CHAPTER VI: A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS
The Quest Of The Golden Girl | ||
6. CHAPTER VI: A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS
AS this is not a realistic novel, I do not hold myself bound, as I have said before, to account reasonably for everything that is done — least of all, said — within its pages. I simply say, So it happened, or So it is, and expect the reader to take my word. If he be uncivil enough to doubt it, we may as well stop playing this game of fancy. It is one of the first conditions of enjoying a book, as it is of all successful hypnotism, that the reader surrenders up his will to the writer, who, of course, guarantees to return it to him at the close of the volume. If you say that no young lady would have behaved as I have presently to relate of Nicolete, that no parents were ever so accommodating in the world of reality, I reply, — No doubt you are right, but none the less what I have to tell is true and really did happen, for all that.
Again I claim exemption in this wandering history from all such descriptive drudgery upon second, third, and fourth dramatis personsonæ as your thorough-going novelist must undertake with a good grace. Like a host and hostess at a reception, the poor novelist has to pretend to be interested in everybody, — in the dull as in the brilliant, in the bore as in the beauty. I+'m afraid I should never do as a novelist, for I should waste all my time with the heroine; whereas the true novelist is expected to pay as much attention to the heroine's parents as though he were a suitor for her hand. Indeed, there is no relative of hero or heroine too humble or stupid for such a novelist as the great Balzac. He will invite the dullest of them to stay with him for quite prolonged visits, and without a murmur set apart a suite of chapters for their accommodation. I+'m not sure that the
The Major-General and his Lady were taking the waters at Wiesbaden. That was all I knew of Nicolete's parents, and all I
But I admit that the cart has got a little in front of the horse, and I grow suddenly alarmed lest the reader should be suspecting me of an elopement, or some such romantic vulgarity. If he will only put any such thoughts from his mind, I promise to proceed with the story in a brief and business-like manner forthwith.
We are back once more at the close of the last chapter, in Nicolete's book-bower in the wildwood. It is an hour or two later, and the afternoon sun is flooding with a searching glory all the secret places of the woodland. Hidden nooks and corners, unused to observation, suddenly gleam and blush in effulgent exposure, — like lovers whom the unexpected turning on of a light
So in Nicolete's bower it illuminated with strange radiancy the dainty disorder of deserted lunch, made prisms out of the wine-glasses, painted the white cloth with wedge-shaped rainbows, and flooded the cavernous interiors of the half-eaten fowl with a pathetic yellow torchlight.
Leaving that melancholy relic of carnivorous appetite, it turned its bold gold gaze on Nicolete. No need to transfigure her! But, heavens! how grandly her young face took the great kiss of the god! Then it fell
Once more, need I say, my petticoat had played me false — or should I not say true? For there was its luxurious lace border, a thing for the soft light of the boudoir, or the secret moonlight of love's permitted eyes, alone to see, shamelessly brazening it out in this terrible sunlight. Obviously there was but one way out of the dilemma, to confess my pilgrimage to Nicolete, and reveal to her all the fanciful absurdity to which, after all, I owed the sight of her.
"So that is why you pleaded so hard for
"Is it very severe and humiliating?'' I asked.
"You must judge of that. It is — to take me with you!''
"You, — what do you mean?''
"Yes, — not for good and all, of course, but just for, say, a fortnight, just a fortnight of rambles and adventures, and then to deliver me safe home again where you found me — ''
"But it is impossible,'' I almost gasped in surprise. "Of course you are not serious?''
"I am, really, and you will take me, won't you?'' she continued pleadingly. "You don't know how we women envy you men those wonderful walking-tours we can only read about in Hazlitt or Stevenson. We are not allowed to move without a nurse or a footman. From the day we are born to the day we die, we are never left a moment to ourselves. But you — you can
"It is impossible!'' I repeated.
"It is+n't at all,'' she persisted, with a fine blush. "If you will only be nice and kind, and help me to some Rosalind's clothes. You have only to write to your tailors, or send home for a spare suit of clothes, — with a little managing yours would just fit me, you+'re not so much taller, — and then we could start, like two comrades, seeking adventures. Oh, how glorious it would be!''
It was in vain that I brought the batteries of common-sense to bear upon her whim. I raised every possible objection in vain.
I pointed out the practical difficulties. There were her parents. Were+n't they drinking the waters at Wiesbaden, and were+n't they to go on drinking them for
Well, the long and short of it was that I
By nine o'clock the following morning the fairy tailors, as Nicolete called them, were at work on the fairy clothes, and, at the end of three days, there came by parcel-post a bulky unromantic-looking brown-paper parcel, which it was my business to convey to Nicolete under cover of the dark.
CHAPTER VI: A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS
The Quest Of The Golden Girl | ||