Cutty

“ Thus Kitty viewed Cutty's activities with a thrill of amazed wonder. Had the young man hoisted Cutty to his shoulders her feeling would have been one of exultant admiration. Let age crown its garnered wisdom; youth has no objections to that; but feats of physical strength—that is poaching upon youth's preserves. Kitty was not conscious of the instinctive resentment. At that moment Cutty was to her the most extraordinary old man in the world. ”

“ Genius, the ability to play with souls, soothe, tantalize, lift up; and then to smile at her like that!
She shut down the curtain upon these cogitations and summoned Cutty, visualized his handsome head, shot with gray, the humour of his smile. She did care for him; no doubt of that. She couldn't have sent that telegram else. Cutty—name of a pipe, as the Frenchmen said! All at once she rocked with laughter. She was going to marry a man whose given name she could not recall! ”

“ Cutty possessed a great art, an art highly developed only in explorers and newspaper reporters of the first order—adaptability; of being able to cast aside instantly the conventions of civilization and let down the bars to the primordial, the instinctive, and the natural. Thus the Cutty who stepped out beside Kitty into the drizzle was not the Cutty she had admitted into the apartment. ”

“ No one would bother Kitty Conover. Why should they? But it took strength to shoulder a man like that. What fun he and her father must have had together! And Cutty had loved her mother! That made Kitty exquisitely tender for a moment. All alone, at the age when new friendships were impossible. A lovable man like that going down through life alone!
Census taker of alien undesirables; a queer occupation for a man so famous as Cutty. Patriotism—to plunge into that seething revolutionary scum to sort the dangerous madmen from the harmless mad-men. Courage and strength and mental resource ”

“ Cutty dismissed this doubt instantly. He recalled the episode of the boy's conduct when confronted by the photograph of his mother. No human being could be a play actor in such a moment. The boy's emotion had been deep and real. Cutty recognized the fact that he had become as a block in the middle of a Chinese puzzle; only Fate could move him to his appointed place.
But offer marriage to Kitty so that he could provide for her! Mechanically he rummaged his clothes press for the suit he was to take to Hawksley. Well, why not? He could settle five thousand a year on her. ”

“ To put herself in the way of visible temptation. What fretted her so, what was wearing her down to the point of fatigue, was the patent imbecility of her reluctance. There would have been some sense of it if Cutty had proposed a real marriage. All she had to do was mumble a few words, sign her name to a document, live out West for a few months, and be in comfortable circumstances all the rest of her life. And she doddered!
She would run the streets with Johnny Two-Hawks, return, and dine with him. Who cared? Proper or improper, whose business was it but Kitty Conover's? Danger? ”

“ Cutty was conscious of the presence of an indefensible malice in his tones. Why the deuce should he be bitter—glad that the chap had left behind a sweetheart? He knew exactly the basis of Kitty's interest, as utterly detached as that of a reporter going to a fire. On the day the patient could explain himself, Kitty's interest would automatically cease. An old dog in the manger? Malice.
“Cutty, something dreadful has happened to this poor young woman. That's what makes him cry out the name. Caught in that horror, and probably he alone escaped. Is it heartless to be glad I'm an American? ”

“ Less than nobody—a homeless outcast, with only you and Cutty. An American! Well, when I'm that it will be different; I'll be somebody. God forgive me if I do not give it absolute loyalty, this new country! ... Never call me anything but Johnny."
"Johnny." Anywhere, whatever he willed her to be.
"I'm a child, Kitty. I want to grow up—if I can—to be an American, something like that ripping old thoroughbred yonder."
Cutty! Johnny wanted to be something like Cutty. Johnny would have to grow up to be his own true self; for nobody could ever be like Cutty. ”

“ Cutty!—with his great physical strength, his shrewd and alert mentality, and his wide knowledge of peoples and tongues. There was the man for her—Kitty Conover's godfather. She dumped the contents of her handbag upon the stand in the hallway in her impatience to find Cutty's card with his telephone number. It was not in the directory. She might catch him before he went out for the evening. ”

“ She had always admired Cutty from afar, shyly. Once in a blue moon he had in the old days appeared for tea; and he and Mrs. Conover would spend the balance of the afternoon discussing the lovable qualities of Tommy Conover. Kitty had seen him but twice during the war.
"Every so often," began Cutty, "I have to find listeners. Fact. I used to hate crowds, listeners; but those ten days in an open boat, a thousand miles from anywhere, made me gregarious. I'm always wanting company and hating to go to bed, which is bad business for a man of fifty-two." Cutty's ship had been torpedoed. ”

“ With Kitty on one side and Cutty on the other Hawksley managed the descent tolerably well. Often a foot dragged. How strong she was, this girl! No hysterics, no confusion, after all that racket, with death—or something worse—reaching out toward her; calmly telling him that there was another step, warning him not to bear too heavily on Cutty! ”

“ Wasn't Cutty fifty-two?
“Kitty, you've touched a vital point. It took those twenty years to make me companionable. Experience is something we must buy; it isn't left in somebody's will. Let us say that I possess all the necessary attributes save one.” ”

“ Kitty wrenched her shoulder away and swept the bedclothes up to her chin. She was thoroughly frightened, but her brain was clear. The spark of self-preservation flew hither and about in search of expediencies, temporizations. She must come through this somehow with the vantage on her side. She could not possibly betray that poor young man, for that would entail the betrayal of Cutty also. ”

“ Cutty had given a dinner in honour of her mother's birthday. She smiled as she recalled the incident. Cutty had placed a box of candles at the side of her mother's plate and told her to stick as many into the cake as she thought best.
"Hello!" said Cutty, emerging from one of the doors. "What the dickens have you been up to? My man has just telephoned me that he lost track of you in Wanamaker's."
Kitty explained, delighted.
"Well, well! If you can lose a man such as I set to watch you, you'll have no trouble shaking the others."
"It was Karlov, Cutty." ”

“ He hasn't got to be handsome. But he must be able to laugh when he's happy, when he's hurt. I must be his business in life. He must know a lot about things I know. I want a comrade who will come to me when he has a joke or an ache. A gay man and whimsical. The law can make any man a husband, but only God can make a good comrade."
"Kitty," said Cutty, his fine eyes sparkling, "I shan't have to watch over you so much as I thought. ”

“ Lived there a woman, herself excepted, who had not hesitated between two men—a man who had not doddered between two women—for better or for worse? What did the average woman know of the man, the average man know of the woman—until afterward? To stake all upon a guess!
She knew Cutty. Under her own eyes he had passed through certain proving fires. There would be no guessing the manner of man he was. He was fifty-two; that is to say, the grand passion had come
"Never had Kitty heard such music. ”

“ Still, the episode was a respite for Cutty, who dashed at Karlov before the latter could set himself or raise the smoking automatic.
Kitty then witnessed—dimly—a primordial, titanic conflict which haunted her dreams for many nights to come. They were no longer men, but animals; the tiger giving combat to the gorilla, one striking the quick, terrible blows of the tiger, the other seeking always to come to grips.
The floor answered under the step and rush. Rare athletes, these two; big men who were light on their feet. ”

“ BEWARE THE ROGUE
Deep in the shadow of her hazel eyes,
Waiting to capture men, Love lurking lies.
Her glances are the arrows of his bow,
Wherewith he lays unwary victims low;
And she, unused to Cupid’s artful wiles,
Unconscious aids his purpose by her smiles,
And knows not, as her smiles and glances dart,
What anguish these may bring to many a heart.
Ah! hapless maiden, innocently gay,
No presage of the future breeds dismay;
She does not know how soon the treacherous guest
Will make her heart the haven of unrest.
Ungrateful Cupid! ”

“ Cutter. She was a terrifying-looking person; almost a giantess in height, raw-boned, with iron-gray hair, a face always flushed, and prominent, hysterical eyes. When she meant to be entertaining and agreeable, she nodded her head incessantly and snapped her eyes at one. Her teeth were long and curved, like a horse's; people said babies always cried if she smiled at them. Her face had a kind of fascination for me; it was the very color and shape of anger. ”

“ Most of the people he knew, more or less, but far down the table beyond the pink glow of the candles the profile of a stranger occasionally gleamed into view—the delicate, spirited profile of a girl, her small head set on a long throat that rose out of a gown cut slightly square at the neck. The outlines of her velvety black hair melted into the velvety black shadows beyond, but he could see the curve of the long lashes on her olive cheek, and the sweetly set, infantine corners of her mouth. ”

“ Waring severely. The gossip of servants, the trivial conversation and fulsome pity of vulgar neighbors, was this all that was left to her?
She went downstairs again, and sat in the drawing-room, inside of the window curtains, and wept. The gathering dusk seemed to prefigure the gloom that was to encompass her future years. If people only wouldn't pity her she might be able to live; the children would love her at any rate. Six years ago how happy she was, how dear his eyes looked when he gave her that first married kiss! She could smell even now the fragrance of the bride roses that she held. ”

“ It's no use saying only, as you've always said, that 'people are very kind to you.' What the devil are they kind to you for?"
"Well, one reason is precisely that no particular inconvenience has hitherto been supposed to attach to me. I'm just what I am," said Mamie Cutter; "nothing less and nothing more. It's awkward to have to explain to you, which moreover I really needn't in the least. I'm clever and amusing and charming." ”

“ And yet he continued to hold her like that. It was not because of his sentimentality, for she was anything but a chocolate-box picture now, and it was not out of a sudden recrudescence of rough sensuality that he now held that flabby bundle in his arms: no, it was from a real, genuine, but heavy and melancholy feeling, a feeling of pity. He had been able to wash the make-up from her face with a towel, but he couldn't fling her from him now, before she herself should raise herself from his arms. And she remained lying, like a corpse. God, what a time it lasted! . . . ”

“ In short, I was sufficiently smitten with Kitty to have cast prudence to the winds, and let my whole heart go out to her, if she had held up her finger to me. But that little word "if" made just all the difference. My sense of dignity might safely be reckoned on to assist reason and prudence in fighting against an infatuation for any person who did not care for me in return. ”

“ Courtney, we're only human beings, after all. And we've the right. Aren't you my wife?"
"Don't tempt me, Basil," she answered with a sigh. "Do you suppose I don't feel it? Sometimes I get to thinking what might be— But I will not! You do not wish it." And she glanced meaningly at the partition.
"You are mine!" he whispered, moved by the reminder but not abashed. "If I had never known love in its fullness, I might be able to endure this cold, repellent pretense of virtue—for, it's nothing but a flimsy pretense. Courtney, if you love me——"
"Is your love only—that!" ”

“ Nichols to her husband, leading him in as one leads the blind. He fell on his knees by the bed, awestricken. Was this the little rosy darling of his love? But she would live—she would live! As he looked the eyes opened recognizingly; there was a faint roguish smile on the beautiful lips, and the faintest movement under the bedclothes.
“She wants you to kiss her foot,” said the divining mother.
“Just hearken to the voice of himself in there,” said Ellen, the waitress, as she came into the kitchen from the breakfast-room. “He says you’re to make some more coffee, for this isn’t fit to be drank. ”

“ And the delicate bloom on his child-soul, which was like the soul of a little man, was not only offended by that slander and soiled by it and profaned, but that fledgling man’s soul, with its downy freshness, was startled and astonished and shocked and did not understand why the people around him uttered slanders, the people for whom Mamma had longed because she missed them so in her loneliness and because she was filled with that strange feeling, that passion for her family. Why, why did people slander? ”

“ Cutten always knew just the right thing to say to divert an impending storm, and the right thing to do to keep her in fairly good humor, and as this knack of saying and doing the right thing apparently entailed no strain on his seemingly inexhaustible fund of gentleness and good humor, he managed to get along very well, and could, in all sincerity, brag that with him marriage had not been a failure. ”