with tact and taste."
"Thank you," said the poor young peer, making a wry face. "And therefore I'm to be a flirtation machine."
"An electric battery if you like. I don't desire to mince my words. There's no gain in not calling a spade a spade."
"And less in people calling a battery a rake."
"Is that a joke? I thought you clubmen enjoyed being called rakes."
"That is all most of us do enjoy. Take it from me that the last thing a rake does is to sow wild oats."
"I know enough of agriculture not to be indebted to you for the information. But I certainly thought you were a rake," said the little girl, looking up at him with limpid brown eyes.
"You flatter me," he said with a mock bow; "you are young enough to know better."
"But you have seen Society (and theatres) in a dozen capitals!"
"I have been behind the scenes of both," he answered simply. "That is the thing to keep a man steady."
"I thought it turned a man's head," she said musingly.
"It does. Only one begins manhood with his head screwed the wrong way on. Homœopathy is the sole curative principle in morals. Excuse this sudden discharge of copy-book mottoes. I sometimes go off that way, but you mustn't take me for a Maxim gun. I am not such a bore, I hope."
Lillie flew off at a feminine tangent.
"All of which only proves the wisdom of my choice in selecting you."
"What! To pepper them with pellets of platitude?" he said, dropping despairingly into an arm-chair.
"No. With eyeshot. Take care!"
"What's the matter?"
"You're sitting on an epigram."
"Take care! You're sitting on an epigram."
The young man started up as if stung, and removed the antimacassar, without, however, seeing the point.
"I hope you don't mind my inquiring whether you have any morals," said Lillie.
"I have as many as Æsop. The strictest investigation courted. References given and exchanged," said the peer lightly.
"Do be serious. You know I have an insatiable curiosity to know everything about everything—to feel all sensations, think all thoughts. That is the note of my being." The brown eyes had an eager, wistful look.
"Oh, yes—a note of interrogation."
"O that I were a man! What do men think?"
"What do you think? Men are human beings first and masculine afterwards. And I think everybody is like a suburban Assembly Hall—to-day a temperance lecture, to-morrow a dance, next day an oratorio, then a farcical comedy, and on Sunday a religious service. But about this appointment?"
"Well, let us settle it one way or another," Lillie said. "Here is my proposal——"
"I have an alternative proposal," he said desperately.
"I cannot listen to any other. Will you, or will you not, become Honorary Trier of the Old Maids' Club?"
"I'll try," he said at last.
"Yes or no?"
"Shall you be present at the trials?"
"Certainly, but I shall cultivate myopia."
"It's a short-sighted policy, Miss Dulcimer. Still, sustained by your presence, I feel I could flirt with the most beautiful and charming girl in the world. I could do it, even unsustained by the presence of the other girl."
"Oh, no! You must not flirt with me. I am the only Old Maid with whom flirtation is absolutely taboo."
"Then I consent," said Silverdale with apparent irrelevance. And seating himself on the piano stool, after carefully removing an epigram from the top of the instrument, he picked out "The Last Rose of Summer" with a facile forefinger.
"Don't!" said Lillie. "Stick to your lute."
Thus admonished, the nobleman took down Lillie's banjo, which was hanging on the wall, and struck a few passionate chords.
"Do you know," he said, "I always look on the banjo as the American among musical instruments. It is the guitar with a twang. Wasn't it invented in the States? Anyhow it is the most appropriate