The Old Maids' Club. Israel Zangwill
To Clorinda his innocent merriment seemed the laughter of a mocking fiend. She turned away sick at heart. There was nothing for it but to propose outright at teatime. Clorinda did so, and was accepted without further difficulty.
"And now, dearest," she said, after she had been allowed to press the first kiss of troth upon his coy lips, "I should like to know who I am going to be?"
"Clorinda Bell, of course," he said. "That is the advantage actresses have. They need not take their husband's name in vain."
"Yes, but what am I to call you, dearest?"
"Dearest?" he echoed enigmatically. "Let me be dearest—for a little while."
She forbore to press him further. For the moment it was enough to have won him. The sweetness of that soothed her wounded vanity at his indifference to the prize coveted by men and convents. Enough that she was to be mated to a great man, whose speech and silence alike bore the stamp of individuality.
"Dearest be it," she answered, looking fondly into his Moorish eyes. "Dearest! Dearest!"
"Thank you, Clorinda. And now may I see your mother? I have never learnt what she has to say to me."
"What does it matter now, dearest?"
"More than ever," he said gravely, "now she is to be my mother-in-law."
Clorinda bit her lip at the dignified rebuke, and rang for his mother-in-law elect, who came from the sick room in her bonnet.
"Mother," she said, as the good dame sailed through the door, "let me introduce you to my future husband."
A Family Reunion.
The old lady's face lit up with surprise and excitement. She stood still for an instant, taking in the relationship so suddenly sprung upon her. Then she darted with open arms towards the Man in the Ironed Mask and strained his Mask to her bosom.
"My son! my son!" she cried, kissing him passionately. He blushed like a stormy sunset and tried to disengage himself.
"Do not crumple him, mother," said Clorinda pettishly. "Your zeal is overdone."
"But he is my long-lost Absalom! Think of the rapture of having him restored to me thus. O what a happy family we shall be! Bless you, Clorinda. Bless you, my children. When is the wedding to be?"
The Man in the Ironed Mask had regained his composure.
"Mother," he said sternly, "I am glad to see you looking so well. I always knew you would fall on your feet if I dropped you. I have no right to ask it—but as you seem to expect me to marry your daughter, a little information as to the circumstances under which you have supplied me with a sister would be not unwelcome.
"Stupid boy! Don't you understand that Miss Bell was good enough to engage me as mother and travelling companion when you left me to starve? Or rather, the impresario who brought her over from America engaged me, and Clorinda has been, oh, so good to me! My little drapery business failed three months after you left me to get a stranger to serve. I had no resource but—to go on the stage."
The old woman was babbling on, but the cold steel of Clorinda's gaze silenced her.
The outraged actress turned haughtily to the Man in the Ironed Mask.
"So this is your mother?" she said with infinite scorn.
"So this is not your mother!" he said with infinite indignation.
"Were you ever really simple enough to suspect me of having a mother?" she retorted contemptuously. "I had her on the hire system. Don't you know that a combination of maid and mother is the newest thing in actresses' wardrobes? It is safer then having a maid, and more comfortable than having a mother."
"But I have been a mother to you, Clorinda," the old dame pleaded.
"Oh, yes, you have always been a good, obedient woman. I am not finding fault with you, and I have no wish to part with you. I do find fault and I shall certainly part with your son."
"Nonsense," said the Man in the Ironed Mask. "The situation is essentially unchanged. She is still the mother of one of us, she can still become the mother-in-law of the other. Besides, Clorinda, that is the only way of keeping the secret in the family."
"You threaten?"
"Certainly. You are a humbug. So am I. United we stand. Separated, you fall."
"You fall, too."
"Not from such a height. I am still on the first rungs."
"Nor likely to get any higher."
"Indeed? Your experience of me should have taught you different. High as you are, I can raise you yet higher if you will only lift me up to you."
"How do you climb?" she said, his old ascendency reasserting itself.
"By standing still. Profound meditation on the philosophy of modern society has convinced me that the only way left for acquiring notoriety is to do nothing. Every other way has been exploited and is suspected. It is only a year since the discovery flashed upon me, it is only a year that I have been putting it in practice. And yet, mark the result! Already I am a known man. I had the entrée to no society; for half-a-guinea a night (frequently paid in paper money) I have mingled with the most exclusive. When there was no premiere anywhere, I went to see you—not from any admiration of you, but because the Lymarket is the haunt of the best society, and in addition, the virtue of Shakespeare and of yourself attracts there a highly respectable class of bishops whom I have not the opportunity of meeting elsewhere. By doing nothing I fascinated you—somebody was sure to be fascinated by it at last, as the dove flutters into the jaws of the lethargic serpent—by continuing to do nothing I completed my conquest. Had I met your advances, you would have repelled mine. My theories have been completely demonstrated, and but for the accident of our having a common mother——"
"Speak for yourself," said Clorinda haughtily.
"It is for myself that I am speaking. When we are one, I shall continue this policy of masterly inactivity of which I claim the invention, though it has long been known in the germ. Everybody knows for instance that not to trouble to answer letters is the surest way of acquiring the reputation of a busy man, that not to accept invitations is an infallible way of getting more, that not to care a jot about the feelings of the rest of the household, is an unfailing means of enforcing universal deference. But the glory still remains to him who first grasped this great law in its generalized form, however familiar one or two isolated cases of it may be to the world. 'Do nothing' is the last word of social science, as 'Nil admirari' was its first. Just as silence is less self-contradictory than speech, so is inaction a safer foundation of fame than action. Inaction is perfect. The moment you do anything you are in the region of incompleteness, of definiteness. Your work may be outdone—or undone. Your inventions may be improved upon, your victories annulled, your popular books ridiculed, your theories superseded, your paintings decried, the seamy side of your explanations shown up. Successful doing creates not only enemies but the material for their malice to work upon. Only by not having done anything to deserve success can you be sure of surviving the reaction which success always brings. To be is higher than to do. To be is calm, large, elemental; to do is trivial, artificial, fussy. To be has been the moth of the English aristocracy, it is the secret of their persistence. Qui s'excuse s'accuse. He who strives to justify his existence imperils it. To be is inexpugnable, to do is dangerous. The same principle rules in all departments of social life. What is a successful reception? A gathering at which everybody is. Nobody does anything. Nobody enjoys anything. There everybody is—if only for five minutes each, and whatever the crush and discomfort. You are there—and there you are, don't you know? What is a social lion? A man who is everywhere. What is social ambition? A desire to be in better people's drawing-rooms. What is it for which people barter health, happiness, even honor? To be on certain pieces