Ruth
Me Energy
kS tuar t
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MISS^MARY ALLEN
94 WEST 104th ST,
\NW YORK 01 iY
The Cocoon
"/ am a cocoon; or must I ,vay in a cocoon?'
The Cocoon
A Rest-Cure
Comedy
By
Ruth McEnery Stuart
Author of "Sonny," "Sonny't Fathtr," etc.
New York
Hearst's International Library Co.
Copyright, 1915, by
HEARST'S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY Co., INC.
&U righti rtttrutd. Including thi translation into
ianguagti, including thi Scandinavian,
Oh, some seek bread no more life's mere sub-
sistence,
And some seek wealth and ease the common
quest;
And some seek fame, that hovers in the distance ;
But all are seeking rest.
FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE.
2228501
The Cocoon
THE COCOON
Seafair Sanitarium, Va.,
Feb. 17, 1913.
My dear Jack:
I am a cocoon; or must I say in a cocoon?
Is the cocoon the shell or the shell and the
worm? Dictionaries are downstairs and " hours
for consultation " limited. I saw that posted on
the wall as I came through the corridors, but
maybe it doesn't refer to the dictionaries. Any-
way, I'm it the poor worm going into oblivion
to get its wings.
It's on the roof the cocoonery and the co-
coons are of the long and narrow variety. Ba-
sically, they are single cots into which a certain
youth of mountaineer suggestions and seolian
drawl tucks every human worm which comes up
for transformation. Officially he is " roof -stew-
ard."
.When I reached his domain this morning I
I
2 THE COCOON
fairly gasped over the wonder and beauty of the
scene. All the south, sea-space, sky and water,
"wedded in infinity." The east, nearly all sea.
West, likewise. Then the solid north, a rim of
vari-tinted green, vivid pines straggling down to
the w-ater's edge; hoary live-oak bearded with
Spanish moss, dignifying without breaking the
line, and offering a fine foil to the gnarled
but resolutely young magnolias which stand
around like the urban bachelors who live in our
city clubs, groomed to the limit, erect, polished,
even offensively redolent of the perfumes with
which they naively embalm the cherished re-
mains of their dead but unburied youth.
Between green of shore and blue of sea is a
strip of gleaming sand, white enough to delight
a dentist and, to my mind, grimly suggesting the
perpetual border war between the two elements
confronting each other, the sea tirelessly aggres-
sive, the land showing its teeth and holding its
own.
But the most wonderful thing of all is the
smell or, I do believe I must make that plu-
ral, for even now as I sniff, there come to me
hints of mingled sweets. First, permeating all
THE COCOON 3
things, is the ubiquitous pine which sings itself
into your consciousness, titillating your ears
with needly cadences; but before you can say,
" How sweet the pine is ! " you are realising
roses and daffodils. I could go out now and
gather a bathtub of jonquils within a stone's
throw of the Sanitarium; this, with the beauty
and music of the sea thrown in. Oh, the sea!
How I love it!
Do forgive so much description, dear Jack.
You know I'm not given to it, and I'll probably
never offend in this way again, but just now, at
first, let me share my delight with you.
Really, when I came up and looked around
and sniffed, I fairly giggled with pure sensuous
delight. I wanted to be good as I stood there.
It is heavenly, Dear; yes, even Heavenly with a
capital H.
And, by the way, lest I forget: I've arranged
to have my mail sent up by hand from the village
postoffice, addressed simply to the Sanitarium,
Suite 99. And you, Dear, are to direct all mail
simply to Seafair, Va., P. O. Box 21. I watched
the Titian-haired Juno who sorts the mail in the
rotunda here, and I saw her and the blond
4 THE COCOON
youth, her assistant, hesitate and smile orer cer-
tain letters, even holding one up to the light
before consigning it to its pigeon-hole. I
couldn't stand that, so remember Box 21. I
chose the number for good luck, all threes and
sevens, whether you add or multiply.
I see you smiling over that " bathtub of jon-
quils," dear Jack. You think I'm exaggerating
again, but I'm not. Why, I actually saw a bath-
tub filled with them, in the suite of one of the
patients.
Isn't it strange how gossip reaches you before
you get your hat off? When I arrived yester-
day after mail-time, Dear, or you should have
had a letter the " Keceiving Matron " took me
around, showing me rooms. I wanted a private
bath, of course, and the only one nearly avail-
able was, is, in the south tower, to be vacated
" to-morrow," which is to-day, and I'm to be in it
presently. The present occupant was on the
roof cocooning, so I didn't meet her.
You'd like my little suite a fairly largish
sitting-room with a bay-window to the seaward
side ; an alcove holding a narrow bed ; a few ta-
bles and things ; a row of electric buttons and
THE COCOON 5
the bath. And it's No. 99, don't forget, or yes,
you may forget. Your number is 21 (box).
Well, the bathtub there was filled with jon-
quils. In all my life, I have never seen so many
together before.
It seems that the present No. 99 we go by
numbers here, like convicts the present 99, I
say, is a little queer and she strolled out into the
gardens and began to gather and she didn't know
when to stop and that's why she's leaving.
The " patrol " nurse who promenades the pergola
called to her that there was reason in all things
and she replied that there was a reason why she
kept on gathering, but she didn't say what it
was.
So she not only gathered until dark but, when
the moon rose, she went out again and again, just
in her nightie, and the last time she came in with
her lap full, she lost her way, poor dear, and
walked through the lobby where the men were
smoking and it didn't look well. Fve seen
her to-day and she is beautiful but sad. I'm
hoping she'll leave the jonquils, for I'd like to
inherit them. Poor little sister !
But I began telling you about the roof and the
6 THE COCOON
cocoonery, and, by the way, the cocoon is the
shell. I didn't have to " consult " ; I remem-
bered.
Well, I'm happy to say, it's my first prescrip-
tion, the roof. I begin cocooning to-morrow
morning. Indeed, it's my only prescription, ex-
cepting sundry rubs and sprays and girdles and
kneadings just a few little things like that,
not counting the sea treatments, " sand-sop-
pings," and a lot of perfectly fascinating bare-
foot stunts. Nothing to swallow and gag over.
I noticed the word " thermo-electric " on my
treatment-card and it looks a bit scary, but I
don't mind, so long as I don't have to swallow
the thing and you not here to wrap it in pre-
serves and to fan me and change the subject.
I've got old Dr. Jacques for my physician and
I was greatly complimented at his taking me,
for he assumes only special patients now. He
just walks around, smiling in his white halo, and
seems to impersonate the love of God, all un-
consciously, of course.
He took me on sight, just as you did, poor
Jack, on my looks. You see, you were not here
THE COCOON 7
to warn him. He looked me over, really sci-
entifically, and then he turned his kind old eyes
on me and they seemed to say, " Crawl in, little
one, and forget. Be a worm for a while."
Of course, I am in a sense honoured in being
his patient and yet, I don't know exactly. Un-
fortunately, or fortunately, according to how one
looks at it, I overheard him say to one of the
young doctors of the staff when he'd been putting
me through my paces, " I think I'd better handle
that little brand myself." Just that way he said
it and what do you suppose he meant? Did he
refer to some special brand of woman or of
nerve tire or the kind of brand one snatches
from the burning or just a common, every-day
firebrand? In other words, does he regard me
as an interesting patient or an element of dan-
ger? Maybe I'll ask him when I know him
better, though I doubt it. Haloes always silence
me, somehow, and, too, there is a note of finality
in all he says. And yet he isn't without humour
either.
For instance, seeing his professional glance
turned upon me this morning, I said playfully,
8 THE COCOON
" When you look at me that way, doctor, it seems
to me you can see right through me. How's
my vermiform appendix to-day? "
" Oh, it's just as I expected to find it," he
smiled out, " curled with a curling-iron and tied
with a blue ribbon " ; and then, lest I should pre-
sume upon his condescension, perhaps, he added
as he rose to go : "A few weeks on the roof for
you and then, we'll see. Maybe you'd like to
go sand-sopping on the beach a little later."
" Oh, I'd love that," I replied.
" Yes, they all love it from the roof and after
a while they love it for itself. That's where we
give them their final tan and their grit "
" I brought my sand and grit with me," I
vulgarly interrupted, but he was gone and I felt
like a glib little fool, as I so often do. Evidently
he thinks me frivolous just because I play around
a tragic situation.
There are boats to hire at the pier, both sail
and row boats, but to go there one must have a
doctor's permit. It seems that some nervous
patients haven't been able to resist the call of the
deep as they heard it at the pier, and so
THE COCOON 9
Feb. 18.
My dinner-tray came in just here, yesterday,
and after dinner there were things to do, not by
me, just to me treatment-card obligations, you
know, steamings and things, and that's why I
sent only the telegram. I've been on the roof all
this forenoon and it's great. I just went up and
nodded to the seolian youth whose name, by the
way, I find to be Jefferson Davis Beauregard
Johnson, and in a jiffy he had me tucked in quite
out of sight, out in the full sunlight with all
possible wind-exposures, one of a row of the most
uninteresting and non-committal cocoons you
ever saw.
At first glance, it looked like a prospect of a
survival of the fittest and as if you might be at
this moment taking all the chances there are of
early widowerhood; but not so. The comfort of
the worm is beyond words. The fluffy com-
fortables which cover us are riotous in colour
and design, but I soon forgot the green dragons
which were chasing red vultures through a purple
expanse over my submissive person when I was
submerged in the lulling softness of their un-
10 THE COCOON
dersides while the unadulterated air of heaven
was mine for the breathing.
My first impulse was to study astronomy. I'll
never have such another chance, I know, unless
I prove too good for this world and go to live
among the stars and, even then, the perspective
would be lacking. But while I was trying to
locate Jupiter and to find Saturn's rings, I fell
asleep and slept nine hours. Think of it ! I who
haven't been able to snatch two consecutive hours
for a year.
When I came to, I didn't know where I was for
a minute and then there issued from the cocoon
next to mine a sudden snort and I dodged and
drew in my head. I had just poked it out the
least bit. You see, you can't tell a thing about
the occupants of these cocoons from their out-
sides. It's a case of " All cocoons look alike to
me."
But I tell you, Jack, that snort was terrific
and so near! It transformed the cocoonery for
me. It became instantly a menagerie of wild
beasts. I lay very still, my heart thumping and
imagination running riot for about ten minutes
1 it seemed an eternity when suddenly, with-
THE COCOON 11
out any warning, the covers of the snorting cot
flew up, and with a gymnastic spring there
stood, within three feet of your wife, a brigand,
if there ever was one deep-set eyes, long ring-
lety hair, loose joints, square shoulders and
the whole, six feet six I should say, and lower-
ing.
My heart didn't get any better as he unfolded
and stood. You see, I had fallen asleep thinking
of butterflies in the making and I half expected
to see wings emerge, figuratively at least, as the
layers would begin to unroll.
I don't know who he is, the brigand, but he's
somebody, if only a high adventurer. But while
I was recovering from him, he having in the
meantime stalked away, the cot next beyond his
changed contour and an old lady sat up, labor-
iously pulled herself together, gathered up a Bos-
ton bag, a hot water bag in a knitted case, a
tippet, a plaid shawl and a copy of the Transcript
and toddled away. She was almost too true to
type. I wished there might have been something
missing, but there never is, not in ye Bostonian.
Of course, I know just about what she had in her
bag, but I'm not telling.
12 THE COCOON
Well, then I found myself guessing and I've
been at it ever since. Lots of colourless bromidic
people here and several delicious sulphites
already in my eye, besides the brigand. Oh, it's
immense! No more astronomy for yours truly.
I fear you are badly married, Jack dear, for your
wife is of the earth earthy, so easily is she seduced
from the way of high thinking !
It's the charm of uncertainty. A star is al-
ways a star, and when you know it and its rou-
tine, its very consistency makes it a dull jewel ;
but this menagerie it keeps you guessing.
You know there's a human worm in every cocoon
and the very fact of its being there proves that
it's in the play; one of the dramatis personae in
the great tragedy of " Life and Death." We're
all in it, whether we realise it or not. I know
I'm cast for something and sometimes I'm afraid
to stir lest I jostle my cap and ring my bells.
Of course mine must be a comedy part with my
playful nose and yellow hair.
There's a lot of printed matter distributed here,
Jack. It's a bit didactic, but wholesome. You
know how I hate that word, wholesome. For
THE COCOON 13
years it ruined my celery and now it threatens my
spinach which we are urged to devour, because it
contains iron, forsooth. I always suspected that
it exuded its own arsenic for colouring and seized
it voraciously in consequence.
Another thing, letter-writing is discouraged.
Hence this longest-letter-I've-written-in-a-year.
I can't help it. I'm made that way. No more of
our old cipher for me excepting the one word
" Wad," and you'll never forget precisely what
it means, " I am sorry, Husband of my Heart,
but money wholly dissolved. Kindly remit."
Ordinary letters, italics or capitals, as usual, to
indicate the urgency of action ; " wad " so
meaning just general exhaustion ; <e wad " thus
in italics, pretty hard up ; but " WAD," all
capitals well, it wouldn't hurt to telegraph re-
lief to the capital "WAD." But I'm going to
be economical. I know this is costing you a lot.
And don't worry. I'm comfy to a degree. My
wee bed is semi-soft and ultra-clean and is con-
veniently placed for forbidden reading in bed;
and as for service, pressing a button in reach of
my hand over my pillow will bring me anything
14 THECOCOON
from a growing orchid to a masseuse in livery,
with her bottle of cocoanut oil and alcohol
and her smile.
I've been here hardly two days and I'm on to
that institutional smile and, frankly, I'm too
tired to stand much of it, and that isn't all. One
official visiting lady I say she's official, just
from the consistency of her service well, she
doesn't hesitate to tell you that she loves you.
She has told me so twice already and I was be-
ginning to wonder if perchance I might be so
obviously lovable that strange women were be-
ginning to tell me so, when the loving visitant
happened to cross the roof, passing between our
cots, and I heard a voice say in a muffled tone,
"Aren't you glad she loves you? " and the gen-
eral titter which followed gave me my cue.
I don't intend to stand it, dear Jack. If she
tells me she loves me to-morrow, I'll say, " Oh
thanks, awfully. So you told me yesterday."
And I don't think she'll keep it up.
It's not because the poor thing is wall-eyed
and her braids don't match her hair, nor yet on
account of her parenthetical smile which is the
worst ever. I realise that she is smiling against
THECOCOON 15
big odds and I give her credit for it ; but no living
woman shall by word or act make love to me ; no
woman, and only one man.
Don't think I am unkind. I know she's my
sister and so is a Zulu grandmother and I have
brotherly or sisterly love for them both, in a way
far away. I'd like a sort of foreign missions
relation with them. She quotes Scripture, too,
and of course she has a right to; but you see, I
have my own Bible and I'm too tired. If she
says any more Bible at me, I'm going to say,
" Yes, and you'll find the same thing in the
Koran," and that'll frighten her into silence.
It's a safe thing to say to almost anybody.
Sanitariums, or sanitaria, are supposed to be
monotonous and maybe they are, after a while,
not at first. Anyhow I don't mind. I can just
turn out the light and unchain my mind and here
you come, smiling, smoothing my hair and telling
me how lonely the canary-cage is without me, till
I fall asleep. " Loved by thee," as Browning
says. Your desolate, loving wife,
BLESSY.
P. S.
If this letter is dull, dear Jack, remember it's
16 THE COCOON
just the introduction. When these sulphites be-
gin moving, things are sure to hum. But I
started this postscript to remind you, dear, to
change your underthings with the weather.
Three thicknesses in the bottom drawer, begin-
ning at the left end; thin, thicker, thick. It's
thicker weather now, middle of the drawer and
thick threatening, I see by New York papers.
Isn't it funny for thick to be thicker than thicker?
Gracious, how I miss you!
Suite 99, Seafair Sanitarium,
SEAFAIR, Va., Feb. 19, 1913.
I went down to supper to-night, John (you
know how forlorn I feel when I call you John),
and I have seen the other patients as they fore-
gather at feed-time and well !
Pamphlet No. 1 says they "do not take any
insane here " and, of course, I believe them, but
it takes faith. The dining-room is handsome
and well-appointed, but I don't want to go into
it ever again not ever ! It's the most depress-
ing ! You know how jolly we are always at table.
Well, I went down just to be cheered up, and
ye gods! One would have supposed speech had
THE CO COON 17
been forbidden. An occasional remark, yes,
about as long as, " Pass the panada," or,
" Poorly, thank you," but nothing beyond. Ac-
tually, I could hear them swallow.
Of course I couldn't see myself, but if I looked
as if I belonged to that crowd, God help me.
Not that I blame them. If people are miserable
well, they are miserable and of course the ob-
ligatory smile doesn't apply to the patients. I
nearly wrote inmates, although prisoners would
be even better, for it's quite the thing for one to
ask another what he's " in for."
Of course the wretched souls come to the din-
ing hall to be nourished, and doubtless they are.
I scorn to be " nourished." Don't bite your
moustache. I see you doing it. If I'm ridicu-
lous, that's what you get for marrying an idiot.
Feb. 20.
(And the sea growly.)
I wouldn't mail that little scrap, dear Jack
or even sign it. It was like the sea to-day,
grumpy and besides, idiot is such an outland-
ish word to end a letter with.
Suppose we don't write any more formal let-
18 THE COCOON
ters. Let's just take our pens and write as we
say things when you are on your side of the
library table and I'm stirring the fire. I seem
to be stirring fire all the time, one way or an-
other.
The name of it's nostalgia, the thing I've got,
but " taking me out o' this," as Bridget says, will
cure it, so let's forget it; but it's awful while
it lasts simply awful. Napoleon had it at St.
Helena and they say it's epidemic at all the
American pleasure resorts excepting Keno.*
My loneliest times here are the meal hours, or
" service for one " on a tray. Ugh ! And all the
perfectly digestible foods, so offensively inoffen-
sive ! I stood it for two days ; then I drove down
to the village and bought some horseradish and
French mustard and Worcestershire sauce and
some tabasco. I got the tabasco just to put on
the tray and to hear you say, " Kindly pass the
hell-fire, Blessy dear." Oh, how I do miss your
dear language!
" What do I do with these things? " Why, I
just take one after the other and sprinkle them
promiscuously over these blameless viands and
* The divorce colony.
THE COCOON 19
put the dishes on the radiator for a little while
and I've been quite successful thus far. The re-
sults have all been savoury and I've named
them " revolt " under a general head and they
agree with me, so don't worry. It is a sort of
character-building with a temperament. The
day I'm just tame-good, look for me to die; and
you'll be better off, maybe, but I dare you to be
happier or busier.
I won't mail this to-day. I have to go now,
for mine hour is come, so saith the treatment-
card, and in ten minutes I'll be taking " salt
spray followed by 1, 2, 3," these numerals, if you
care to know, standing for patting, rolling and
putting to sleep in a specially temperatured room,
a sort of cooling-oven which reminds me of the
old t( Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man," in
which the cake finally arrives at similar treat-
ment in the last line, you remember, " Roll 'em
an' roll 'em an' stick 'em an' stick 'em an' toss
'em in the oven ! "
I've had only one of these, and when I'd been
turned into the oven, I really felt as if I needed
\
only a little sugar and cinnamon sprinkled over
me to make me worth a penny apiece.
20 THECOCOON
And now adieu for to-day. No dates or obli-
gations. So even this hug will be cooled before
you get it, like the memory of the embrace of a
dead wife. Oh, how I love to hate this place ! ! ! !
BLESSY.
(I feel like signing myself Cussy, instead of
Blessy, I'm that rebellious.)
Feb. 21st,
Dear Jack :
A choppy sea, spurty showers and short
answers from everybody.
When I wrote that about short answers I had
forgotten my chamber-maid. She, who is the
soul of amiability and altogether a delight in
her naive talk, says, " It looks like as ef it's
a-fixin' to rain," but she says it as a bird sings.
These musical southern voices have something
elemental about them. Sometimes they seem
even verging on tears, without being depressing,
either.
She calls back, " Oh revore ! " as she goes out,
after sweeping my room. I asked her this morn-
ing what she had said, feigning not to have
heard, and she replied chuckling softly, " Oh
THE COCOON 21
I say 'oh revore' just for style. Some says,
' Over the river ' an' again some says, l Olive
oil,' but I say ef you say a thing, say it right."
You see, she comes of the poor white class of
the hills which knows no caste and, really, I en-
joy it. This institution is a godsend to these
people. They come from the turpentine coun-
try, most of them, and strongly suggest the
Craddock types.
This girl, whose name is Malviny-May long
i asked me what my given name might be
she pronounced it "giving" and when I told
her " Doriana Myrtilla," she repeated slowly,
" Do-ry-any Myr-til-ly, I'd never get that pro-
nounced in Kingdom come, so I reckon I'll stick
to the Mrs." And so to test her, I added in a
friendly way, " I have been called Blessy for
short," which pleased her, for she answered,
" Well, that's somethin' like. An' now, Blessy
Heminway, if you'll gether up yore frock-tail
so's I can pass this sweepin'-broom around them
doll slippers o' yores, we'll git shet o* some of
these germs we hear so much about," and there
wasn't the ghost of a smile on her face when she
said it. I should say the mountaineer's first
22 THECOCOON
characteristic is seriousness. I find it here just
as in the valleys of the Catskills and Adiron-
dacks, seriousness and anemia. Somehow they
seem correlated.
I went down to the Swedish house yesterday,
Jack, and it's great fun. You know the " Swed-
ish " is a system of physical exercises and
" treatments " as they are called, same as Chris-
tian Science, only different quite different.
You remember the quaint little cottages we
saw in Sweden, or more particularly in Norway
at Frognasaeter near Voxenkollen, out from
Christ! ania. Well, this Swedish headquarters
is like these all wood-carving over rafters and
everything, mostly grinning grotesques. Even
the drinking-water is drawn from the mouth of
a depressing gargoyle which appears nauseated,
and it is disagreeable. The poor thing is sick
at a stomach which he has not.
But the treatment-room with all its para-
phernalia in action is tremendous. Everything
goes by electricity ; no end of whizzing, whirring,
jostling contraptions at once. The one most in
demand now, at which women wait in line for
their turns, is a pair of jolting arms to which the
THE COCOON 23
patient presents her hips for their elimination.
They do a lot of fantastic manipulations, these
wooden arms do, and I'm told they are guaran-
teed to remove every hip utterly if faithfully
applied, so that the modish hipless garments
will fit. If hips come back into fashion, no
doubt some other part of the anatomy will go
out, so there will always be work for the elimi-
nators to do.
In the old days our grandmothers were hour-
glasses; now we are lead pencils, and I wonder
what our daughters will be, or even ourselves
next. This navigating in one trouser-leg can't
last forever.
But the star performance in the " Swedish "
is the flesh-reducing horse, a wooden beast with
the head of a nightmare. When I saw it, an
amazonian lady with loose red curls was in the
saddle and the fiery untamed going at full gal-
lop; but the humour of the picture lay in the
rider's serious expression of Sphinxlike deter-
mination. I didn't get on to what it all meant
at first, none of these things being labelled, and
so I was quite ingenuous when I remarked audi-
bly, " This is all very well, but I should find it
24 THE COCOON
monotonous not getting anywhere." To which
the rider replied without change of muscle, " Oh,
hut I do. I've got down from 301 to 289 in
19 days." Then I understood and I smiled back :
" I wonder, if I were to get into the saddle and
turn his head the other way, if I might get up
from 93 to 120 in five weeks? " And not a soul
laughed. This is a deadly place.
You see, I've shortened the time, Jacky dear.
I can't stay away from you for three months,
not from you! If I'd married anybody else
or if I were anywhere else but not here and
from Jack Heminway! Nixy!
She rides of Tuesdays and Saturdays and I'm
going to stop in on my way to the " Facial "
on those days. Why! she's as good as a movey
with a chance for variation. Forgive this ref-
erence to my own treatments. Any ordinary
wife in a reformatory like this would fill up her
letters with institutional detail about herself,
but you'll never have another reference from me,
unless some accident should happen as, for in-
stance, I should be electrocuted in the " static "
or sun-struck in the solarium or moon-struck in
THE COCOON 25
the lunarium or dessicated in the dryair-ium or
yard-broke, falling off the roof.
Oh, yes, I'm resting! Resting for all I'm
worth I mean to say for all you are worth
resting just as strenuously as our leisure folk
generally pursue their leisure, though differ-
ently, somewhat. " Rest is a change of activ-
ities." Yes, I'm resting.
Do stop asking me if I've called on that Miss
Carter. Four letters from you and Carter in
three of them. Realise, please, dear Jack, that
I've just come. But I'll go surely. Who is
she?
Suite 99, Feb. 2Sth.
(And the sea flirty.)
You see, Dear-dear, I'm doing as I suggested,
just writing and stopping any old time. It's
more like life than formal letters. I just put in
a date once in a while as the German frau drops
a raisin in her dough " for a change."
Would you believe it, Jacky dear? I'm hav-
ing fun.
Something's doing. Something not scheduled
26 THE COCOON
in the " rest-cure," although legitimately born
of it. Of course, I wanted to tell you, first thing,
to make it respectable.
Listen; they don't know I'm married, here.
They think I'm your sister, Miss Heminway.
Even the doctors think so, and I'm in for it. I
didn't understand it, for a while. And that
isn't all; there are complications. It's this
blonde hair, Jack or partly that the com-
plications.
The mistake happened naturally enough when
I arrived. The office clerk pushed the big book
over to me and said, " Sign please," and so I did
dutifully, writing my full name unabashed,
Doriana Myrtilla Van der Weyden Heminway,
just so. If he had said " Register," I'd have
written proudly " Mrs. J. Dartmouth Hemin-
way," but a signature is a signature and he said
" Sign " said it in a voice accustomed to com-
mand. It seems that you didn't explain that
your sister, Miss Heminway, decided at the last
not to come with your wife and I'd forgotten
all about it.
Now, Jack, was it my fault the mistake?
And am I to blame if I don't look married? I
THE COCOON 27
didn't make my profile. Of course, nothing
serious is happening but be still. Don't
wriggle. And don't rush a letter down here in-
quiring about your " wife " ? I may ask you to
do it, when the time is ripe but not yet.
Trust things to me.
There are already two men in the case, three,
I mean, for of course you are always in it
with me. Two besides. But remember, there's
safety in numbers,
Goodnight, dear,
My head is on your arm,
BLESSY.
Written in Diary, March 1st.
Dear old Book of my Heart:
Five years and three weeks have passed since
your last date, just before my wedding. Five
years! And I've never needed you since not
until now and I don't need you yet ; but I shall.
So I'd better reopen my account with you, now
while I'm calm, so that I can rush in on short
notice and have heartthrobs charged to my ac-
count on your trusting pages instead of send-
28 THECOCOON
ing everything home to dear, patient, long-suf-
fering Jack.
I know already from the way things are going
that I'll soon need some such outlet, just as in
the old turbulent days of our courtship when
you and I and no one else but God knew how
utterly wretched I used to get, doubting Jack's
love, mainly. What a simpleton I was, to be
sure ! But how can a woman know a man until
she's married to him? I've been with Jack now
steadily, summer and winter; here, there and
everywhere ; in sickness and in health ; in season
and out of season ; and I've never needed another
confidant and don't need any now, excepting
for his protection, darling husband that he is.
But I know myself and I know there are sure
to be little things I oughtn't to bother him about
at long range and yet they'll be things I'll never
be able to cast aside without a spark of sympa-
thy and just the telling them out to you will
help us all round. It'll even warm you up,
little Book, after all these years of cooling, al-
though one would think the ardour of those
early red-hot pages, many even blurred with
THECOCOON 29
scalding tears, might have been counted on as a
perpetual guard against chill.
I shall have no more anguish to bring your
dear pages now, thank God, for the day of doubts
and misgivings is past. How often I've laughed
since at my crazy outpouring to you on that
silly occasion when he (" he " is always Jack, of
course) when he, I say, took Lydia Lawrence
home from the barn dance and I engaged my-
self to Don Macintosh, in rage and spite, that
same night on my way home to Aunt Helen's
where I was staying. Oh, how I messed you all
up, page after page, before I got out of that
tangle !
No, this won't be anything like that, surely.
I believe I'm really engaging you for my dis-
couragements, not one of which must go to Jack
again. I'll tell him the things that count and
any foolishness which would seem horrible un-
less he knew it, like my playing on the roof. If
I'd had you, I'd never have railed against this
place to him as I did the other day and I mean
never to do so again. I know he hates our dear
little home without me there ; but he never says
30 THE COCOON
so now, though he wanted to break np and go to
a hotel to live till I'd served this sentence but
I wouldn't let him.
I think his own evening lamp and his books
and papers and the phonograph if he's lone-
some make a more wholesome and sane en-
vironment for a man with a sick wife than the
rotunda of a hotel with its vulgar dress parade
and Jack thinks so too, now.
There are fleas in this jail, Bookie! Now,
that's a thing I'll never tell Jack, for I know it
would worry him. I caught one day before yes-
terday and missed about seventy, I should say,
before I caught this one and the rest must have
got scared and hopped off, for I didn't feel them
again. They blow over from the Downer ken-
nels on Frog Island, whenever a strong wind
favours them, so they are high-class fleas with
the blood of the best registered hounds in their
veins, which is small comfort to us roofers when
they drop in on us.
No, he'll never know about the fleas unless he
sneaks in and confers with you again. That's
the one unworthy thing I've known Jack Hemin-
way to do in these five years to run across you
THE COCOON 31
looking in my bureau drawer for his mileage-
ticket and to gloat over my last heart-throb
and then to make amends by giving me those
pearls. I've noticed very often, Book of my
Heart, that untimely gifts of gems are apt to
represent a husband's shortcomings but one
little thing like that in five years and three
weeks isn't a bad record for my Jack and then
I have the pearls.
The time he brought me that emerald pen-
dant just out of a clear sky, no birthday or any-
thing, I looked around to see what he'd been up
to, but he was so dear and the emeralds so be-
coming that I grew ashamed and forgot all
about it.
Seafair, Va., March 2nd.
(And the sea roaring.)
Dearest Jack:
Perhaps an occasional conventional beginning
may be a good thing, just as we dress for dinner
once in a while when we're camping in the
mountains so the chipmunks will know what
class of people they are entertaining.
.Well, guess who they are, Dear the two
32 THECOCOON
men? But how could you, not knowing any-
body here? So I'll up and 'fess. One is an
Englishman, Canadian, that is, and a gentleman ;
and the other? the BKIGAND who isn't
a brigand at all. I take delight in writing him
so, though. It makes things go faster.
The Canadian I said he was a gentleman,
and after that he's a poet ~nd a soldier, that is
to say, he writes delightful verse and reads it
divinely to your " sister " on the roof and,
for the soldier part, he's an ex-Something-or-
other of the English army. Personally, he's a
widower (I suspect) and pompous or, no, not
at all pompous for an Englishman and his
favourite pastime, when not reading to her, is
to inspect your sister covertly from behind his
book.
He is tall, square-shouldered, spare and grace-
ful, with that fine masculinity which seems to
despise personality even while engaged in its
highest expression; and he is so unequivocally
well bred that one feels a sort of protection in
his presence. Indeed, you see he resembles you,
Dear, in several respects besides his taste in
women.
THE COCOON 33
The Brigand is, of course you'll agree, utterly
unlike him in these qualities, though a good sort,
I'll venture. He is a tireless talker in about
s'teen queer lingos, largely Pacific slope slang,
I heard a man say, and he can rattle pidgin
English so fast that, if you shut your eyes, you'd
expect on opening them to see a pigtailed Mon-
golian standing before you. As to the polite
languages, I don't know. I should say he'd
picked up all he knows chiefly well, not from
books.
When a muffled voice asked this morning on
the roof what we thought of him I answered
quickly from under cover, " I should say he's
a promoter from Everywhere," which brought
down the house, otherwise, shook the cocoons.
He has a Chicago accent, owns a banana
plantation, edits a Free-thought paper, has been
confirmed in the Episcopal Church, was later
ordained to the Campbellite ministry, then be-
gan to dabble in Buddhism and now boasts Pan-
theistic leanings ; and from his fluent pronounce-
ments upon Free Trade and Single Tax, not to
say Home Rule and Universal Peace, one comes
to think of him as a sort of composite.
34 THE COCOON
I haven't " met him " exactly. Of course, we
all nod to each other in passing. It seems to
be a sort of " misery loves company " etiquette.
And yet, although she has but this negligible
acquaintance with him, the Brigand is pursuing
your sister, all the same, and a huge, swarthy
girl from Butte, Montana, is pursuing him. I
hate to say a thing like that about any woman,
but truth is truth. She is interesting picto-
rially; not otherwise. She wears long, black
braids down her back, tied with red bows, and
strides like an Amazon, in the wake of the
Brigand.
She's in for somnambulism and I'm afraid of
her. She plays the flute, which is incongruous.
She even plays it in her sleep, would you believe
it? Fortunately it is a soft-toned flute, but any
flute playing irresponsibly up and down the
corridors at midnight is trying to nervous
patients. I don't like it particularly, myself,
and I find it bothers me almost more when it
isn't playing than when it is. I've been kept
awake quite a little, really, just dreading that
imminent flute playing outside my door at all
THECOCOON 35
hours and picturing to myself the wide-open,
unseeing eyes of the somnambulist.
Kemember Edward Lear's limerick?
" There was once a young lady of Butte
Who played on a silver-gilt flute."
Well, here she is, in life, though I never
thought of her till this minute. Our poor player
is pathetic enough. She carries that flute where-
ever she goes. They did try to wrest it from her,
tactfully, one night, but it waked her and she
threatened to leave, which, of course, they
wouldn't hear to, as she has the most expensive
suite on the floor.
They do say that she played at the Brigand's
door, one midnight, in the absence of the patrol-
nurse who had gone to answer a bell; but they
can't suspect her of anything underhand when
she plays the flute and is sound asleep besides.
The things she plays sleeping are the weird-
est, like the wails of a lost soul. I'm telling
you about this girl oh, yes, she's a girl any-
where between thirty-nine and forty, but dis-
tinctly girlish, more's the pity because the
36 THECOCOON
patrol says she told her that the Brigand was her
fiance".
She sand-sops on the beach and when I look
down upon her, her red bow stands out among
the soppers like a beacon. By the w r ay, sand-
soppiug is especially recommended for insomnia,
and I can see how it might be lulling.
The patients are undressed in little bath-
pavilions and each has an attendant who leads
her or him out barefoot over the warm sand to
the sop-holes, which really look more like graves
than anything else, being about half full of a
sort of loblolly of hot-ish wet salt sand. As the
patient is laid in place, the sop-robe, which I
find is popularly called a shroud and opens at
the back, is pulled away and fresh covering of
sand heaped over him until the entire garment
is freed, and he lies snugly imbedded. There
are some, I know, who insist upon a sleeve and
free arms and who take a book along, but sleep
soon overtakes them; and the attendants have
very watchfully to guard against their sleeping
into rapidly rising tides, for it has happened,
once at least, that one found himself embarrass-
THE COCOON 37
ingly undressed by a single swish of an incom-
ing wave, with some resulting confusion.
Talking of the Butte, she's frightfully unpop-
ular, somehow, and so, of course, I warm to her.
They never told her about her playing at the
Brigand's door; but of course he knows it and
he runs for his life when she looms in sight.
Well, these are the dramatis personae of my
little comedy, up to date these with the usual
lot of subordinates, soldiers, chorus-girls, etc., in
this case trained nurses, doctors, tray-boys and,
of course, worms mainly worms. All the
stars are worms, you understand.
There's an antiquity-shop in the village, Dear,
and I've found a perfectly lovely pair of George
Washington andirons, just iron, but with a ped-
igree to make your hair curl. I haven't bought
them yet, exactly, but wad, Dear no, WAD
please. You see, they are the only pair and I'm
not the only woman of taste in this calaboose.
We'd never forgive ourselves if we let them slip.
Do let me alone about that Miss Carter. Of
course, I intend to look her up; but remember,
there are hundreds of people here and she never
38 THE COCOON
shows herself. If she came to the roof or took
treatments we might run against each other.
I do meet a few semi-amusing people when we
are going around in our sheets, in the treatment-
rooms, but the greatest time is when we are only
a row of heads poking out of the tops of the
thermo-electric cabinets. It's really the only so-
cial function on the card, so necessarily limited.
There are a lot of them in line and sometimes
all are occupied and, as the line curves like a
crescent, it's sort o' sociable. I said to a dis-
tressed face topping the box next to mine the
other day, "Are you a whole woman, or just a
head? I'm only a head myself or a bust, rather !
Everything else is steamed away and it's a
great relief." She didn't answer, but, from the
glance of alarm she gave the attendant, I am
sure she was glad I couldn't get out of my
steamer.
I don't know whether it's pathological or only
logical that these people should show no sense
of humour whatever, but it's tiresome, either
way.
They say she's a beauty, that Carter girl, but
they tap their foreheads when they mention her,
THE COCOON 39
so I can't say I'm thirsting for that visit, exactly
but I'm going don't worry. " A friend of a
friend of Oglesby," you say? Of course, I'll go,
Dear.
And remember, WAD, and as I'm not tele-
graphing it, there'll be no time to spare. Georgie
will be divine, holding our logs, while Martha
smiles on him from the screen.
March 5th, or 6th.
(Sunshine tempered by a mackerel sky
and cocoonery in fine form.)
I'm having fun!
It's intrigue, Jack, and your " child wife " is
the conspirator. I've already explained that
everybody avoids the Butte (Do let me write her
thus, henceforth. I started to spell it " Beaut,"
but that would be unkind. She's as plain as a
hippopotamus, though unlike).
Also, I've told you how she can always be
spotted in a landscape by her long braids which
look like jute. Indeed, a very young fellow here
who has one of those finnikin little minds that
run to trivial jokes, took out his note-book as
she passed, one day, remarking, " I'm just writ-
40 THE COCOON
ing down jute as a handy rhyme for Butte."
" Yes, and brute is another/' I threw back at
him. I couldn't help it. I hate underbred per-
sonalities. He writes squibs for humour-pages
and has an expression of expecting-to-be-laughed-
at whenever he opens his mouth and I imagine
price-tags on all his little jokes mainly " 30c."
I know he hates me, but I'm not worrying, but
I don't see why he keeps hanging around. They
say he was a cracker-jack reporter before he
fell ill. He's here " recuperating," of course.
Everybody is.
But the conspiracy:
The Brigand, you know, is an unequivocal
person. He either loves or he hates; and just
as violently as he detests the Butte, he admires
your sister; and, strange to say, equally is the
Butte distasteful to the Canadian.
She's a parlour-elocutionist, poor huge thing,
and she recited one of the Canadian's poems in
the chapel here the other evening in a sort of
vaudeville of resident talent, did it " with mo-
tions " and awful flights, and when she had done
the author was not there. He had escaped
through an open window, into the night
THE COCOON 41
I had. heard the poem before in the poet's
cultured voice, on the roof, and even I suffered
in her rendition. Her notes were as the winds
of March shrieking through the garden of the
gods.
But I keep getting away from the conspiracy
and the fun.
You understand, Dear, the object of the co-
coonery is rest-in-the-open. No cocoon is sup-
posed to become a social centre. Well, mine
was being threatened. It's considered quite
allowable for a comrade to stroll along and stop
for a word occasionally, unless the worm is
closely veiled and, of course, excepting in a
certain " Silent Section " to which I never go.
It's too deathlike.
But I have tried to hide tried variously.
I've gone up early before the crowd and had
Beauregarde Davis tuck me in and I've
changed my location, but somehow ?
It's my hair, Jack. You always declared it
was luminous and I believe you are right. Cer-
tainly, its slightest vagrant strand will catch
the sunlight, somehow. I often believe myself
safely hidden in my bunk and the first thing I
42 THECOCOON
know, a tall shadow looms and a Voice asks if
it is intruding (" ahsks " it, in fine limpid Eng-
lish), and I tell the social lie universal and be-
fore you could say Jack Robinson, the Canadian
has camp-stooled himself beside me and is
" ahsking my candid opinion " of an original
poem which he " reads " from an imaginary
book, or regaling me with anecdotes of well
known personages, none of whom has he pro-
fessed to know, which is very modest of him. Of
course, I like it. Who wouldn't and he the
most attractive man here?
Besides, he is, in some occult way, appealing.
I can't quite describe it. It's the intangible
something that made me guess him to be a
widower. Sometimes I suspect that he has a
secret sorrow and when he gets pretty close, as
in reciting some delicate passage with telling
effect, I feel half frightened lest he should sud-
denly entrust me with some awful confidence. I
don't mean a declaration. That would be un-
speakable and would instantly quash all these
merriment proceedings, for, of course, in such a
calamity, I'd have to reveal myself in my true
colours.
THE COCOON 43
As things are now, my position is wholly neg-
ative and I've done nothing. They take me
for a girl and I just drift along and I'm tell-
ing the only person who would have a right to
object. But, of course, the Canadian will never
do anything impulsive or ill-advised not a
gentleman of English blood; and taking him by
and large, he contributes greatly to my semi-
contentment here.
All of which, though very pleasant, isn't ex-
actly restful, you'll agree, and I'm doing this co-
coon stunt to get well and strong doing it for
you, Beloved, and for nations yet unborn, if
the gods are kind, and I owe it to you and to
them to do it as expeditiously as possible. You
understand, don't you, Dear?
And isn't it great that there's nothing wrong
with me but tire just tire? and "With rest
and sane living" there's hope for everything.
I'm so glad we had this all threshed out before
I came to this place so I don't have to take any-
body into my confidence, and I tell you, Jacky
dear, this girl business has its advantages. It's
the first time in five years when I've been among
strangers over-night that some one haen't asked
44 THECOCOON
me if I had any children. I suppose it would
be expecting too much to have the world realise
how this question stabs the childless woman.
And it has other advantages, too, this being
a girl again other advantages besides the
questionable one of the personal tribute of the
detached male. Of course I realise I'm declin-
ing the open gate for these diverting byways,
but I'm escaping all the same.
I notice that the women exchange glances and
edit their recitals about their surgical experi-
ences when I appear, and one good woman even
remarked in a stage whisper quite in my hear-
ing, " Sh ! She's only an innocent girl an' I
know I wouldn't thank anybody for telling my
daughter such things. I think the less a girl
knows about life the better for her. She ain't
half so liable to turn against it."
" That's just w r hat I always say," agreed her
neighbour. " I know when I was married, I
didn't know a thing. Why, I was 'most as tall
as my mother when I used to slip out into the
cabbage-patch and search any suspiciously big
heads to see if I could find any trace of the
babies, I was that pure-minded and it was
THE COCOON 45
just as well. Now they tell me the girls and
young men go together to eugenic play-acting
and lectures. I can't help wondering what
they'll have to talk about after they get married.
They'll discuss books then, I reckon."
" Yes, and that ain't the worst of it," sighed
the other, shifting an ice-bag on her person as
she spoke, " that ain't the worst of it. They say
the girls are losing interest, now everything is
explained. I suppose if I'd known as much be-
forehand as I do now, I wouldn't be holding ice-
bags over surgeon's stitches the way I am to-
day. I'd 've had the foresight to keep clear of
it and yet, taking it all in all, I'm glad I
didn't know any better, for I've got nice children
if I do say it; but if things keep on the way
they're going, we'll have a race of old maids, I
suppose."
This was down on the beach porch, and w r hen
presently the speakers went in, a superior voice
threw out from behind a book : " Where do you
suppose those ladies are from? " and instantly a
mannish chirp from a nest of quilts in a steamer-
chair replied:
" Oh, they're from Bungaloton down in Bun-
46 THE COCOON
galocust County where they cultivate Bunga-
lotus flowers for eastern bungalos." And push-
ing back the covers, the little joke-man emerged
and tripped away, looking like a picked chicken.
You know he's lost his hair. He is funny!
But oh, Jack, isn't the average American a di-
verting creature ! Living in New York as we do,
with picked minds for daily social fare, and go-
ing to hear the questions of the hour threshed
out by the picked of the picked and presented
coherently, it is delicious to come across the un-
tutored play of thought in the remote fringes of
progress.
As I lay in my bunk, reflecting on this na'ive
discussion, I sent up a little prayer and thanks-
giving, too, on our account, yours and mine.
Isn't it a blessing to know that we are eugen-
ically sound, you and I, so we needn't fear when
we know he or she is on the way to us or
they! How I'd love for it to be they! Two
you's or two me's or one of each of us !
Oh, if only this may be our reward for this
incarceration! My prospective wellness for its
own sake pales before this looming joy. Think
of longing to be well, just to be strong enough to
THECOCOON 47
assume the master pain, Dearest but oh, the
master reward!
You know how I always longed for a boy
or boys but I want to tell you now that I'm
quite willing to have anything you want, even
just one girl (one at a time, I mean) ; but don't
require me to bequeath the poor little thing my
yellow hair. I know whereof I speak and yel-
low hair on the head of an even semi-serious
woman with a suspicion of an intellect is a fear-
ful handicap. I'm feeling it right now, in this
warfare.
If, for instance, I were a dark-haired, demure
woman with a profile like Dante or George Eliot
or Seneca, I could lie out in my cocoon and take
all the benefactions of the roof without inter-
ruption; or if my soul matched my giddy little
head throughout (I don't deny that even it has
its yellow-haired side) things would be simpli-
fied and I'd take the roofs chances of fun with-
out a qualm.
But to return to more worthy thought I'm
reading up on eugenics like mad. Got the book
out o' the library here. Maybe when the time
comes for us, we'll have arrived at something
48 THE COCOON
definite, so that I can say to you, in effect, " If
you'll keep your hands off my boy, I'll promise
not to interfere with your girl," which will mean
that I can have my dark-haired, high-fore-
headed, intellectual little son, just like you
and won't it be too cunning if he's just near-
sighted enough to have to wear your specs? You
know, dear, near-sight in youth means normal
vision at the other end, when gifts are sparse
and precious, so there's no harm in wishing our
Junior to have your dear eyes to begin with.
Oh, Jack, when I think of him, I can hardly
wait; and even if you insist on thinking my
trivial hair onto his innocent head, I'll not say a
word. Isn't it great fun to blame you if he in-
herits my hair? Oh, Jack!
But talking about the children, Jack, a new
thought has come to me here, out of the blue, a
great thought. You see, with no invitations or
telephones or anything to break the monotony,
whenever I'm not doing anything formal, I'm
thinking and most of all, I think of the home,
our dear home in which we have realised so
much of joy, and which has yet, in some intangi-
THE COCOON 49
ble way, failed of the full satisfaction it prom-
ised.
And from that I began to consider other
homes, as they appear, modest homes chiefly,
looking for joy-signs, and then, getting down and
down in the scale, I seemed to come to great
places where numbers of people lived together
only because there seemed no other way, until I
found myself standing at the door of an orphan
asylum.
I needn't tell you I hadn't sought the asylum.
To me they are dreadful places. Mother used
to be on the Board of Lady Managers of a lovely
one when I was little, a great stone mansion set
in grounds, with gardeners, and flower-beds in
long rows and fancy shapes and there were
"modern improvements," I remember, artificial
aeration and cooking and sewing classes, and
what they had the nerve to call " family pray-
ers " because all the little uniformed orphans
used to shout " Amen ! " as they rose from their
knees and filed out in procession, looking so seri-
ous and weak-eyed and clean.
Mother used to take me with her on Board
50
days, sometimes, and I remember the girls sit-
ting on benches in the yard crocheting yards
and yards of cotton lace of the same pattern,
and sometimes mother would buy it and have it
sewed on my pantalettes, and whenever I wore
them, I'd seem to see the pale girls in rows at
work, sometimes measuring their lace, one with
another, and talking a little lower than the chil-
dren I knew talked when they were together.
I remember even the baby ward as a depress-
ing place each baby tagged with its name and
number and one day when I was there I
begged to hold one of the babies and the nursery
matron put a big-eyed, serious little thing in my
eager twelve-year-old arms and I began to love
and to hug it as we always had done our home
babies.
At first, the little thing braced itself against
my chest and eyed me wonderingly but pres-
ently, while I caressed it, it flung its thin arms
around my neck with a little cry and nearly
choked me to death and wouldn't let me go till
the matron cautiously forced its grip.
I was crying, too, when finally she took it
from me, for I was a sensitive little creature and
51
I suppose, even then, strongly maternal. And I
am the same yet, Jack. Why, half my joy in
life now is in mothering you when you have
colds and things; and no one will ever know
what satisfaction I took in your bone-felon,
Jack.
It gave me my first chance to lose sleep on
your account, and sometimes it seems to me the
life of a woman is never full until she has some-
thing to lose sleep over once in awhile
something she loves. Not that I'd have you ever
get another bone-felon, for anything on earth;
but really, when you got better of that, and, as
Bridget would say, "middlin' independent," I
was lost for a while.
Then, you remember, you got the canary, and
we amused ourselves with his notes and his daily
needs for a while. But he was a bachelor bird
and he soon became monotonous, until the day
God sent me enlightenment and I knew that the
brave little fellow was singing his heart out to
some remote, abstract mate, and I went out and
brought home that cage of lady birds and let
him choose his partner and we started them in
housekeeping.
52 THE COCOON
And then came the nest-making and watching
then the stirring and the joy of the little ones.
Oh, Jack, it's the way of life ! The only way to
fulness of joy! The young birds in the nest!
The children, the children!
In my study of homes, joy seemed to follow
the perambulator. Children's voices singing un-
der trees. The playing of " scales " on cracked
pianos. A rain-washed doll lying inside a small
gate joy-signs, all.
Only when I got to the imposing portal of the
big house where the unclaimed or unwanted
were collected, unparented and unloved ; only in
the affluent, poor, crowded, lonely asylum were
the joy-notes all missing. Even when the young
things took out their second-hand toys to play
(permission accorded with a glance at the clock
by a perfectly proper starched person in charge)
I noticed that there was slight interest shown
in them. The children all seemed to have their
eyes on the clock, too, for putting-away time.
Do I seem to be turning ultra-sentimental
I who am so frivolous generally? I am light
and volatile, Dear, but maybe it's mainly on the
surface.
THE COCOON 53
Frivolity blooms in my hair, I know, and
dances in my feet and rings in my laughter, but
my heart is in the right place, Dear, and there
are times when it suffers and is lonely over
things which my head and my feet and my voice
ought to be able to help.
" What am I driving at? " I'm coming to
that, now.
It's adoption, Jack. To keep waiting, year
after year, until God in His own good time may
or may not give us a child fashioned after our
own selfish pattern, seems to me to be behaving
like selfish pigs and the orphan asylums filled
to overflowing with little tagged, love-needing
babies, already born babies who don't under-
stand a caress till they are taught.
Don't you think maybe we've thought of the
children just for our own sakes, Dear? I've
often wondered whatever became of the baby
who clung to my neck that time. Mother never
allowed me to go to the baby-ward again, be-
cause I talked in my sleep that night.
Think of our home, Jack, and our hearts and
all the warm room in them ! Maybe we've been
a wee bit too worldly, you and I not that I'm
54 THE COCOON
half ready to turn ultra-pious. I'm not that
sort. But suppose we keep our eyes and hearts
open for the little one we so need and who needs
us. We'll be sure to find it or even them, in
time, if our hearts are wide open.
Miss Penny Perkins told me last winter that
in her settlement work she sometimes comes
across darling little cherubs which she has to
"place," and she is always sorry when she is
obliged to send them to the big mansions with
the long rows of little white beds.
Think it over, Dear, and don't answer till you
are good and ready. Of course, our own, if
Heaven be so good, will come along, just the
same, and have something to inherit beyond self-
ishness.
We'll tell him or her I'd just as lief have it
a little girl, first; you always wanted a girl, and
I'm not keen about a boy till there's some chance
for him to take after you so we can tell her,
I say, that she's " adopted," and give her to un-
derstand that adoption is a high honour and
means that she was " chosen " and for love of
us all and we can train her to be a good older
sister Oh, Jack! Oh, I'm sure we'll be do-
THE COCOON 55
ing right, and happiness will flow in to us as
a gift of Heaven, as it always does when we for-
get all about it and get busy doing something
worth while.
I feel ever so much better, now it's all out,
Dear. I fancy it won't attract you much, at
first, but once you let the thought in, it grows
on you. You see, for one thing, taking the self-
ish side, there's surety in it. We know we can
have our pick of adoptable babies and we can
begin to get ready at once. And don't let's tell
a soul ; not even your sister Laura.
We'll find the baby I'll go reconnoitering
first, then I'll call you in and we'll select to-
gether and I'll fit her out in dinky little
clothes, and, if necessary, we'll even take her
away for a little trip to get her chubby and
strong before we invite the relations in.
Oh, Jack, when I think of it, and how near it
may be, I can hardly wait to get out of this
place. But, of course, I must get especially
well for all these kinds of motherhood. And
you'll have to hurry and make money, for they
say the cost of a motor-car isn't in it with the
modern perambulator and all it means.
56 THE COCOON
Buy a Montessori book, right off, Jack, and
let's study it up. We'll give the little thing the
best there is in life, if we know how.
But dear, dear! Where did I leave off? Oh,
yes. I was telling you about the Canadian and
the roof comedy when I got off on the subject of
the children and that's always a labyrinth in
which I'm lost.
But listen, now, Jack and follow me closely,
for I need your support and your sympathy.
Realise the situation. If it isn't the Canadian,
whose name, by the way, is Archibald La Rue,
followed by an alphabet some habitant blood
there, I suspect I say, if it isn't he, it's some-
body else. Several of the youngish M.D.'s have
a way of coming, especially an awfully nice fel-
low called Welborn and conspicuously unmar-
ried, somehow. Well, they just stroll along and
chat a moment, generally making it known that
they want to make sure I am comfy, don't you
know?
The Bandit Brigand, I mean to say
never comes, and never will. I have some force
of character left. Occasionally the wee joke-
man happens along, sparkles like a firefly and
THE COCOON 57
flits. He is so short that standing is the social
attitude for him.
Well, now listen: (and try not to blame me
too much; it's every bit for you).
I want to go home. I must be let alone and I
positively will not go into that dreadful " Silent
Section," where those long-haired men and short-
haired women foregather with their writing-pads
to let each other alone. By the way, they say
lots of poets and other cranks come here just to
work. They're the chief Silent Sectioners.
But I'll protect myself in the open. I'll study
the stars or say the multiplication-table both
ways, beginning in the middle, if I want to.
Since I'm to be a worm, I'll turn like one.
Well, here's what I did :
I drove to the village and bought one of those
hideous jute braids such as those with which our
poor negro women disfigure their heads, and I
tied a huge red bow on the end of it, exactly like
the Butte's got early into my cot and, giv-
ing Beauregarde Davis time to get busy at the
opposite end of the roof, I watched my chance
and slipped the braid out over my pillow, pulled
in my head and went to sleep.
58 THECOCOON
It was my best day. Not a soul came.
For three consecutive forenoons I worked this
trick, with slight variations three blissful
mornings. But yesterday ah, woe is me!
While I lay, fairly soaking rest and giggling in
my soul over it, I was suddenly roused by a fa-
miliar tread and opened my eyes to see through
my veil whom but the Canadian, stopping short
in his walk and looking from my cot to another
across the roof from which the Butte herself was
rising !
Of course, the game's up. I lay breathless
and waited, but not for long. Before I could
still my thumping heart, the Brigand loomed, ap-
proached gingerly, looked both ways and
snorted. (He hasn't the breeding of the Cana-
dian. )
Then the two men went their separate ways.
They are not friends. And, by the way, I was
right. The Brigand is a promoter and from
about everywhere. He is said to be at this mo-
ment dickering with old Dr. Jacques for this sea-
front, either with or without the Sanitarium.
It seems he represents " Eastern Capital " and
his Company wants to establish an "Amphibi-
THECOCOON 59
ous Motor" plant, and the exceptional sea-and-
sky space attract them here, with the further
advantage of a deep channel near shore, so that
their " Amphibs " may plunge from aerial
heights, diving like sea-gulls.
Won't it be fun for the patients, if they build
it next door, so to speak? The Doctor owns a
mile or so of frontage here and backage, too,
for that matter. They say there's any kind of
mine one might ask for on his land, and so it be-
hooves him to sell any frontage he can spare to
finance the mines. I'm trying to talk business,
Dear. I made all that out of my own head
about " financing " and it sounds pretty well
to me. He does own the land.
But think what fun it will be when the Am-
phibs give a regatta ! They watch the porpoises
now, the poor patients do, but Mr. Porpoise
won't be in it with the 'Phibs.
He's really great fun, the Brigand, loud as
loquacious and, with it all, he's as artless as a
school-boy. By the way, Dear, I've been intend-
ing to ask you, what is the meaning of " Western
Reserve"? I know I've heard the expression
somewhere. Well, he hasn't it.
60 THECOCOON
I wonder what makes me meander so when I'm
writing to you. I seem to be leaving myself on the
roof, in sight of the Butte, and with my replica
of her braid in full evidence; but not so. She
couldn't have seen it from her cot, if she'd been
looking, and when she rose, it was no trick at all
for me to shift my position and haul in my cable.
Then, when she had gone and my neighbours had
dispersed, I rose and casually strolled away.
But I was excited. I felt like an adventuress,
and cruel, which is worse. When I got to my
room, I threw myself on my bed, fairly shivering
from mixed emotions, chiefly terror. I simply
couldn't be caught at this sort of thing. And
my escape was narrow, assuming that it was an
escape.
I was no company for myself, I assure you,
so I rang and cancelled my supper-tray order and
dressed and went down to the dining-room, my
second appearance there.
I wore that dream-chiffon and your pearl
heart, slippers to match the dress and my ma-
donna expression. And, Jack, if looks count for
anything, no one would have believed me crim-
inal, even if I'd been caught in the act.
61
If I'd been arrested in Hell ('sense the word)
and said I was trying to find Heaven and had
lost my way, Pluto would have dropped his fork
and bowed politely while he called Proserpine
or one of the children to hold off the dog and
see ine safely out, unmolested. I'm sure of it.
It was a pretty big bluff, for my size, Jacky
dear, but I was hard-pressed. At the dining-
room door, whom should I meet but the Cana-
dian, face to face, and from his frank smile I
read that all was well in that quarter. With
the gentlest bow r , almost as deferential as an
American's, he came forward :
" We've been missing you, Miss Heminway? "
(Rising inflection.)
" pleasant on the roof, to-day?" (My in-
flection Englished up also.)
" Lonely," was his answer. ( His very first
personality.)
" Lonely inside, too ! " No, Jack, I didn't say
it. It said itself just took my honest tongue
and used it, and I was as powerless to help it as
I would be to darken my hair or pull down my
nose or turn that crazy dimple wrong-side out
into a peak.
62 THE COCOON
Telling it now, the whole episode sounds in-
ane, but it was exciting, and as it has afforded
me my only uninterrupted rest since the first
day, perhaps it was justified.
Anyway the jute braid has served its limit, but
I have another scheme for to-morrow or, maybe,
next day.
I may take a day off, just showing up casually
in the interval, to ward off suspicion and, too,
to get over all this a little. It has given me a
terrible shake-up.
But I'm really improving wonderfully, Jack,
although my rest seems a little broken, as one
might say. Indeed, there are times when I feel
almost too well.
"All the functions smart," said the old Doc-
tor yesterday. He's an old dear, but he hasn't
the social vernacular. He little knows what a
" smart function " means to me or why I'm
here.
In one sense, I'm having a perfect rest, for
I am resting ab-so-lute-ly from the things I
care for most even resting from my Beloved.
And I'm resting from responsibilities (plural,
observe) from the trivial things which wear
THE COCOON 63
on one, like gnats getting into one's eyes.
A lion in one's path is worth while if only for
the high sport of vanquishing him but gnats !
Servants! Bills! Mistakes in bills! The tele-
phone! Wrong wash sent home! Eight wash
not sent out! Telephone! Soft ice-cream!
Subsided souffl6 ! Wrong entree sent in from ca-
terers, doubling home course guests already
arriving, too late to change! Telephone!
Swapping " days-out " with Bridget ! Telephone
won't work! Telephone bill says telephone
worked over time! Callers and telephone ad-
juster and C. O. D. parcel " to be tried on " all
arrive at same moment with Angelic Husband
who wonders why wife didn't arrange to have
them call separately. Tears! Coaxing! Tem-
porary control then hysteria Angelic Hus-
band assumes all blame and calls himself a
brute ! Reconciliation and gr-r-r-r-eat happiness
followed by "nerve disturbance" and then
this place!
Ach! Gnats! Gnats which feed the divorce
lawyers and keep institutions like this out of
bankruptcy. Gnats !
Why, there are times when just the memories
64 THE COCOON
of them swarm so that I have to take my mind
forcibly by the back of its neck and turn it into
other channels 'scuse the mixed metaphor
but I'm lots better. I even see how I may come
to enjoy the gnats, after a while, for your sake.
I know a more demure woman with safer lines
and quieter colouring might get well faster, but
maybe she wouldn't get so jolly well. I begin
to feel it sizzling through me already, the gleeful
wellness.
Good night, Boy!
Your-hard-put-to-it
but DEVOTED,
lonely BLESSY.
Next Day.
(And the sea whistling.)
Well, I really did get to see the Carter last
night, Dear, and she's a rare beauty, exquisite
as a seashell, but with a haunting something in
her face, half like a memory. I seemed to have
seen her before, in a dream. Her hands lay in
her lap like Easter lilies. She's a great beauty,
and isn't it awful?
" Social overdoing," they say, the same old
THE COCOON 65
story. I found her amiable but reticent, so I
chirped along, and after a while, just to bring
her into the talk, I asked her ever so gently what
interested her most here and she answered un-
blushingly :
"The hell-hounds!"
Then, before I had time to recover, she turned
her sad eyes upon me and said, " KISMET."
No, they don't take any insane here. Really,
they don't, and I'm beginning to understand.
Whenever there's no " organic lesion," whatever
that is it sounds like a pianola attachment for
an organ anyway, when they don't have it,
they get well, and go home cured. They are do-
ing it every day.
And remember, I'm going home with you when
you come, Dear, lesion or no lesion. I just
thought I'd tell you. I'm tired asking the doc-
tor and being put off. But I must make good
with these kind people here before I go.
There's the Brigand and the Canadian
and sundry young M.D.'s and the humour-
page poet, et als yes, and the poor visiting
lady whom I snubbed so successfully that she no
longer dares tell me how she loves me. I've even
66 THECOCOON
come over to her. She's so pitiful. She'd be all
right if she were exploiting some other commod-
ity, but love! As an advocate of stern and for-
bidding DUTY, she'd be perfect. Half the fail-
ures in this life are from arbitrary assignments.
You see, I'm trying to talk up to your great in-
tellect, John Dartmouth Heminway.
What a terrific chore it must be for a worthy
but vinegar-visaged person like that to have to
go the rounds in a menagerie like this, and to
offer sugar to the beasts only to have them growl
at her and show their teeth!
Life is the great tragedy, beloved; not death.
Before I leave this paradise, which it really is, I
assure you, to the spiritually discerning, I mean
to take that thwarted visiting-lady's freckled
hand in mine and tell her I love her, and it will
be true. But it must be the very last word, at
the door. She mustn't have time for reciproca-
tion. I'm too nervous yet. My spirit is grow-
ing in grace but the flesh is weak. Here
comes the mail !
Two Days Later.
I can't date this. I know it's Saturday and
the wind's from the east and something like
THECOCOON 67
snow-flakes swirl through the air, down here in
Virginia, and the sea is a floppy wet blanket.
(It's hailing, too, and thundering, inside me.)
I've done it, Jack, the other trick and I'm
nearly crazy ! Did it to-day ! But it was great !
The jute racket was tame to it. Poor Butte! I
seem to be making a butt of her, but I'm not.
I'm only using the material at hand and if she's
material, is it my fault?
My plan was to work the same trick, from the
other end. I pinned one of my yellow curls on
her pillow as I sauntered by the cot in which she
lay deeply immured, then crawled into my own,
and watched the fun.
I knew her cot by the flute which lay beside it
and was fortunate in finding her audibly asleep.
She sleeps a good deal now, in the daytime. It
was early in the afternoon; only two other cots
occupied at our end, and sleep echoes coming
from both.
And so, as I said, I just strolled past her co-
coon, stood a moment looking outward till I had
managed to drop my veil over the flute, and while
I stooped to pick them up together, nothing could
have been simpler than to slip the curl with an
68 THECOCOON
invisible hairpin onto her poor head that is,
on the pillow beside it, just beyond her possible
field of vision to find my own cocoon, to scram-
ble into it and close up, in a position command-
ing the situation.
For an endless time nothing happened and I
was finally dropping into sleep from sheer weari-
ness, with the flute against my heart, when the
fortuitous tramp of the Brigand, who material-
ised quite near me pulling his soft hat down over
his eyes better to scan the roof, stopped my heart
entirely.
I saw him when he first sighted the yellow
curl and began to veer toward it, but before he
had reached it, a vociferous snort and then an-
other startled the roof. The Butte was dead to
the world.
I never saw the Brigand convulsed before.
His great joints fairly rattled and as he sham-
bled away, unconsciously grazing my pillow as
he passed, I heard him chuckle :
" Well. That's one on Goldie-locks."
He never doubted that I was the snorer. I
hardly think such snoring is habitual with the
Butte. It couldn't be with any woman. It was
THE COCOON 69
too awful, too cataclysmic to last, but its three
or four blasts waked the cocoonery.
You know the kind like that of your apo-
plectic friend who week-ended with us that sum-
mer at Oyster Bay. Do you remember how
Bridget came running in to us at three o'clock
in the morning, crying that there was a hog in
the dining-room, and you rushed down to dis-
cover that our guest, finding his room rather
close, had risen in search of a breeze and had
fallen asleep in the veranda hammock? Well,
the Butte's snorting was even worse than that.
Poor old Hendriksen ! How mortified he would
have been if he had known !
Well, Jack dear, this is how the comedy of the
roof began. As all the cocoons are on a level, of
course no one had noticed the curl or suspected
anything. When the brief paroxysm had passed,
the Butte slept along fairly quietly, although she
is one of those whom one can always hear sleep,
being as you might say a hearty person.
But the afternoon was drowsy, warmish and
tense, and your sister was getting every possible
chance at the sleep she was too excited to take,
when things began happening. Several of her
70 THE COCOON
acquaintances tiptoed inquiringly among the
cots, saw the lure, heard the sleep and passed on.
One even ventured near enough to lay a bunch
of roses over her alleged feet and noiselessly
creep away. Then presently came the Canadian
and I felt myself blushing up to my temples, all
alone in my cocoon. His well-bred presence
seemed to give the whole thing its proper rating
and I was suddenly heartily ashamed of it. To
make matters worse, I was supposed to be ex-
pecting him, as he had asked the privilege of
fetching a bit of verse for my " candid criticism,"
a poem entitled " The Droning of the Spring."
After a swift sweeping survey, he sped, camp-
stool in hand, straight as an arrow to the cot of
the yellow curl where audibly slept the young
lady of Butte whose silver-gilt flute lay in my
bosom.
How my heart played upon it, as I watched
him! Had it been a stringed instrument, it
must have responded with a wail, but my breath-
less panic could not call it into life, fortunately.
I watched him take his seat; saw him open
his book and begin to turn pages; then I either
heard or imagined that I heard his soft, " not
THE COCOON 71
intruding? " and in a moment, I fancied myself
following the measures of the verse as his well
modulated voice rose and fell with the rhythm.
I confess, it sounded just a wee bit mellifluous
to me, as I listened, but that may unconsciously
have been suggested by the title, although I can-
not deny that the poem has a honeyed cadence.
He has talent, this Canadian, if not a glint
of genius. You must know him. You'd be thick
as thieves in no time.
The Butte is a sound sleeper if a tragic one
and I suspect that the Canadian as an author
is a bit egoistic, as otherwise he would surely
have divined that she whom he sought was not
there. Authors reading their own creations
sometimes seem oblivious to the world. So,
saturated with his own thought, the poet read
on and on. The droning droned out at last,
however ; but I soon discerned a resumption with
change of metre and all was going evenly once
more when there recurred the catastrophe of the
snore. I hope never to hear its like again. It
was high tragedy and, simultaneously with the
explosion, a great arm was thrust out, an arm
clad in a grey sweater, and then something
72 THE COCOON
swirled and a long black braid actually flapped
a crimson bow into the face of the gentle Cana-
dian ! A confusion of quilts followed, and all in
a twinkling, the Butte was standing up, blink-
ing and neither Canadian nor camp-stool was
anywhere in sight.
To do her justice, I do not believe the Butte
had any idea that anybody had been there, for,
after gazing vacantly about her as one dazed,
she drawled:
" Well, I never. Dremp' I was in a saw-mill
an' such a funny buzzin', like water over a
wheel precizely. Ain't it re-dic'lous! "
And she was sinking down into her bunk again
when she descried the roses, fortunately turning
her* back upon my wretched little curl, which
flickered like a yellow flame upon her pillow,
scorching my eyes and burning into my soul.
" O-h ! " she gasped. " His yellow roses ! "
And burying her face in the flowers, she burst
into tears and hurried from the roof.
Time is up. I'm rushing this to mail. More
anon.
B.
Written in Diary late that night:
THE COCOON 73
.
Oh, you Book of my Heart, chum, pal, confi-
dant and before we get through, perhaps my
confederate, even my accomplice for aided and
abetted by your receptivity and reticence, I could
essay anything.
How glad I am of you! although I come
empty to-night, for all that's brewing now I'm
telling Jack; and surely there's no news in this
reformatory !
Oh, yes, there is, too. It's bats! I counted
sixty-seven as they flapped out of a broken pane
in the attic of the ten-pin alley yesterday.
Sixty-seven! Think of it! And sixty-six of
them I counted through the veil I flopped over
my head after number one. I'm afraid of a bat
as far off as I can distinguish one from a bird,
and that's about as far as I can see him. I be-
lieve Jack would almost send for me, if he knew.
Anyway, he'd worry. Every now and then we
have bat-scares down at Oyster Bay, when one
strays into our room in the night so Jack
knows !
Even if they don't tangle themselves up in
women's hair, they look evil and I notice the art-
ists generally work them into any abominations
74 THE COCOON
of desolation they are trying to picture, so I say
no bats for me! I even put out my light last
night and gave up reading lest one should dash
into my hair through the open window. They
may be devils, but these will be doing angels'
work if they get me more sleep.
Think of fleas and bats in this immaculate
place! I was wondering this morning how that
flea must have felt, finding himself in my cool
cambric and lace nightie-sleeve after being blown
out of the warm coat of those Frog Island col-
lies. I said it out aloud, not realising the pres-
ence of Malviny-May, who was brushing up my
hearth, until I saw her straighten up and lean
on her broom, as she chuckled:
" Frog Island fleas ! Yes, I know that's what
they say ; but have you took notice that the wind
that would blow 7 em from Frog Island would
have to pass over our Seafair stables? not
sayin' anythin'. But I know I haven't never
put my foot on Frog Island, but many a Sunday
evenin' have I caught a lively flea on my collar,
just passin' our barn an' no wind blowin'
neither not makin' any remarks. Of course,
you never know what's in the wind, an' it could
THECOCOON 75
lift fleas off'n those kennels, if there was any
there, an' drop 'em on our barn if it was nec-
essary, I s'pose."
Then languidly resuming her sweeping, she
hesitated, but just for a moment.
" Dr. Welborn did have one o' the varmints
under a microscope here a while back an' I heard
'em discussin' the circulation of its blood which
he allowed me to put my eye to the glass an' look
at, an' it cert'n'y did circulate fine ; an' I told 'im
he hadn't ought to miss the chance to send a
drop of it down to the laboratory to find out
whether it was blue pedigree Collie blood or such
common red as our Seafair mongrel pups might
supply, an' I wish you could 'a' heard 'em laugh ;
not that I see where the joke come in.
" Michael, our head stable-man, he brags that
he's got more kinds o' dog in his stable than all
the Downer an' Leffingwell kennels put together
an' they're all in five dogs, no two alike. He
allows he likes 'em that a-way because he says,
in a mixed drink is every kind of a drunk. He
runs on just to pass the time, Michael does."
Really, Bookie, this strikes my funny-bone so
that I'm tempted to tell Jack about it. I really
76 THECOCOON
must but we'll keep the bats to ourselves.
Dear old Jack! And to think how I used to
doubt him and fairly writhe in jealousy. Noth-
ing on earth would have power to make me dis-
trust him now nothing! Isn't that sort of
faith great? And we've arrived at it through the
daily wear and tear of five long years of steady
companionship. This is our first separation and
God grant it may be brief !
Why, my faith is such that if Jack were to
break an engagement to dine at home in New
York on account of "a Directors' meeting"
( which, of course, should not occur at the dinner
hour) and I should learn that he had gone to
Coney Island with a chorus girl, I'd know she
had been needed at the meeting and that they
were holding it down by the sea for business rea-
sons. Of course, Jack never does anything like
that. I'm only imagining an extreme case.
And so, Bookie, dear, I hope you realise that
the temperamental little goose who bedaubed
your pages with ill-founded anguish in our cal-
low days comes back to you now a happy woman,
secure in the faith of the best man on earth.
I've just sent him one letter at the last mail-
THE COCOON 77
ing moment and then kept on writing him a vol-
ume right out of my heart, to go to-morrow, tell-
ing him of all my frivolities. It's a test of con-
fidence to write page after page of volatile stuff
to a serious-minded man like Jack, but I know
him and I can hear him chuckle over my giddiest
escapade.
His mother wore her hair in bandeaux over
her ears and dressed in gros grain silk with
cameo brooch and lace fichu every day, and she
read " Jay's Morning and Evening Exercises "
to liim, daily, and selections from Paley's " Evi-
dences " on Sundays and he married me for a
change, Jack did. And he got it, too, poor Jack !
But here I sit gabbling and I promised myself
to take some of these New York roses to that
poor Miss Carter Jack will waste his good
money sending me flowers for every anniver-
sary
To-day is the sixth anniversary of the fourth
and last time I engaged myself to him after
that dreadful row that started by his refusing to
tell me his fraternity pass-word, you remember.
Oh, Bookie, wasn't I a little idiot?
And Jack never forgets any of them and these
78 THE COCOON
four, with our wedding-day and Christmas and
New Year's and Easter and my birthday and off
and on occasions, why they keep him busy.
Somehow, his commemorating all our re-engage-
ments as he does always seems a gentle reproof
to me, but I don't let on.
But I really must go, or the wee Carter 5 !! be
in bed. I'll take her some of Jack's chocolate
creams, too, I believe, poor distrait little human !
She has evidently worked on Jack's sympathies
through her friends, for he confesses he doesn't
know her. He's a dear, softie old saint is my
Jack!
Think of a man in his position bringing home
whining little gutter kittens in his overcoat
pocket ! Three of them I've wrestled with, given
the bottle to and seen die, in these five years !
I never could stand cats and neither could
Jack, till his sister gave me Muff and of course
Muffly couldn't be given away; but Jack can't
stand to see anything suffer, and, I tell you,
Bookie, he's had lots of it from me. I've been
little better than a whining sick kitten to him
more than once, dear, dear Jack!
All the women like Jack, and I'm glad of it.
THECOCOON 79
I'm proud to have him popular that is, general
popularity. It's funny how these slight, thin-
haired, near-sighted men like Jack always make
good with women. I've noticed it and I suppose
it's just because they're clever and don't seem to
care a cent and then they have ways.
I often wonder what I'd have done if I'd mar-
ried that handsome noodle, my sister Mary's hus-
band. (He asked me first. Then he sobered
down and came to himself and got a far better
wife, lucky man!) He suits her down to the
ground and he's the pattern of a brother-in-law;
but for daily fare, all that ponderous present-
ment of good looks as compared to my Jack ! ! !
But I must go !
Five O'clock next Morning Daylight,
and I haven't closed my eyes.
Oh, my heart, my heart!
What shall I do? Where go?
Oh, Book-of-my-Broken-Heart ! All night
long I've lain here in cold storage staring out
over the sea all night but once when I just
couldn't stand it a minute longer and I got up,
threw on my cloak and started for the roof. I
80 THE COCOON
had to get away from everything for a while,
and I thought the stars might help, but it was
no use. Everything seemed deceitful and catty.
Even the sea was purring.
Besides, I soon found I wasn't alone. Several
of the patients sleep up there. I knew it, but
I'd forgotten. And in the alcove beyond the
south tower two people were huddled close to-
gether, whispering. He looked half like Dr.
Welborn, somehow, the man did, and something
told me she was that smiling girl that works
the static, that pretty one that colours so
when she speaks; but I may be doing her injus-
tice. If it was she, no doubt they'd come up
here to consult about some case. The days are
so full.
Isn't it strange how I can prate of casual
things this way and my heart breaking?
And I find that the roof-steward sleeps inside,
just as the doctors do. It's as if the medical
profession were turning their patients out-of-
doors and then getting into their beds.
Any old talk, dear Book, about any old thing
just to keep from thinking. Oh, oh, oh!!!
If only I could wake and find it all a dream !
THE COCOON 81
She hadn't gone to bed, the little Carter. I
saw her yes, I saw her looking like a saint
out of Heaven, sitting there with her light
turned low and, oh, dear heart of me, how can
I tell it!
I had already given her the flowers and the
chocolates when she turned up her light, and
there lay at her elbow a letter addressed to her
in my Jack's writing unequivocally his
and on the same stationery he uses to me and
the envelope torn wide open lying there before
me.
And, as to my one little box of chocolates,
why, she had stacks of empty boxes exactly like
it, from the same New York house, and all. Of
course, this doesn't prove anything, and yet, one
would be a fool not to
Oh, well ! What's the dif ' ! But isn't it aw-
ful!
I mean what I say. I really don't care, if he
wants to start this sort of thing but what
does he want with a crazy woman?
What do you think she said when I gave her
the bonbons?
" Oh, how candied of you ! " She smiled the
83 THE COCOON
words out, and then, knitting her brows and
looking troubled, she added : " But why didn't
you telegraph them to our foreign missions? We
feed our heathen too much meat." Then, with
another smile which was like the opening of the
heavens, she piped: "Do you tango?"
Oh, I don't know what I answered. I prob-
ably assured her that that was what had brought
me to this, tango and bunny-hug and the rest of
it which isn't so very far from the truth, fig-
uratively, at least.
But oh, my Jack, what does it all mean? Why
did he go out of his way to assure me that he
didn't know her? Such gratuitous lying! I
hadn't asked him and it isn't as if I were sus-
picious or jealous !
Oh, if you could only advise me, dear little
Book, but you are so still. Why don't you say
something! Ah, yes, I can imagine you answer-
ing me : " Steady, now, Blessy, steady. Don't
go off half-cocked. Eemember the old days.
Wait and see. No doubt there'll be some ex-
planation."
As if there could be any explanation of per-
fectly simple English. " Don't know her" means
THE COCOON 83
don't know her, and can't mean anything else.
Letters and candy mean letters and candy
and can't be twisted to mean anything else.
No, I believe in looking a thing squarely in
the face. I may be a fool, but I'm no coward.
But he'll never hear me whimper. We'll see to
that, you and I, dear Book.
But, right now with me on the shelf and
away off here, too far for him to comfort me in
my trouble and after all I've just been writing
him about the children and everything :
Oh, Jack, how could you !
There's one thing I'm glad of, though. He
knows I haven't been moping while he's having
a good time, leading a sort of double life. Yes,
I know it's strong language but we mustn't
be afraid of the truth. Double means not single
and he hasn't had an eye single to the woman of
his life. I call that doubleness.
I wonder what he writes her and if he tells
her anything about me? It would be sort of
awful if he did and maybe worse if he didn't.
Oh, dear!
But I must be writing him and I must seem
to be writing him just the same, which will come
84 THECOCOON
hard. I'll never let on, though. My letters
must be the same and yet not the same.
Writing to Jack has always been like putting
my head on his bosom and resting. Now it'll
be like well, like sitting up across the room
with manners and saying polite things.
But I can do it! I can do anything life re-
quires of me. Of course, it'll be skirting the
edge of a precipice but I can even do that.
There was a time when I sat up and behaved
when he was around and I reckon I can do it
again.
If a certain propriety which I may not be
able to keep out of my letter reminds him of
our courting days, so much the better. Maybe
that way remorse lies for him.
What a pity I wrote that long letter yester-
day, after mailing one a mile long. Of course,
that won't do now. My head was on his bosom
then, and it's all too sweet. But I must go and
try to write him.
Two days later :
It's no use, Book-of-my-sore-heart no use!
I've begun a dozen letters to him, determined in
THECOCOON 85
each one to guard and not to seem to guard my
secret but it won't go.
Oh, what should I do now, if I hadn't called
you in again! just in the nick of time, too.
I must have had some occult sense of trouble
looming, a sort of presentiment of evil, when I
turned to you.
Three letters have come in from him since
I've known, and as each one arrives, I vow I
won't read it, and then I'm obliged to read it to
see whether I'd be warranted in refusing to read
it or not. That's only reasonable and fair
and I'm going to be fair to Jack, even now
and tactful, too. You see if I don't!
A weak woman would grow hysterical in such
a situation, but I never felt more calm in my
life even while I hardly know what to do. Calm-
ness has never been my strong point, either.
Perhaps what I've needed is trouble, and God
knows I'm in the thick of it, now. Maybe I'll
come out of it a better woman, God helping
me, and a stronger one.
I have cried over these last letters, but weep-
ing doesn't count for weeping when no one sees
you weep and no one ever shall see me weep.
86 THECOCOON
These last letters of his are all right, I suppose.
There hasn't been one so far, surely, which I
ought exactly to repudiate, and if there was, I
wouldn't do it What would I have left?
Of course, they read differently, in the new
light. What three days ago would have seemed
like a fine abandon in unreckoning love-mak-
ing, sounds like cold-blooded perfidy until
I think it over. It isn't as bad as that; really,
it isn't. You see, I'm not letting this thing run
away with me. The truth is, his ardent letters
have just become habit with Jack. He wouldn't
know how to write me any other way, and I'm
not ready to say I want him to, either. Cooling
would be dreadful.
Of course, taking it critically, anything less
than full sincerity in a husband is perfidious.
I suppose there's no middle ground for a man,
he being the aggressor. He is either god or devil
to the woman who loves him. A woman is dif-
ferent. She is human, first and last, womanly
faults balancing womanly virtues in the soft-
bosomed creature who spends her life in loving
and forgiving. That's why she's so much more
approachable than man. Last night, lying
THECOCOON 87
awake, I wished I'd married Joe Jeffries and
gone in for motor cars and excitement, for then,
although I'd have lost the man I loved, I'd have
kept my ideal. Jack would have represented
perfection to me to the end of time. Now, I've
lost my ideal and have only half got Jack and
he isn't the same Jack. But it's too late now.
And all this silly talk isn't answering his let-
ters and I left off in my last letter right in
the midst of things on the roof the Butte had
just grabbed up those yellow roses and rushed
away in tears and he'll be waiting to hear the
rest. Of course, I've got to seem to keep on
where I left off, and it's the hardest job I ever
tackled.
I suppose I could just send it along that
saccharine effusion of night before last and it
would keep him off the scent till I get my bear-
ings. But if I do, I'll have to rush it along
without reading it over. It's fairly cloying in
its sweetness and strange to say, I never
tasted the honey at all when I wrote it.
Imagine his getting such a letter of faith and
affection just as he is licking a postage-stamp
to put on a letter to little Hell-hounds. I be-
88 THE COCOON
lieve that's what I'll call her after this. No, I
take that back. It's rough. She looks like an
angel, but I tell you she won't do even if she
is half crazy. She looks too good to be true
and she is.
I've half a mind to send that letter of mine
along to Jack and let it go for what it's worth.
He's my husband anyhow and it's an honest let-
ter and I don't care! It was written in all
sincerity, if it is mailed in despair.
And even if I succeeded in writing one just
to my taste now, he might notice something
wrong and he says he's caught a bad cold and
I'm worried to death about him, as it is.
The truth is, Jack needs me. He never knows
what thickness of wool he's wearing. I just look
at the thermometer outside the window and lay
out his things for him, and on they go without
a question. Men are such babies. They need
mothering more than they need wifing almost.
Oh, Jack! How am I going to stand this!
He seems so far away and I miss his nearness.
I wouldn't think God would let a thing like this
come to a person like me. I know I'm trivial
THE COCOON 89
and thoughtless but even my Latin teacher
used to say I was a good little thing.
And this nonsense on the roof here is the
nearest I've ever come to lying and I've told
Jack every bit of it.
Maybe if I send this letter along, he'll sud-
denly realise that I'm a transparent, loving lit-
tle goose and he's a cloudy deceiver.
Anyhow, things can't be much worse than they
are now so here goes. I'll ring for the corri-
dor-patrol and send it down to be mailed. And
then maybe I can get some good sleep.
THE SACCHARINE LETTER
'(Mail-time came, dear Jack, so I rushed off what
I'd written and now, while it's all fresh in my
mind, I'll go ahead.)
We were ?
Oh, yes, I remember. The Butte had just
found my yellow roses. Well, of course, it was
all funny, in a way, although a bit too much like
horse-play for my conservative taste. Still, no-
body, seeing the catastrophe of the Canadian's
elimination, could say it wasn't killingly funny ;
90 THE COCOON
and yet, I, knowing the full humorous inward-
ness of it, laughed not at all. One needs per-
spective for comedy. The flute upon my bosom
weighed a ton. The guilt on my conscience had
buried my sense of humour fathoms deep.
When I ventured to lift my head a little to
discover if the curl was in sight, I saw only a
pile of upset bedding. No glint of gold, at once
to comfort and affright me. So I lay back, limp-
spirited and weary, and waited; but the roofers
were slow to disperse and when finally I ven-
tured to rise, it was twilight and a crescent moon
mocked me with her silver horns while I strolled
across the roof, restored the flute as I had taken
it, dropping it with my veil in the vicinity of the
comedy cot, recovering the veil and tripping
nervously away, my heart overflowing with grat-
itude to Almighty God to be freed of this wit-
ness.
Just supposing the Butte had yelled for her
flute as soon as she waked as she most cer-
tainly would have done but for the diversion of
the roses! Where would I have been? Eealis-
ing my narrow escape, you may know how I
felt, Jack, when hearing steps behind me just as
THE COCOON 91
I reached the door, I glanced back to see my
poor victim, roses and all, scurrying back for her
forgotten treasure.
Did I wait to see her find it? Not I, beloved
One! The flute episode instantly became an-
cient history in the face of a new menace. What
about my little curl? Would she find it and
flourish it before the roof? I tell you, Jack,
a yellow peril no bigger than a candle-flame
threatened to fire my mine; and where would
any of us have been after the explosion? And
this it was, this dread, that sent your poor wife
with all speed to her room.
Never again, Jack !
However, nothing happened at supper. I went
down smiling in sheer despair, selected a seat
where a mirror afforded me a reflection of
comers and goers played with my vinaigrette
and my fan and got my wind.
It isn't a bad manreuvre, Jack, when the
enemy is uncertain, this mirror business ; and
you can imagine how thrilled I was when, al-
most immediately after I took my seat, my point
of vantage gave me the Butte striding in majes-
tically, arrayed in canary satin with a great
92 THE COCOON
corsage of yellow roses. She had even substi-
tuted yellow for the red ribbon upon her hair.
But the gold of her costume was as nothing to
the radiance of her beaming face.
Of course, I had to see more of the play, and
so, after supper, I drifted with the crowd into
the parlour, instead of dashing back to my room
to be confronted by my conscience and no end
of mental bugaboos.
Poor Butte! And poor old Blessy! Yes, I
did pity myself, for it seemed to me I was being
sent all the way to hell for insufficient cause.
It was hard on us both, although I have never
seen the Butte look half so happy, and I assure
you the institutional smile wasn't in it with my
beaming face.
But before we go any further, Jack, let me tell
you about those roses. It was the little joker
who brought them, and the way of it was this:
You see, he likes to come and stand and talk to
me and I've grown rather to esteem him. He
isn't half bad, the little joke-man. I tell you,
it takes grit for a man who has lost a big job
through typhoid fever to take care of himself
through his convalescence by industry, and to do
THECOCOON 93
it with merriment, and that's what that little
man is accomplishing.
Well, to go back to the roses, it was this way :
One day, he startled me by calmly remarking
that he had just made ten dollars off my head,
and before I could question him, he went on to
repeat the refrain of a certain poem inspired by
same (head) a refrain which ran like this:
" And the yellow roses hid them in her hair, golden hair,
For the gold of yellow roses is her hair ! "
Whereupon I denied the colour, of course, con-
tending that yellow hair w r as no more true yel-
low than was red hair red, these tints being
merely approximations; but he kept on insist-
ing until finally he said that, with my permission,
he would send me half the price of the poem in
golden roses if I would forfeit a curl to him if
he proved right, which, of course, I promptly
agreed to do. See?
So I understood instantly when I saw him lay
the roses on the foot of the cot where I was sup-
posed to be sleeping and it was just like him
to do it impersonally and disappear, and not
hang around for thanks. They did match, Dear.
I'll tell you about that presently.
94 THE COCOON
And now, of course, he has reason to believe on
evidence that I conspicuously gave his roses
away. I saw him see me when we came out from
supper and the worst of it is I may never ex-
plain.
Well, when I got into the parlour, who do you
suppose came rushing up to me most effusively?
Who but the Butte, herself, a great giant canary !
If you'd seen her, you'd never call me your lit-
tle canary again. She looked more Amazonian,
more. Brobdingnagian than ever. But she's a
nice woman, Dear, though as crazy as a loon, a
you'll see presently, and your wife is utterly no
good.
She had come, she said, " to tell me of her
joy," and why do you suppose? Because, for-
sooth, I was the only person in this place who
had been kind to her!
Ye gods! Talk about coals of fire! Your
wife's pate is charcoal. It is true, I had sym-
pathised with her inwardly, and in the all-night
flute business, she's better of that, now I
never let on to any one here how it kept me
awake. But I've neglected her utterly, which
was mean, and everybody else hating her for
THECOCOON 95
nothing. Well, maybe she felt my latent sym-
pathy, for here she stood looking trustfully into
my eyes and trying to tell me " what those yellow
roses meant to her."
Of course, knowing the truth about the roses,
this frightened me a little. It was so crazy!
Did you ever feel your knees suddenly give way?
Really, between fear and remorse, I felt as ill
as if I'd been caught stealing a sense of my
crime and of never-being-able-to-explain over-
whelming me. For a second even speech de-
serted me, but before I knew what I should say
or do, that inner something-or-other which comes
to our rescue when life is altogether too hard,
had spoken for me, and in a tone quite reassur-
ing, I heard it say, " Do tell me about it ! "
And then, affrighted and self -accusing, before
she had a chance to tell me anything, I hastened
to assure her of several perfectly obvious things,
the only one that I clearly recall being that /
was not half so good as I looked. You see, I
was on a blind search for some sort of sincerity
and the devious ways of deceit were really new
to me. If I stumbled, is there any wonder?
Then, to make matters worse, while she stood
96 THE COCOON
there, I happened to see the little joke-man,
donor of the roses and unconscious conspirator
with me in this pathetic comedy, watching us
from behind the palms, and I just couldn't stand
it, so I whispered : " Suppose we go up to my
room and have a little talk."
I felt as if I were taking my life in my hands
when I said it, too, for really, she seemed utterly
crazy as she stood there hugging those roses ; but
I said to myself, " If she murders you and flings
you out of the window into the sea, it's good
enough for you, Blessy Heminway! And she's
the one to do it, too ! "
However, we were both laughing when we went
up, and when I had turned on all the lights and
given her my best chair and laid your last box
of chocolates upon her lap, her delight gave me
full reward, and really, sitting there in her
pretty clothes, she seemed less dangerous.
Then, to make good with myself by one gen-
uine act, I showed her your picture and told her
who you were! Yes, I did, really, and she prom-
ised never to tell and she will not. I'm sure of
it.
She was very sweet about it all said she
THE COCOON 97
was really glad to know I was married because
I would better understand. Then she confided
that she had a lover " a stunnin' fellow t lie
very handsomest ! " And that scared me to
death again and made me think of the flute-play-
ing and what the nurse had said which I hadn't
believed but couldn't quite forget that the
Brigand was her fiance", you remember and
he vowing he didn't know her and I wished
we were back in the parlour, alive.
Poor dear! Somehow, it almost broke my
heart to see her sitting there hugging my roses
and speaking of love. Of course, I had no idea
what the connection could be, in her mind, be-
tween the imagined lover and the incidental, ac-
cidental roses, but I could wait and be kind. I
could have done that, even if there hadn't been
an indescribable poignant note of feminine ten-
derness in her voice, while she offered me what
to her was her utmost confidence.
And, Jack, her name is Daisy, not only Daisy,
but Daisy Butterfield was ever name more
feminine? and she sprang upon her chair
when my ball of knitting-silk rolled across the
floor, and she thinks woman suffrage " positively
98 THE COCOON
immodest." So she confided while she devoured
your chocolates like a school-girl. Thus, with
her otherwise masculine proportions, is the fem-
inine balance kept true.
And, by the way, she says this is her third
engagement, both the others having been broken
by mine disasters; and she blushingly confided
that her love for this third man, after romance
had seemed gone forever out of her life, " is as
ardent as a young girl's," which was pathetically
naive. By the way, she's only twenty-nine, ten
years less than my guess, but brain fever fol-
lowed by nerve wreckage has no doubt aged her.
How r ever, as she sat there, feminized by dainty
clothes and her mood, she didn't look twenty-
five, and I told her so, too. It isn't often pos-
sible to pay her a compliment, poor soul.
" And to think Tie's coming! "
Her ejaculation was apropos of nothing, but
she bent her lips to the roses as she threw it out,
and I looked around swiftly to make sure there
was nothing for me to stumble against, in case I
should suddenly have to run. But her voice was
even and reassuring as she went on :
" He always sends these Persian roses ahead,
THECOCOON 99
to prepare me. It's the symbol of our mine,
1 The Golden Rose.' "
Then, presently, she added:
" But what gets me is how he managed to get
'em to me, away up there on the roof! And to
niy very cot! Ain't it too romantic! I was
tempted to quiz Beauregard Davis, and then I
wouldn't. I'd rather make believe he just
wafted 'em to me. He's all for romance. I've
got his roses, an' that's all I care for." And
bending, she pressed the top roses of her corsage
against her cheek, tenderly, caressingly.
What could I say to her? After an absurd
pause, saved only by the chocolate creams, what
I really did say was:
" When do you expect him? "
" Any minute," she chuckled, " just any min-
ute! I almost hesitated to come up with you,
for fear I'd miss him, so I must be goinV
And with a friendly glance at your photograph
as she rose, she added,
" Yours is real nice lookin', awful toney but
not the sort I'd suspect you of, hardly. I'd look
for yours to have on goggles and a bear robe and
never to get out of his automobile."
100 THE COCOON
" He has the glasses and the fur coat," I
laughed, " and the car, too, but he gets out once
in a while to have his picture taken." At which
she rippled merrily and started off.
" So has mine ! " she called back. " He's got
three and lots of pictures taken in 'em. Oh,
he's great!"
Then, turning, she rushed up to me, drew the
locket from her neck and showed me, what do
you suppose? The Brigand's picture, as I'm
alive!
And now she really was gone, a tall streak of
golden happiness, poor, poor dear! I was so
weak for a moment that I was frightened. Isn't
it awful! But her visit, tragic as it was, has
done me good. It has given me insight. She's
a true, unaffected woman, crazy, of course, but
a serious woman and good and loving and I'm
a mercurial little fraud. But I'm going to be
better.^ Wouldn't it be great if she really had
a lover and he should happen along in a day or
so or if she were to die to-night, say, in all her
golden glory, before she has to realise things!
She says he's to be allowed to come when the
doctor says so, and surely her improved ap-
THE COCOON 101
pearance in the parlour last night, in all her
radiance and roses, ought to go a long way, that
is, assuming that she knows what she's talking
about at all.
"And things are not what they seem." You
knew a lot, Mr. Longfellow. I suppose the poets
do know. Maybe they really see with their poet-
eyes things too fine for our vision. That poor
thing's thanking me for being good to her breaks
me up terribly. I wouldn't be surprised if I
get religion before I'm done with it. You know
remorse is the first symptom. Now I realise
something of the comfort our poor darkies get
out of their mourners' benches. I'm figuratively
on one, this minute.
By the way, I sent that yellow curl to the
kindly joke-man, with a note of thanks for the
flowers " which through an unavoidable mistake,
did not reach me," and I also intimated that I
should trust to his good taste not to refer to
them, to anybody. And did I tell you that
Beauregard Davis brought the lost curl to me
that same night, saying he had found it on the
roof and he " thought maybe I'd as lief not have
it hung up in the ' lost-and-found cabinet' in
102 THE9 OCOON
the rotunda " ? It was one of those thirty -cent
ones which always seemed to amuse you so, but
in the circumstances, I thought it only fair to
value it at a dollar which I cheerfully did, not-
withstanding the posted notices against tipping.
I am a weak creature, full of brave resolves
which melt at the turn of a hair.
I've hardly had a glimpse of the Brigand for
days, but yesterday I saw him hanging over the
roller chair of Gipsy Fournette, the prima donna
in the Houris company, you remember. She goes
by the name of Bradford here, but I knew her on
sight. So would any New Yorker. It seems
she's been here, in retirement, for nearly a year
and is just emerging. Her hair is even yellower
than mine and her cheeks far redder. She looks
more like a hurrah than a houri.
I felt sorry to see that nearly seven feet of
artless Success bending over this frail sister.
Such a big moth and such a little candle! Al-
though I've never seen him alone or had a mo-
ment's tete-a-tete with him, he has followed me
with his eyes ever since that first day; and
when he knows I'm within hearing, he talks of
"early advantages," and one day he said that
THE COCOON 103
the highest ambition of his life was to marry a
woman much too good for him. " If I married
a saint," and he glanced at me when he said it,
"if I married a saint, I'd mate money enough
to build a cathedral around her."
He can't talk five minutes without bringing
in money, one way or another. And, by the
way, he is known as Col. Copperthwaite. When
I heard it, I thought, " Why, of course. How,
could he have been named anything else, or
rank otherwise than as a rank brevet colonel
of the Pacific slope ! "
Well, that evening, after his delivery as to
marrying a saint, he asked me what I thought
of his ambition, assuming, you see, that I had
" taken notice."
" I think you must have had a good mother,"
I answered sincerely.
" How did you know? " he beamed, and then
he added sadly, " Yes, she was a saint, but she
had no cathedral."
There was something beautiful in his face as
he said that! There is much that seems fine
about the man, and he is so refreshing, after our
academic types. Even his going from one re-
104 THE COCOON
ligion to another proves him a fearless seeker
after truth, don't you think?
And I'm quite sure he is artless about women.
See how he idealises me, for instance, just be-
cause I'm little and innocent-looking !
An hour later.
I'd been ordered an egg phosphate at nine,
and it came, on time, via blue livery, cap and
smile, as usual, and I've taken it down man-
fully and feel delightfully lifted. It was pre-
scribed for soothing and sleep, I believe, but
I suppose a good and biddable medicine just
does whatever trick is required of it. I needed
a fillip and stamina, and I've got it, and I feel
as if I could write all night. I've got a good-
and-tight boudoir cap over my hair, so I'm not
afraid of the bats.
No more dates, Beloved, none but the home-
going which I love to realise four days hence
when I go ditto (hence, tra, la!) My heart
is full of song at the thought. But I'm all in a
tangle yet and must extricate myself, for every-
body's sake for my own dignity's and yours
and nations yet to come, as I love to repeat
THE COCOON 105
Isn't it great to be innocent, though? Inno-
cent of evil intention, I mean. I try to take
courage in that thought, and recall Socrates,
" Would you have me die guilty? "
I've been a fool, and it has led me through
devious motions of knavery, but God knows
my heart. We are all innocent, every one of us,
but most of all, the crazy, kindly Butte and
the inflated but ingenuous Brigand. His highest
ambition is to be a gentleman. It's Inside him
and has only to work its way out. I'm a per-
fect lady on my giddy outsides, but inwardly
I'm a ravening wolf, whatever ravening is or
maybe it's a wolf in sheep's clothing that I am
an evil force warned against in Holy Writ.
If I've hurt anybody's feelings here, it's the
Brigand's, and not by a thing but consistent
snubbing. I've never even bowed to him un-
less I had to. Somehow I've been nervous
lest he'd embarrass me by doing something
spectacular. He often looks as if he'd fall on his
knees and clap his hand to his heart if I looked
his way. Others have noticed it, too not in
exactly these words, maybe. But now I begin
to think perhaps I've been mistaken.
106 THE COCOON
He is just a case of sounding brass and he rec-
ognises me as a tinkling cymbal and he thinks
we are in the same class. He is really a noisy
Westerner with the breadth of the plains and
the ruggedness of the Rockies expressed in a
breezy personality, and, while he had lived all
over the world in spots and feels himself ultra-
cosmopolitan, he is quite outside the culture
currents, even brass-bound and nickel-plated,
if you will, but plated on standard copper, like
the old Sheffield plate, good wearing stuff.
Children and dogs go to him on sight and one
of his favourite roof stunts is feeding the birds
on his shoulders and they do come and seem un-
afraid. I forget just where he hails from,
originally. Of course, he has mentioned it.
He mentions everything. Really, I can't think
of any subject upon which he has not spoken
unless it is the Butte. Of her he says not a
word, although he must know of her delusion.
And I've seen him regard her receding figure
with a strange tenderness which seems like in-
finite pity. It would be an embarrassment to
almost any man to be pursued by a neurotic
woman who believes herself his fiancee, and, of
107
course, reticence is his only role. It shows that
he can be silent when he will, all the same.
He's been in the Orient a great deal and has
a lot of curious Eastern things, they say, but
he's Western-American, and will be to the end
of time, even if he should take up his abode in
the Far East and practise his Buddhism in
Mandarin robes or pajamas.
And he thinks me a saint, and it breaks my
heart. Never again, Jack! I couldn't stand
for this honest ruffian to discover my frivolity
and yet see how one sin leads to another !
I'm bent upon deceiving just one more time.
Letting him know about you is nothing, except,
of course, that I want him always to believe it
was a misunderstanding of which I was uncon-
scious. You know it was, at first.
Would it be fair to ask God to help me out,
do you think? I used to bring God into all my
misbehaviours, and He did help me, because I
was little. Now I'm grown up, but I'm very
little yet. I'm going to try Him. He can only
turn me down, and I don't believe He will, not
God!
You see, He made me, mischief and all, and
THE COCOON
He must understand His own job. I've prayed
a lot here, Jack. I've had so much time in the
open, facing the heavens and the blue sky, the
faint stars and drifting mists and all the wonder
of space and the long silences
One gets a clear perspective of more than just
scenery from the roof at Seafair. It has shown
me so much our lives at home, yours and
mine, since the very beginning, dear, dear Jack !
A short divorce is a wholesome thing, once in
a while, I'm sure ; not that I ever want another,
but this will bear fruit of joy. I've been lots
and lots to blame for things, but I won't grovel,
at this distance.
I will say, though, that you are the one who
is justly entitled to this nervous prostration and
all the indulgences it is affording. I fear I've
been a mollusc, but I've seen myself in time
seen my own reflections in the crystalline waters
of your devotion. Excuse my faulty metaphor.
A mollusc would have to hump herself to get
into position to see her own reflection but I
can't write this over, and besides, I want that in
about " the crystalline waters of your devotion."
THE COCOON 109
I'd never get that off again so well, and I do
mean it.
When I get home, you'll be trimming around
my temperament again, before you know it.
Don't do it, Dear. Trim the temperament. It
needs it. Oh, I'm going to be sweetest ever, after
this, see if I don't!
And be sure to bring
No, don't bring anything. There'll be so many
things to take away. Yes, fetch along all the
empty valises and things and my other hat-
box.
P. S.
I've decided not to bother the Lord about it
I'm going to brace up and be a woman and han-
dle this thing myself. I'm not a squealer. If
I'd prayed going in, I might pray to get out.
Of course, I am praying, but it's the prayer of
the jester, " God be merciful to me, a fool ! " so
do I abase myself.
I'm going down to the dining-room to meet
people and do my reverent best to harmonise
things. This will probably be my last to you
110 THE COCOON
unless you postpone your coming again, which,
for gracious' sake, don't and I'm so afraid I'm
forgetting something
Oh, yes, your cheque-book, Jack, dear. Be
sure to fetch it along. I went to the antiquity-
shop just one more time and it's a secret till
your birthday but it's a dream ! ! ! And now,
adieu. If you know how, do send up a prayer
for your little partner. Oh, if you could waft
me vibrations of success! I'd do almost any-
thing to tranquillise things here. I'd gladly
hoodoo these good Christian people into be-
lieving I'm not a pagan, if I ould. Oh, for
some magic, some magic!
Your lonely, penitent, crazy but sympathy-
needing and ever devoted
BLESSY.
Written in Diary:
Well, it's gone, dear Bookie an hour ago
and maybe it's just as well. I sent it because I
was desperate and didn't know what else to do,
and now, oh, my heart! Another letter from
him, no, just a short note and he's ill in bed
with a " bad cold," which means he's down with
THE COCOON 111
pneumonia or incipient tuberculosis or God
knows what !
It's a mercy that I restrained myself and
didn't upbraid him and maybe have his sister
Laura reading the letter to him, if he isn't too
ill to be read to. I'd almost rather know Jack
was unfaithful than for anybody to think I
thought so, especially his own people, confound
'em! I couldn't stand that. I can't stand any
of it, for that matter, but what is one to do
when the worst comes?
Standing a thing is just not dying, I suppose.
But with Jack first estranged and now ill, maybe
dying if anything else happens ? But, of
course, nothing else could happen, nothing of
consequence. If the house burned down and
Laura eloped with the chauffeur and the law-
firm of Oglesby and Heminway went under, and
Jack came along, well and smiling and all this
horror were wiped out, I'd call it a red letter day
for us. That's the kind of blind devotion poor
Jack is treading under foot.
Dear, dear! Here comes my dinner tray,
and after that, I've got a date in the treatment
room, " hot dip and cold spray," followed by salt
112 THE COCOON
rub by a fresh masseuse, I suppose. I tell you,
Book-of-my-tedious-hours, one has to hustle to
keep up with this rest routine.
But I must go, for " food taken at a tempera-
ture either far above or below that of the di-
gestive organs is detrimental to the strong and
occasionally fatal to the weak." You see, I
unconsciously memorise choice bits of the cir-
culating literature of this publishing firm. I've
been thinking that if worse came to worst, I
might perhaps get a job as editor of some of their
pamphlets and things.
You are a great comfort to me now, dear
Book. I thought I'd tell you so. It seems to
bring you nearer, just telling you. You see,
you are all I have now. If anything were to
happen here, now, anything awful, I couldn't
write Jack, for he's either estranged or ill, or
both or maybe on his way here, and with a
divided mind. I suppose the little Carter is
expecting him, too, confound her!
Two hours later.
Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? A
THE COCOON 113
note from that sister-in-law of mine, who never
writes to me if she can help it, and she says not
to worry, but " Jack has a slight cold on his
chest " and asks her to let me know it isn't seri-
ous, all of which means, of course, that it's as bad
as can be and they are getting ready to break the
news to me to prepare me for the worst. She
says Jack will probably be quite well before I
get her letter, and starting to me. Of course, I
know what that means. It means I'm not to
rush home and take care of my poor sick hus-
band, and nobody knows what to do for Jack but
me. He says so himself.
I'm half tempted to just get up and go home
and then, like as not by the time I'd get to
New York, he'd be either dead or here and I
suppose that's just what he and little Hell-hounds
are scheming for. Yes, I will call her that, too !
I didn't name her. She named herself, and when
I say it, it's a quotation : " Hell-hounds ! " Fine
language, that, for a lady !
Fleas and bats and brigands and somnam-
bulists and now, hell-hounds! I tell you, little
Book, this rest cure is great ! Now I know what
114 THE COCOON
"the survival of the fittest" really means. It
means _that if I come through this alive, I'll' be
fit for anything!
Next morning.
My dear Husband:
I think I am going mad and I know I'm going
to die; and before delirium sets in, I must write
you. I'd like to go out of life writing to you.
I may not keep sane long enough to finish this
letter, but if I don't and they find me raving or
dying, you'll see that I went out thinking of you.
I haven't slept a wink all night not a wink.
I saw a bat fly all around my room and I didn't
even cover my head. I kept hoping he would
come and nestle in my hair and claw me to
death, but although he would sometimes swoop
down nearly to touching, he finally flapped harm-
lessly out of the window into the night. Then
a thunder shower came up and I lay still and
prayed God to strike me dead, and He wouldn't.
He didn't pay the slightest attention to me. I
haven't eaten any breakfast and I'm not going to
eat any dinner or supper or anything more, if I
can help it, so that I may get off your hands
with as little trouble as possible.
THE COCOON 115
My heart is broken and so, what's the use?
I've found out everything, Jack, and I don't
blame you. Things are as they are. A married
man is either immune when it comes to other
women, or he isn't. Many are not, but a few
are, or I supposed they were, but maybe I've been
mistaken. I thought you were until until I
found out, three days ago. And since then, I've
been trying to steady myself and get my bear-
ings.
That last letter which you'll have some time
before this reaches you, was written before I
knew, of course. I knew before I sent it, but I
was too heart-sick to write another and so I
just let it go. Nothing mattered then.
As I've just said, I don't reproach you. A
man is true or untrue, and when he was true
yesterday and is untrue to-day, it doesn't do any
good to sigh for yesterday.
And if he is faithful for five years and then be-
gins to deceive, it seems fair to suppose he is
facing round for a five years' retreat. Like the
king of France, having marched up the hill, he
marches down again a royal masculine per-
formance.
116 T H E C O C O O N
I wouldn't mind, Jack, if I could stand it, but
I can't. Of course, I don't know why you sent
me here, under her very nose, and then were not
satisfied until you had fairly pushed me into her
presence, unless this was your way of letting me
know how things are. But the method doesn't
matter. I know now, and I am so ill and you
are so ill
A perfectly absurd thing has just this moment
happened. My mail-bag brought me no letter
from you, but out of it dropped into my hand
one for her in your handwriting. Isn't there
some old proverb about a man living a double life
needing to employ two kinds of stationery, and
to keep them apart? If there isn't, there ought
to be.
Of course, I excuse your writing me on that
blue office paper with the imprint of the firm
upon the envelopes, but I'd hardly think you'd
offer this to well, to a lady with whom your
relations were less informal, so to speak.
No doubt it was an accident, my getting her
letter, and she may have one intended for me and
be chuckling or turning pale over its contents
now, but that wouldn't worry me in the least.
THE COCOON 117
Some of your letters to your wife might be good
medicine for her especially the one which de-
scribes her as a friend's friend whom you do not
personally know.
I can't send your letter over to her imme-
diately without exciting curiosity, but the first
time I go down to the rotunda one has to dress
to go there I'll drop it with others into the
box, and it will reach her in due course. I hope
you won't mind the delay. If I should hand it
to one of these nurse patrols, with instructions
to drop it into the box, the chances are she would
read the address and decide to deliver it in per-
son, and there'd be explanations. The nurses
seize any excuse to go into her suite, just to look
at her and see her clothes.
She had on a Paquin model the first time I
called and a Doeuillet the last time you see,
I know clothes. And I don't have to notice other
women's gowns. My mind photographs them for
me and I look them over at my leisure.
She dresses like a princess, of course you know,
although she wears no jewels which also, of
course you know, and which is in excellent taste
in a place like this.
118 T H E C O C O O N
But I began this letter in quite another mood
than this, Jack, and the comedy of my intercept-
ing your mail jolted me out of things for the
moment. And now a sharp pain in my heart is
jolting me back. You know my only escape
from trouble is in frivolity. But all this is so
trivial in the face of the tragedy which confronts
me.
I began by telling you I was going to die
and I am. When I wrote that, I'd just had a let-
ter from Laura saying you were ill and couldn't
write, and it seemed a question as to which of
us would go first. Now, I find you to be actively
alive and the situation is much simplified. .
I shall be the one to die and you will have
your desire. If you had been the one to go, I'd
have had nothing, so this is best. Oh, yes, I
know what I am saying. You see, my heart,
while sound enough, has never been very strong
and I've always realised that this sort of thing
would kill me.
Anything with you, Jack poverty, sickness,
disgrace even But this
Only three days I've known it and my heart
hurts all the time and I can't draw a deep
THE COCOON 119
breath without catching. At first it would
hurt only when I dwelt on things or cried too
hard;. then, when the nightmarishness of it all
passed and the fact, just the Awful Fact, lay like
a leaden weight within me a resident anguish,
at home within my broken heart the dull sod-
den pain settled down with it, and it never goes.
I've got it now, just the blind ache. When any
new grief comes, or phase of grief, like your get-
ting Laura to write me for you and your writing
the Carter yourself, something quick and sharp
happens, as if a bladed corkscrew gave just one
twist in my heart then the old ache, a com-
parative relief, comes.
You know my grandmother died on being
roused from her sleep by a cry of " Yankees ! "
in New Orleans during the war, and father went
suddenly, too, and it's a good way to go.
And so, now, before things go too far with
me, I want to tell you, Jack, that while all this
is a mystery which I don't even try to under-
stand, I must put it aside long enough to tell
you how happy I have been these blissful five
years, for surely five years of heaven ought to
outweigh the eternity of hell of these three days.
120 T H E C C O O N
I am sure no other woman has been quite so
blessed as I; no living husband has ever been
so dear to any other wife, as you have to me
so patient, so forgiving, so generous, so ever-re-
membering of me, so forgetful of self, so able,
so resourceful, so adaptable, so competent.
Don't think that I fail to realise how you've
even mothered me in my peevish days, as if
I'd been a sick baby and you've been a very
prince of lovers all the time that your care and
protection as a husband of faculty have sur-
rounded and pillowed me. When I've giddily
referred to your " genius for Husbandry," I
meant it to its farthest reach, Dear, and in all
seriousness.
You've humoured me to my hurt sometimes
and to your own undoing and through it all,
with no self-consciousness or self-righteousness
or self anything, you've set me a standard of no-
bility. You've been my model of all that is
strong and gentle and kind.
Everything you've been to me, Jack knight,
lover, chum, comrade, husband yes, you've
even been my baby, when you've been sick. And
now I see why it's best that we've had no other.
THE COCOON 121
A child now would complicate things dread-
fully.
As it is, I'll slip away and this anguish will
be over. Not that I am going by choice. It's
this pain and the catching and the wide-
awake-all-nights and the sense of letting go!
It's this knowledge of approaching death which
in a way gives you back to me, just for this lit-
tle while. And for this brief space you shall be
all mine. I shan't mail this letter to you, or any
others I may write in the little time left us.
They'll be here when I go and you'll under-
stand.
I don't want to put you on the defensive and
go in for recriminations or anything sad.
There's nothing to be said. It isn't as if I were
accepting wretchedness on circumstantial evi-
dence. You see, I have documentary proof in
my pocket, this minute, but I care so little for
such as that that I shall pass it along as soon as
I can. Why should I want to prove things that
are? It's bad enough to know them.
Another reason I don't want to write you
about it now is that I can't spare one of your
caressing: letters while I'm so ill. Even if I
122 THE COCOON
were going to get better, I'd say love me now and
do everything sweet for me till I'm well, and
then we'll see what to do. And of course now I
need love still more.
Two Hours Later:
After Lunch.
My dear Husband:
God knows what is happening! Oh, if only
you were here! My little suite is a bower of
roses, about a car-load brides' roses, mainly,
and maidenhair ferns and orchids hundreds
of orchids and white carnations and about a
mile of Bermuda lilies! This ba^h-tub is full
of flowers again. And that isn't the worst.
There's a white satin box of fresh orange flow-
ers, packed in cotton.
At first, I was sure it was a mistake, but I've
scanned the address and its unequivocal, " Sea-
fair Kest Cure, Seafair, Va., Suite 99, Hemin-
way," so what could I say? It took two porters
and a trained nurse half an hour to fetch them
in three elevator loads. Of course, seeing I
was in for it, I put on my casual expression and
directed them where to place them, quite as if
it were an ordinary occurrence. / had to.
THE COCOON 123
But I'm in some deadly trouble, Jack. Sup-
pose it's the Brigand! Not that, of course, and
yet somebody is expecting me to marry him ! If
it were our wedding anniversary, I'd almost sus-
pect you if things were not as they are with you,
though I'd know your mind had given way under
the strain I've put you to or else you'd
" struck it rich." There are hundreds of dol-
lars' worth of flowers, yes, thousands, maybe.
Later God knows the hour, I don't.
I've been around locking at the flowers again.
Everything is* full of them. Even the mantel is
heaped with green coils, miles of smilax rope,
and all around the walls open boxes of roses
make a dado, meeting the floor; and the air is so
suffocating with the musky smell of the Easter
lilies that I came near fainting in leaning over
them to decipher a card; but when I did finally
make it out, the words " Cathedral Altar,"
brought me to, more quickly than smelling-salts.
My heart seemed to stop. Strange to say,
though, the exigency of things stimulated me.
It wasn't at all like my sorrow-pain and it
isn't now, although I am frightened to death and
124 THE COCOON
something inside me keeps shrieking " Cathedral
altar ! " in the voice of the Brigand. Really, it
sounds like could it be can it be he? And
all this squanderous spending of money is fear-
fully like his talk.
If it is, he's crazy and this is an insane asy-
lum. Maybe I'm crazy. They never know
themselves. I was just about to shriek for help,
when I stumbled over a little box tied with a
white ribbon. I don't know how I got it open,
my hands shook so, but before I knew it, I was
gazing as one dazed at an absurd bit of statuary,
done in white paste sugar, maybe a minia-
ture bride standing in a miniature cathedral,
awaiting her man at the altar and the whole
glistening with flakes of isinglass or something.
I tell you, Jack, if the card made me suspi-
cious, this convinced me.
" Sure as you're born, Blessy Heminway," I
gasped, " it's the Brigand. You've got a maniac
on your hands ! "
And with that, feeling so helpless and alone,
and you, my only stay on earth, so far, far, far
away, I broke down utterly and cried as chil-
dren cry, and I was afraid somebody would hear
THE COCOON 125
me, and a blue-dressed nurse would be coming in
with a valerian cocktail, an attentive way they
have here when there's too much emotional noise
in a room, so they say.
So I went to my seaward window and let the
wind blow over me, and got quiet, but I didn't
know what to do, where to go. The roof would
mean complications, and there was something
funereal in this roomful of flowers. I felt I
must get out, so I rang and ordered a carriage
at four, for the afternoon. Then, seeing that I
had time to spare, I lay down in the breeze, and
covered my head, hoping to get a wink of sleep,
and I must have slept over an hour when I was
lifted to my feet by a sharp rap at the door.
The carriage was waiting.
I seem to rally to exigency, thanks be, and
after two or three gasps and a hard swallow, I
was able to say into the crack of the door which,
in sheer bravado, I cautiously opened that far :
" I am sorry not to have recalled my order in
time, but I've changed it till to-morrow same
hour, please."
The evenness of my own voice reassured me,
and when I thought over what I had said, I felt
126 THE COCOON
that I could hardly have done better, as, if they
had sniffed a sensation in this flower business,
they'd see that I counted on being here to-mor-
row, anyway.
Then I went to the mirror and looked at my-
self, and my face frightened me. It was pinched
and green and red-spotted and awful. So I
went to the bath-room and bathed it in hot and
cold water and came back and rubbed in cold
cream and rubbed it out again, over and over,
for I don't know how long. I'd probably be
standing there yet, rubbing in cold cream, if I
hadn't been startled out of myself by a voice at
the door softly whispering, " Please let me in.
It's only me, Daisy Butterfield," that it took me
a moment to realise in this impersonation of
meekness the incongruous personality of the
Butte.
Of course, I couldn't let her in, but I didn't
have to. If Daisy Butterfield had timidly pled
for admittance, the Butte of Montana, finding
the door " on the latch," strode in with Ama-
zonian tread, blurting her hearty apology :
"Don't mind me. I just had to come in.
THE COCOON 127
I've got great news!" And she flourished an
open letter in my face. " He's on the way,
nearly here called to New York unexpectedly
and he says I've got to marry him to-night !
Do you hear? To-night! And he ain't a man
to oppose, either! I wouldn't have one that
was ! And that ain't all ! "
She was standing in the middle of the room
and, turning around, she waved her long arm,
taking in the whole place :
" It's these flowers that brought me here. Of
course, everybody's talking. They think you're
going to be married, but, you see, I know better,
an' so "
Coming quite up to me, she laid her hand upon
my arm and looking me squarely in the face,
she demanded:
" Do you know whose flowers these are, Mis'
Heminway?"
Then, seeing that I hesitated, she went on :
" Because, you know, they are weddin' flowers.
1 How did I find out? ' Why, everybody knows
it. It's the giggle of the roof! And what's
more, they come from Thorler's in New York. I
128 THE COCOON
didn't hear that. I saw some of the boxes and
I'd know a Thorler flower-box from here to the
sand-sopper's beach. I've had too many ! "
Then hesitating to gain breath, she changed
her tone:
" Of course, Mis' Heminway, you know my
name's Butterfield, not Buttinsky, and I don't
want to butt in on any of your private affairs,
but Why don't you say something dear lit-
tle lady? I'm as good as a whole clam-bed for
secrecy, so don't be afraid to tell me anything.
And look at me! Fairly glorified with joy and
my Beloved's roses, an' him on the way and
this precious letter and Honey, darling
innocent little lady-baby, why don't you say
something You know what I think, don't you? "
And, in a great Ellen Terry whisper she blurted :
"They're mine! That's whose roses they are! "
Of course, it was stupid of me, but until she
came out with this, I never suspected what she
was driving at. My submerged mind, diving on
a still hunt for a clue to the mystery, could not
take in any other thought than that she was
vaguely wondering, as I had done, which of the
THE COCOON 129
fool men around, believing me unmarried, had
lost his head.
But here was light. Not clear light, surely,
for I knew she was crazy on this one subject
if on no other but any light was better than
the darkness in which I had been groping.
I knew whose yellow roses she was cherishing
her somnambulistic pursuit of the Brigand
was too recent to forget, and yet here was co-
here ice, surely, and freely brandished docu-
mentary evidence; for she still held the open
letter aloft.
Of course, I wanted to ask her to let me see it,
but there are some things one can't quite do.
But I kept my eyes upon it until a faint illumi-
nation led me to ask, " What is the date of his
letter? " whereupon she laid it open in my hand,
shouting, as she did so, " Why, it's six days old,
as you can see for yourself, and should have
been here yesterday morning! That's why I'm
not havin' the twenty-four hours' notice he prom-
ised me, no matter what happened."
Then, seeing that, after corroborating the date,
I had properly turned from it, she urged :
130 THE COCOON
" Bead it. Read his letter through to
please me! " and blushing as a young girl, she
added : " And see what he calls me, and how he
signs himself, if you want to get warmed up ! "
So bidden, did I read his letter, from start to
finish, and from the first, strong strokes to the
last, I read as straightforward, coherent and ten-
der a love-letter as even you ever wrote, Jack.
This satisfied me, so far as I could be satisfied.
Surely her lover was sane, and it was fair to sup-
pose he knew what he was doing. Still, I'm
nothing if not conservative. The cards were
still in my hand and I would not play one un-
advisedly.
When first the full meaning of her visit
dawned upon me, I wanted to embrace the great
yellow creature, as far around as my little arms
would go. Still, although my heart had sud-
denly become a harp and joy was playing a song
of deliverance over its strings, my voice was quite
like that of a lady casually addressing a visitor
when I said, taking her arm and drawing her to
a chair,
" Come, sit down, Dear, and let's talk it over.
THE COCOO-N 131
Why do you think these are your flowers? And,
if yours, why were they sent to me? "
" ' Why? ' Why gracious sakes alive, can't
you see? Ain't my intended coming here to
marry me to-night f And ain't these brides' flow-
ers? from A to izzard? "
" Sent to me, all the same, dear girl. Why to
me? Your young man may be a Greek god, but
it would take one with full divining power to
know that he might safely bestow flowers, de-
signed for a clandestine wedding, to the room of
a lady he has never seen whose name, even, he
has never heard."
" Never heard your name? Don't go so fast,
dear lady ! He knows all about you, bless your
sweet heart. Do you suppose I've sent him a let-
ter every day of my life since I've been in this
pleggonned place, and not described the one
bright thing in it? Why, do you know what I
call you in my letters to him? My Little Oasis.
It's my name for you. I've written it so many
times that I just write L. O. now, and he under-
stands. So you can see what you've been to me,
in this desert of Sahara! Why, I've never
132 THE COCOON
caught your eye in my life, since we've first
passed each other in the corridors, that you
haven't smiled at me, like as if we might be
friends and it has given me courage.
" But I haven't told him you were " she
whispered the word, "married. I ain't that
sort. No, but it's about all I haven't told him
about you. He knows every dress you've got and
your hats and parasols. Even the way you re-
ceive your mail, in a locked bag, sent special.
I told him that just because it was so romantic,
and there's so little romantic to tell here?
" So, you see, he's plannin' to arrive here this
evenin' "
"Of course," I said at last, almost in tears
over her loyalty, " of course, of course."
Really my whole soul was in a broad grin, and,
strange to say, in all this emotional excitement,
my heart seemed better, if anything.
I needn't say I was nice to the poor thing, now
that I was quite sure, and I did all I could to
make amends for my hesitation.
" Certainly, they're yours, my dear," I assured
her, over and over. " It's as plain as day and
now, I don't mind confessing, it is a certain re-
THE COCOON .133
lief to know it. And aren't they wonderful?
Let's go and look them over ! " And, taking her
hand, I led her to the bath-tub. To tell the
truth, it wasn't easy to handle the situation cas-
ually and I did almost blurt out " Thank God ! "
when we came to the bride in the cathedral, and
I realised my severed connection with her.
While we stood together thus and she was hug-
ging and kissing " the cunnin' little thing," a
card was handed in " for Miss Butterfield," and
seizing it and gasping " It's him ! " she rushed
away ; but turning suddenly at the door she came
back, lifted me in her great arms and danced
with me all over the room, until finally, kissing
me, on my hair, my cheek, my hand, she set me
down on my feet and left me without a word,
her face deluged with tears.
I couldn't have been more honoured if I'd
founded an asylum or despatched a cargo of
trained nurses to a battle-field. Some of us
women are so overpaid for easy good-will, while
others who agonise and strive go unrewarded to
their graves. Oh, Jack !
But returning to the Butte and her romance,
her young man is certainly doing handsomely
134 THE COCOON
by her. We've been to lots of smart weddings,
you and I, and I've never seen so much money
expressed in wedding flowers, in my life, never.
And would you believe it? I'm as weak as a
kitten, now the panic is over and my temples
throb like sledge-hammers.
Oh, for the old joy that is dead! If only all
this cloud were blown away, and you were here
to take me in your arms as the happy Butte did,
and dance with me and even scold me for any
old thing!
My heart was better as long as the cyclonic
comedy of the flowers made me forget but
now, the old pain ! for the sun of my life is
gone out, and, oh, oh, oh! the sudden dart!
The knife pain !
It was your intercepted letter in my pocket.
My hand ran against it, and it cut all the terrible
truth into my consciousness 'afresh.
But I must be brave till you come or till
the end. I am so ill again, Jack. It's as if I
saw you pulling back while fate forces you to
come to me. Maybe death will be kind, and
come quickly.
I must try for some sleep. It's early yet, and
THE COCOON 135
they'll not be getting these flowers out till after
dark, anyway and I am so sickened with the
Bermudas. I'd go to the roof if I dared, but I
can't show up there as a prospective bride.
I wish I dared try a disguise. I believe I will.
I've got lots of things I haven't worn here
that grass-green, gold-spotted veil you bought for
your already-too-loud-looking wife, poor artless
Jack; and that pongee parasol that I put away
the day I came just because I counted s'teen like
it on the roof. And there's that awful linen dus-
ter.
I'm going to do it, and I'll pull on those long
yellow near-chamois gloves your well-meaning
sister Laura gave me as a parting thrust a
hundred pairs on the roof this minute and I'll
climb into a cot and stay there until I get tired
of it, and maybe, by the grace of God, I may get
a little sleep, although I feel as if I'd never close
my eyes again.
" Yes, and I'll take my writing-pad with me,
like the short-hairs, and if good honest sleep will
have none of me, I'll write and write and write.
Don't think I don't realise that all this glib writ-
ing I'm doing, here on the brink of tragedy, is
136 THE COCOON
saving me from madness, Jack or from myself.
What would I do if I couldn't write !
On the Roof at nearly sundown.
You see, I've done it, Jack, and not a soul sus-
pects me. Indeed, when I started out in this
bromidic get-up, I had almost to pinch myself to
know myself. I slipped around and approached
the roof from a new direction, to ward off possi-
ble suspicion; then I took the first unoccupied
cocoon I came to, steadied my parasol in a crotch
of the spring, and here I am, and with a vista
of profound outward peace to rest in if rest
would only come!
When I first got into my cot, I deliberately in-
vited sleep by closing my eyes and thinking of
feathers and down and floating things but
every way I turned, I seemed to see your face
and I would wonder what you were doing now.
So often that question haunts me, these last days.
"What is Jack doing now? and now? and
now? ", till I'm almost beside myself. Only
three days more until you'll be here if you
come and yet I feel as if it were an eternity
THE COCOON 137
eternity which never means less than heaven
or hell. Three days !
It's long enough to die and be buried, and I'm
hoping this may be the way out of it all for
both our sakes. But till then, you're mine,
Jack!
A half hour later, by my watch.
I was interrupted here, Jack, by hearing my
own name, " Heminway," spoken in a whisper.
So I put aside my pen and peeped under my
parasol to discover my masseuse, standing in the
tower door whispering to Beauregarde Davis. I'd
forgotten all about my massage just about then
due, and no doubt the masseuse had been to my
room and finding me gone, was inquiring for me.
No, I didn't listen. I didn't have to. They
were only a stone's throw away and a slight
breeze in my favour.
" No," B. D. had " no idee " where Miss Hem-
inway was. She hadn't been on the roof to-day.
" Oh, sure ! " he'd heard about the flowers and
the wedding " but what else would you expect,
from the likes of her? D'y'ever see an old maid
look like that? " He had heard she had gone
138 THE COCOON
driving, oh, yes, and "Who's she goin' to
marry? "
How did he know? " Some says it's the Cana-
dian Colonel, an' more says a man from New
York, though some says the little Typhoid that's
lost all his hair, the way he studies her an' writes
poetry but I don't think."
He, himself, leaned to the New Yorker, be-
cause a man would have to have all kinds of
money to waste a carload of roses on a private
wedding the greatest lot since the old Doc-
tor's daughter's wedding, when they stripped the
conservatories.
Then somebody got up and pulled out and I
didn't hear for a while. And then it was the
masseuse: (massoose, they call it here)
"No, I don't know whether the old Doctor
knows about it or not." She hoped so, however,
and that he was resigned although they al-
ways worried him, these weddings. But of
course, it wasn't his fault. The Sanitarium
wasn't a jail. It all came of the patients having
nothing else to do, so they'd take notions to
marry each other.
THE COCOON 139
" Yes," B. D. knew that was so. " And some-
times it's the first healthy resolution a patient'll
show," he contributed.
" You see, it's so handy," the masseuse agreed,
" but that ain't here nor there with Miss Hemin-
way, and if you want my opinion, she's out now
to meet her fiansay at the station, an' to my best
belief, it's nobody but Dr. Welborn who it seems
was taken suddenly with a need o' sleep day be-
fore yesterday, and had to run down to Rich-
mond to get it to get a license, / say, you mark
my word ! " And she added, with a chuckle,
" Ain't it funny how our staff have to go away
to get sleep when people come from all over to
get it here? "
It was funny, B. D. agreed, " and I have
heard tell of some of 'em losin' sleep whilst they
was away which ain't for me to say. Any-
way, we're goin' to have a weddin', and, of
course, Dr. Welborn is always under suspicion
with every pretty girl, but I ain't a-carin' who
gets 'er, so's we keep 'er in the family. She's
one little lady that I believe is polite on her in-
sides. An' I always liked that colour hair, ever
140 THE COCOON
since I chose a wax doll for my little sister that's
dead. I often look acrost the roof an' think of
her."
" Yes, I like her, too," agreed the lady of un-
guents. " She's real nice, but I've come to the
point that I don't fix my affections on any of
'em. You turn yourself inside out to please
some fine lady that smiles on you, just because
she's in the habit of smilin', an' when her back's
turned, you ain't any more to her than any other
bottle of cocoa-nut oil and elbow-grease. Still,
I like Miss Heminway, as I say. You may know
I like her when I was sorry not to have to give
her her rub but that was partly on account of
all the talk an' I thought I'd get on to the
news an' see them flowers." And as she turned
away, she added: "An' they ain't goin' to be
allowed to wilt, neither, so we won't have long to
wait." And she was gone.
There is something in a conversation like this,
Jack, in circumstances like these, which brings
it straight to the ears for which it is not in-
tended. It isn't voice-carrying, either, but some-
thing far more subtle. This harmless little gos-
sip had scarcely risen above a whisper through-
THE COCOON 141
out, and yet I wonder if one might even be
waked from sleep by a whisper of his name?
But I'm glad I overheard it. This comedy
presentment of my recent tragedy and the
flower scrape was a tragedy while it lasted
has done me good, besides passing the time,
which is the principal thing, now.
But I'm a wreck and a ruin of nerves from it
all on top of the real tragedy which is rend-
ing my soul and I want you, Jack, only you !
Oh, Jack! There's crape on my heart's door for
the faith that is dead. Oh, oh!
The roof is so still. Everybody seems to be
sleeping. I suppose most of them lead the regu-
lar routine life a stated lot of things done at
stated intervals, filled in between with sleep and
forgetfulness. Mine may be the only turbulent
soul here.
To me, even the scratching of my fountain pen
makes a palpable noise topping everything till
it falls into tune with the sea the sea suggest-
ing eternity in its boundless reaches and breath-
ing like time against the shore. Indeed, what is
time but Eternity breathing? Breathing and
breathing and breathing and
142 THE COCOON
Written in Diary ;
NEW YORK, June 21st.
Dear Long-neglected Book-of-my-Heart:
So many things have happened since our last
heart-to-heart together that I scarcely know
where to begin, and yet I am conscious that I've
neglected you utterly ever since just before
Jack's arrival at Seafair; and yet, as I have
made you my confidant, first and last, chiefly as
an ally during Jack's absences or my tempera-
mental deflections, this seems hardly exceptional.
Still, there is something in our recent inti-
macy which makes me long to confide to your
sympathetic pages, as an offset to the gloom in
which my last contributions were cast, the story
of my happy issue out of all my troubles, the
troubles which cloud your pages and express
only turbulence and anguish of soul.
I shall see to it that Jack never has another
peep into your sacred bosom, but there may be
those who will come after me daughters, not
sons, for this to whom I shall be only too glad
to commend your utmost confidences, even at the
expense of my seeming dignity, hoping in this
THE COCOON 143
trivial record of miserable tears and narrowly-
averted disaster, possibly to guard them against
similar pitfalls in life.
To go further than this now would be telling,
and my poor little story needs for interest all
that it may develop of surprises in its unfolding.
I do not recall our very last words together,
but I keenly do remember that they brought to
your defenceless pages tortures of maddening
jealousy and despair over my having but just dis-
covered Jack's correspondence with the little
Carter; that it was while struggling with this
and its resultant insomnia that there arrived
anonymously to me a cargo of wedding flowers
which filled my rooms with implications of com-
promising disaster and my nostrils with sicken-
ing odours, to escape which daring not to
brook the covert scrutiny of the ostensibly sleep-
ing patients upon the roof who regarded me as
an imminent bride, with free speculations as to
the groom I finally assumed a disguise, and
slipping out among the quiescent cocooners,
crept into a cot, lifted my parasol and invited
sleep.
But, although weary to the breaking point in
144 THE COCOON
mind and body, sleep warily eluded me hour after
hour, until finally, from sheer exhaustion, I fell
into that blissful semi-conscious state between
sleeping and waking in which one dimly realises
the small noises about one, but realises them as
happily inadequate to disturb his sweet sense of
tranquillity, this being, to my mind, the poetry
of sleep which is at once both more and less
than the standard article of faith which does
not hesitate to drop one into oblivion as into a
starless black forest, without landmark or com-
pass that deep gloom wood in which phos-
phorescent nightmares are known to wander,
ready saddled for any dreaded haunt to mount
in all his bones and glare at one as horse and
rider rattle by, in a night too dark for shadows.
The veiled slumber which we intimately know
as dozing and which approaches timidly with
titillation of the eyelids and an ineffable sense of
repose, may lead one along dry country roads
into which fresh rain begins to fall or to budding
fields of lilies which blossom and nod as he
passes ; or it may even mysteriously lift him from
his feet so that he floats just above the lily heads
with oever a fear of the bees which come so near
THE COCOON 145
or of disturbing the motherbird whose brooding
wing he fairly skirts as he goes by her nest in the
reeds.
It is a region of gentles, this dreamfield of
Arden, and lies too close to the guards of Wake-
land for uncanny beasts to prowl and near
enough the rim of the black forest for twilight
and the sense of mystery and remoteness so
grateful to the glare-tired and earth-weary.
As I dozed thus safely between the two bor-
ders in my cot that day, I remember realising
that at intervals several of my neighbours rose
and walked away, some even eschewing tiptoe,
and yet not having power to fully rouse me from
my deliciously-conscious semi-sleep.
(Seems to me that's pretty nice writing, dear
Bookie. Wouldn't it be funny if all I've been
through should develop a literary talent in lit-
tle me? There's no telling! Stranger things
have happened. I may be heard from yet.)
Even the whistled salutes of one or two pass-
ing boats near shore reached me only as joy-notes
kindly muffled by the fog of sleep; and yet,
strange to say, it was the merest swish of a page
turning quite near me which suddenly opened my
146 THE COCOON
eyes ; and by lifting my face just a wee bit, I saw
a man's hand hanging, palm downward, from the
cot next my own.
This was interesting and I was instantly wide
awake. It was a nice hand, clean, strong, kind-
looking. It reminded me of Jack's hand, some-
how, even to the tiny band of gold encircling its
third finger. Jack wore just such a ring, my
gift but, of course, most rings are much alike
on their under sides.
Jack's is an ancient intaglio which I picked up
in Siena during our last engagement and had
mounted for him in a design of my own drawing,
" two perfectly bromidic griffins clasping the seal
in a sulphitic way," so I playfully described it to
him on presenting it.
Glad of something trivial to keep my mind
off the danger shoals, I began rebuilding Jack's
ring from memory when my neighbour turned
another leaf, withdrawing his hand and drop-
ping it again, this time turned over so that I
clearly saw what seemed a replica of Jack's ring.
I knew it was silly and yet my heart stopped
for a moment and I felt as if I were dying; then
it played an anvil chorus in my ears and I felt
T H E C O C O O N 147
myself strangling with I knew not what, when
the reader put down his book and took out his
watch, and from my pillow, I distinctly saw my
own picture painted inside the case of Jack Hem-
inway's watch.
Next day :
I had to leave you yesterday, Bookie, to answer
a telephone call, and couldn't get back to you.
Viola Vixen Vandegrief called me up and wanted
me to go out for a spin with her, and I couldn't
refuse as she is Jack's sister-in-law's niece and
she's in trouble, poor dear. I tell you, Bookie,
this living on alimony must be trying to any
woman of spirit. Poor little Vixie is a per-
fectly harmless creature, fairly running over
with small grievances just now and she's one
of those who, when once she gets her wind, you
can't stop.
And she is having what she calls a " helova-
time." So she condenses in her notes to me, as
she knows her maid reads all she writes, when
she gets a chance and all she receives always.
But this is the only way I've ever known her to
condense. I have an idea her prolixity had some-
what to do with Paul Vandergrief's deflection,
148 T H E C O C O O N
for the co-respondent in the case is a wax-doll
who has never been known to say anything. But
she'll probably get Vixie's house in Gramercy
Park, all the same, from the way things look, and
he is fairly niggardly with his wife in his allow-
ance and poor Vix can't make a fuss just
because, you see, men have liked her and Paul
could give her cold shivers in a court-room, if
he were provoked to it. That was what she
wanted to consult me about, and why we stayed
out so interminably.
" How did I advise her? " Oh, of course, I
advised her first and last to make up with Paul,
no matter what. I assured her that positive
proof of a husband's infidelity didn't amount to
a row of pins; that husbands were the most
maligned class on earth, especially when they
were in the least attractive ; that any woman w r ho
believed her own eyes against a man she loved
was an idiot. Oh, I put it strong! That's the
only way I'd ever advise any woman, after this,
but
But, I say, I was telling you for my still re-
motely imminent daughters' perusal I was
THE COCOON 149
telling you, dear Book, about Jack and me, and
our tumultuous finish at the Rest Cure.
Where were we? Oh, yes. I was on the Sea-
fair roof in my cot and had just discovered my
picture in Jack's watch, in the hand of the man-
worm of the cocoon next mine.
" What did I do? " when I recognised Jack's
watch in what seemed his dear hand? Not only
that, but when he had seen the time, I saw him
turn the watch to look at my picture and heard
his familiar chuckle of domestic bliss.
" I chortle in my glee when I look at you,
Blessibus ! " So he had said more than once in
moments of tenderness, and it seemed to me I
almost heard him say it now.
" What did I do? " Why, Bookie, I'm almost
ashamed to tell you. I bawled, that's what I
did. Just baioled! Aloud, as a child weeps
when the end of all things has come, so I let my-
self go.
Of course, Jack was up instantly and beside
me with a spring and before the curious knew
what was doing, his head was under the pongee
parasol and they must have heard him talking
150 THE COCOON
baby-talk. It's a motherly way Jack always had
with me if I'd get to crying, this baby-talk.
I have no idea what I said. Jack was there.
His dear arms were around me. I must have
said something, however, for presently he was
answering :
" Because, my darling, they told me you were
out driving, and I strolled up here to take a
squint at your i cocoonery,' and your Beaure-
garde Davis came and asked me if I'd like a cot,
and I said to myself ' Why not? I'll take it and
see how it feels till she comes,' and I must
have slept quite a bit. After my night on the
cars I was dead tired.
" Frankly, my dear, I had no idea you'd come
in before dark and I didn't quite know where to
bestow myself if I crawled out. You see, I
couldn't register not knowing just how things
were till I'd seen you.
" But what are you crying for? How could I
register? Haven't I been telling you? Nobody
knows I'm here. I couldn't give you away
and and sh sh h h ! People'll be
wondering what's the matter. Aren't you glad
to see me, Honeybus? ' Get your letter?' What
'THE COCOON 151
letter? I've got miles of 'em! Wait a minute!
and sh h h ! Stop crying I'll be right
back "
A sudden attack of hysteria, while not exactly
common among the nerve racked habitues of
the roof, was not unprecedented and so no one
paid much attention to a strange man hurrying
away and returning presently with something
in a tumbler to administer under a parasol.
New tired people came in, you know, as fast
as the rested went out. The caravansary was
used to itself and its ways.
Neither was any one interested to follow the
hysterical lady entirely swathed in shawls and
veil when she presently left the roof, virtually
carried in the arms of her husband.
I had been so swept from my feet by the ex-
citement of Jack's arrival that I hadn't thought
of the comedy of the flowers I hadn't thought
of anything coherently indeed until he had
set me down in my room, in the midst of the
array.
Then there was something in it all that
seemed to bring back everything with a rush.
I tried to straighten up and meet things, but I
152 THE COCOON
was too tired, and after a spell of strangling
and back-slapping I fell to sobbing and was for-
cibly taken to lap, willy nilly, and coddled and
scolded.
I knew I was failing utterly as a woman and
lapsing into a wretched invertebrate, but at last
I got out:
" Oh, Jack ! Jack ! " and then I was off
again, fairly drowning in grief.
" It's these awf awf-f-fl-flowers, Jack and
every thing! I'm going to d-die I f-feel
so "
Then, seizing the first trivial grievance that
offered, I cried:
"Wh-why don't you ask me about them? Do
you think I'm running a flower-show down
here? "
" What's the matter with the flowers, I'd like
to know? Have you any objection to them?"
His voice was positively stern and it brought me
to myself. I sat up and looked him straight in
the eye.
" J-Jack Heminway," I stammered. " D-do
you know anything about these f-fool
flowers?"
THE COCOON 153
" Well, I like that ! " He was exasperatingly
calm. " Who else has a right to know, I won-
der? Who else would be filling my wife's room
with roses? "
I moved away back, to the very edge of his
knees and looked at him.
"But, Jack! Are you crazy? It's well I
know who sent them or I'd think you had sus-
tained an organic lesion of the brain! Why,
those orchids must have cost three dollars apiece
at Thorler's if not more."
" They did cost fully that, my dear if not
more and at Thorler's. There's nothing
wrong with that, that I can see, and " He had
been unwinding the green gauze from my head,
and now, seeing me well for the first time, he
chuckled: "And I don't see anything wrong
with you, either. Why, bless me, Blessy, you're
as pink and smooth as a three months' old baby.
This rest-cure is great! But come, now, I want
to do some talking.
" First, I must hurry down and register and
it might be well for you to go with me; that is,
if you are ready to 'fess up and acknowledge
me?"
154 THE COCOON
This was bringing things to a focus. Trouble
already vaguely hovering loomed dark and aw-
ful.
I'm not a cry-baby, exactly. I know I'm not,
and yet, all my life, when I haven't known what
else to do, I've just cried. And so I did now
just cried, wearily at first, then all the time
with my face averted from Jack's I let my-
self go again, in sheer bewilderment of grief,
Jack pitifully begging me to tell him about it;
and when I finally escaped from tears, it was
by the unhinged gate of laughter and, of
course,' that required heroic measures, drops
chokingly swallowed and kisses limply repelled,
before I was able to listen while poor Jack kept
reminding me that the time was short and he
had important things to say.
Even this sensational announcement fell upon
my ears like summer rain with no meaning be-
yond the power to defer the evil moment, until,
finally, he lifted my face to his, wiped its tears
away and said, in the unmistakable tone one uses
in trying to quiet a crying child :
" Guess what I've got in my dress-suit-case
down stairs?"
THE COCOON 155
But I was in no mood for guessing.
" I've brought your wedding-dress, Wifey, and
it's down in the rotunda now."
Now, I listened. Anything to avert the main
issue! Besides, this was interesting.
"And have you known him all this time?" I
asked, sniffling. " And are you in it, too? "
"In what, Beloved?" Oh, how I loved him!
And how I kept sheathing the blade which would
any moment sever us forever ! I even welcomed
the Butte's silly affair as a foil in my extremity !
" Why, in the Butte's wedding, to-night, of
course. She asked me to be matron of honour,
and I had to tell her I had no suitable dress,
and here you turn up with the dress and you
evidently know all about the flowers and every-
thing."
" Butte nothing ! But you're to be matron of
honour, just the samee ! "
At this, the furniture in the room began to
sway and the windows turned dizzily sidewise,
while red and green discs melted into each other
whichever way I looked. I grasped my hus-
band's knee and half sanely and half as one on
the ragged edge, I gasped :
156 THE COCOON
" It's Alice in Wonderland ! And you're go-
ing to say 'All persons over a mile high, leave
the court ! ' "
" Well, suppose I do. That won't expel you ! "
But his light laughter belied a serious face,
even while he added playfully, " You're not a
mile high, even when you get on a high horse.
I can always reach you with a step-ladder."
" You are making fun of me, Jack ! " I
snapped. " I may be a real fool but I'm not
I'm not a fantastic fool! W T hat's all this
nonsense about my wedding-dress and and
all these silly flowers and your sneaking in
and spying on me? "
" Blessy ! "
" No, I take that back, of course ! " It was
really too common ! " But it is queer, you'll
allow. Here I've been led to believe you couldn't
possibly be along before Saturday, and "
" Blessy! " The call was staccato. " Look
in my face. Now listen, will you? Give me five
minutes, and not a syllable, if you love me, till
I get through. There's going to be a wedding
here to-night, a sensational wedding in the smart
THE COCOON 1ST
set, and you are to be matron of honour do
you hear?"
"Ambition, distraction, uglification and deri-
sion," I mocked, " and the drawing-master was
a conger eel and he taught us drawing, stretch-
ing and fainting in coils. But where's the
gryphon ? "
I repeated the words mechanically, gazing va-
cantly at the discs as they floated between my
eyes and my little plaster Lincoln Imp upon
the wall, but Jack paid no attention whatever.
Alice in Wonderland did not exist for him while
he went on :
" And I brought your wedding-dress, my dear,
because I remembered that you wore it when you
were matron for Evelyn Dardrieth."
" But Evelyn Dardrieth was my friend."
"And the bride of this evening is a friend's
friend."
The phrasing of this shot a chill through me.
His letter to " a friend's friend " that moment
in my pocket was suddenly a live coal firing my
mind to flame. Was he insidiously, maliciously,
brutally, tending toward some awful dtnoue-
158 THE COCOON
mentf In the lurid glare of suspicion, jealousy
conjured all sorts of horrors.
For a moment my hand even sought the offend-
ing letter. If there was going to be trouble like
this, the initiative was mine, not his, and yet,
as I looked into his face, I couldn't do it. I
couldn't accuse him ; but I am sure my face was
not good to behold as I sprang from his knee,
but not swiftly enough to elude his staying hand.
Gently but firmly he drew me back to my place,
and held me there. It really was my place, for
was I not his rightful queen and on my own
throne? So, loving him with all my life even
while I held aloof, I parried the inevitable, just
to prolong this last moment there, and tried to
answer him casually :
" Really, Jack," I pleaded, " are we talking on
the earth plane, honestly? And who, may I ask,
is this ' friend's friend,' forsooth and w r here? "
" She is here. Now, keep still, Blessy. You
look so strange, you scare me. I'll do my best
to explain, but don't scream t Fire ! ' or l Police ! '
till I'm done. You've heard of Geraldine Hal-
dane, Carrie Oglesby's chum, and at present
Oglesby's ward? Well, I J. D. Heminway
THE COCOON 159
as Oglesby's partner, am, in a manner, represent-
ing him. You understand? You remember the
girl?"
" Remember the beautiful heiress, Geraldine
Haldane? Why, who hasn't heard of her?
Everybody in New York who is anybody knows
all about her, of course and that Englishman.
Haven't they been floating in and out of society
columns, both here and on the other side, for
the last twelve months? She virtually lives
abroad, anyway. You know, she's lost dis-
appeared months ago when the Duke of Don-
aught came over to marry her. Lots of people
think she's been swallowed up in the white slave
trade. Of course, I wouldn't wish ill to any-
body, but if my sorrow over so gruesome a fate
could be mitigated, it would be in the case of one
of these supercilious, expatriated American
heiresses."
" That's the worst thing I ever heard you say,
Blessy. But don't worry. She's a little white
slave of circumstance, is Miss Haldane, but
that's all, and she is going to be married here
to-night and to her other English lover and
that's why I hurried along."
160 THE COCOON
" Why you hurried along? I'll be switched if
I see the connection, but no matter. Will you
kindly tell me why she is to be married here,
of all places in the world? "
" Because they are here."
" ' They,' you say? Here? Not at Seafair? "
" Yes, my Love, here at Seafair at the sani-
tarium to which institution I've been dutifully
directing all Oglesby's business correspondence
with her, sending her cheques, etc., for the last
six months, to ward off possible suspicion of his
keeping up with her. They say her people have
detectives shadowing everybody she knows.
Oglesby really didn't know where she was, for
a while. I'm quite curious to see her, especially
after your report of her. Of course, you've
guessed that she's the little Carter."
Oh, little Book, little Book ! I'll never be able
to tell you what happened then, for I don't
in the least know. My first consciousness was
of " coming to " in Jack's arms. He says I sud-
denly fainted dead away w r hile he was casually
talking, which is the simple truth, as he saw it
dear unsuspecting Jack! and he declares
THE COCOON 161
that it was but a natural reaction, after my sur-
prise in his sudden coming.
He'll never know how abased I was, how I
grovelled in my soul when I just let myself fall
limply back into my old place when I fairly
wabbled my head to make sure it rested over
the little hollow in his dear neck when finally
I was able to look up into his dear eyes and whis-
per, " Kiss me, Jack."
They say the hour of utmost peace in a
woman's life is when her child is born. Maybe
it is, but I'm not sure.
When I arrived at speech again, doing my
best to be casual, I found myself at a loss as to
just where Jack had left off. Fortunately, he
promptly came to my relief with:
"Had you guessed before I came, my dear?"
" Guessed about the Carter? Surely not.
How could I? But, Jack, you know she's as
crazy as a loon ! "
Jack threw back his head and roared.
" No doubt. And so were you crazy when you
married me, but it wasn't in the game for you
to show it. Her case is just the reverse, and I'm
162 THE COCOON
told she does the nervous prostrate to a turn.
Oglesby and I nearly expired over that ' hell-
hounds ' business. Yes, they say she's worked
in all the frills and fooled the whole bunch
here."
"But the man, Jack? The Englishman?
You say * they ' are here. I'll remember
his name presently. It's it's let me see.
Street, that's it, Sir Reginald Street. He must
just have arrived."
" Not at all. He's been here almost since she
came and he goes by his own name, too his
own name, translated, Reginald La Rue."
" Not my Canadian ! The perfidious creature !
Reading his old poems to me and and "
" And knowing all the time who you were and
doing you numberless little kindnesses of which
you were unaware. He knew we were trying to
help him and he didn't know how much you
knew, and he hoped every day that you would
broach the subject next his heart. He is a
manly fellow, much too good for the whole tribe
of Haldanes, although I'm half converted to
Miss Geraldine, myself the way she just
wouldn't when she wouldn't, and Sir Duke had
THE COCOON 163
to turn around and go back. Only last week,
her mother said to me : ' If I could only find
her, she might marry whom she pleased.'
" ' And would you be willing to put that in
writing? ' said I, seizing my chance. i I'm going
knocking 'round and I might stumble on her
and if I had '
" ' Gladly ! ' She interrupted with a gush of
tears, not even letting me finish.
"And / have it in my pocket this minute
with the license, which, I assure you, gave us
more trouble but we've got it!
" So you can see there was no time to lose.
You know, her mother was a Vanderthrift and
she had the millions and, as I've said, Oglesby is
her guardian now. Her father had a stroke
when she disappeared, but she mustn't know it."
A white light began to dawn. I looked
around the room, at the flowers and then at
my husband.
"And these are her flowers, I suppose?"
" Yes, Goosey, these are her flowers. Have
you any objection? "
" Don't bother me, Jack. Let me get my wits
together. She never seemed to see the Cana-
164 THE COCOON
dian. Why, I never knew her to leave her
room."
" Strictly not. She's as much afraid of a
camera as any criminal. Otherwise Street could
not have dared show up here, for, of course, she
didn't know he was here, that is, not till day be-
fore yesterday. He knew she was in retirement
and he came incog., just to be near her. He sent
all his letters under cover to Montreal or Quebec
to be remailed, and there were not many and,
even so, they were written in French as from a
certain Sister Mercedes, nonexistent, who is al-
leged to have taught her in some convent on the
other side just in case the secret should have
leaked out. They've had a bad time, those
lovers.
" But when I started off with that maternal
permission in my pocket, Oglesby sent a tele-
gram in cipher to i La Rue,' who rushed a card
up to ' Miss Carter,' and things began to march
in line.
" Of course, she would have married without
her mother's consent, if worse came to worst,
but she hated to, after openly defying her about
Donaught, or Donaughty, as the New York
165
Galaxy calls him. I fancy, from all accounts,
that the little girl did well to let him slide.
Oglesby has handled the affair on his side with
great delicacy and skill. Five millions there,
you know. But for my having been drawn into
it for him, I might never have heard of this place
or thought of sending you here.
" If Street hadn't been a trump, I'd have put
you on your guard, but it wasn't necessary.
But tell me, Dear, what put such a notion into
your head as that these were the Butte's
flowers? "
" Not now, Jack. One thing at a time. I'll
tell you all about that to-morrow, next day, next
week
" And you say to-night, Jack? "
Jack took out his watch.
" In exactly three hours. The decorators
come at eight to arrange the flowers in the
chapel, ceremony at nine. Train for Chicago at
ten fifteen thence they go to well, that's
their business."
I had been rubbing Jack's hand up and down
over my cheek. I put it down now and laid my
other hand over it in my lap while I answered:
166
" I begin to see and things look natural
again, or half natural. But, Jack, why in the
kingdom did you send those flowers to me? I
won't try to tell you the fright they put me to
not now."
" For every reason, Dear, I sent them to you.
First, because I knew my little wife to be dis-
creet. She isn't caught napping. If she didn't
understand, she wouldn't say so. Am I not right
in that?" kissing the top of my head, as he
spoke.
" But I was much too humble yet to do more
than shrug my shoulders.
" Then, Dear," Jack went on, " you see, no one
knew anything about the wedding, and they were
not to know until the last minute not until
they had been invited into the chapel saves f "
" Yes, I see."
"And didn't I guard your little secret well,
' Miss Heminway '? you little rascal ! when
I sent them just to ' No. 99, Heminway,' no Miss
or Mrs. or anything no seeming avoidance
no possibility of mistake."
" Hush bragging, Jack, and hand me my
buffer. I've had every physical attention here
THE COCOON 167
except manicuring. Women don't manicure for
other women much, and I always go gloved to
the roof and my sainted old Doctor is in the
far-sighted period of life, poor dear. That's
why he still thinks well of me.
" Look at my hands. Well washed and then
forgot. You are much too good for me, Jack,
but there's no time to talk now. You'd better
ring for those suit-cases and while you're shak-
ing out wrinkles, I'll be polishing up.
" Any refreshments? "
" Oh, yes, a few things. Some terrapin and
lobster and a galantine or two and sandwiches
and, of course, a little champagne and coffee
and the usual bride's cake, etc."
" And only us, for all that? "
" Yes, only us and a handful of friends from
the Belvedere, and Joe Conwright and his wife
are motoring over. And, by the way, the Gov-
ernor of the State is here for the night, with his
lady. It seems they have a niece here, taking
the cure. I met them on the sleeper and we ex-
changed cards and they are coming, and I'll get
him to sign as one of the witnesses. It'll tickle
the old lady Haldane tremendously."
168 THE COCOON
"And no one from the sanitarium?"
" Several from the sanitarium, certainly, be-
sides Dr. Jacques and his family, who will be the
most dignified witnesses. I believe she's asking
several of the staff, each one confidentially, of
course. And your friend, the joke-man, he's in
the secret. Indeed, he's going to write it up
for the New York press."
"And how long has he known, pray?"
" Since just now several hours ago.
Oglesby telegraphed him to meet a member of
his firm at the station to confer about a matter
of business and there he stood when I got off
the train. And he's to have a ripping cheque,
too, worthy of the prominence of the contracting
parties. Poor little man! When I told him
what he would be paid, he quite filled up for a
minute as he gasped : ' Gee ! What a windfall !
Why, I'll be able to send for my wife. She's
awfully done for, after nursing me through all
my typhoid.' '
"His wife?"
"Why not?"
" Oh, no reason, I suppose only, he looks
such a boy and it was so silly of him to spend
THE COCOON 169
all that money on roses, if he had a wife to look
after and is so poor that a little wedding write-up
counts."
" You have much to learn, little one. Don't
you know that people of the artistic temperament
dote on buying roses when the bread's out? And
they are high class when they don't owe for their
roses, the dear infants. But as for this being a
trifling order, you are mistaken. One of the last
things her mother said to me w r as "
" Whose mother? "
" Why Geraldine Haldane's mother, of course.
Whose else? The last thing she said to me when
she signed that paper was, ' Nothing cheap, now !
If you should run against them and they should
be playing fool and getting married, I want de-
cent bills. No tupenny business. Oh, my poor
lamb ! ' And she was weeping copiously when
she said it, too, poor old soul !
" So I went straight from her to the telephone,
consulted Oglesby, thence to the florist, ascer-
tained what the Campden-Bellows wedding flow-
ers cost and duplicated the order to a dot. From
there to Sperry's and had the Ulric-Considene
wedding-supper repeated, with a trifle or two
170 THE COCOON
added just for grandeur, and I was on my way
to fetch a reporter when I remembered your lit-
tle joke-man whom I discover to be one of the
Planet's crack society reporters, supposedly still
hors de combat after a tussle with typhoid, and
he's to have his cheque to-night and I believe
that's all. My handling of the affair shall be as
princely as I can make it. I don't often have
such a chance."
" And you've never told her mother a thing? "
"The secret wasn't mine to tell, dear heart.
It became mine only to keep and I was let in
simply to help. Besides, I wouldn't have
trusted her. She'd no sooner have known her
1 poor lamb ' alive and well than she'd have tried
to lock her up again.
" I don't see what she's making such a kick
about, anyhow, for Street is big-rich in his own
right and a gentleman. If it hadn't been for
the possibility of the ducal coronet, she'd have
jumped at Street. She'll always feel that
Geraldine's cousin, Sybil Clangour, is just one
degree ahead of Geraldine socially in being even
the divorced wife of that nasty old Earl whom
she was obliged to leave. You know, she and
THE COCOON 171
Geraldine were presented the same season."
" Yes, I remember well enough. Two years
after I was," I blurted, but Jack went on :
" I tell you, Blessy, the human is an in-
scrutable creature, especially the female of the
species, in the exercise of her master passion."
" I agree with you, Jack," I chirped, squinting
at the shine on my thumb-nail, to keep a straight
face. " Yes, I agree with you, the female of our
species is often more lively than the male. I
admit that."
Jack was putting in his shirt studs and he
didn't look up. He was used to my talk. Still,
his face lit as he turned to me presently with :
" I've missed you a lot, Blessibus ! I do won-
der if I dare take you home with me, sure enough
about next Thursday, say? I think I might
arrange to stay that long, and you will have had
one solid week of real repose, dead calm. I'll
see to that."
" Dare to take me ! " I mocked. " Well, I like
that! I dare you not to. But really, Jack,
hadn't we better run down now, so that you can
register? You see, you are just a strange man
to these people yet, and you've been up here in
172 THE COCOON
my room a good while. No doubt many of the
three hundred curious who know you to be here
surmise that you are the prospective happy
groom still, we don't want any talk."
"' Happy groom?'" Jack repeated absently.
Then, " Oh, yes, that's a fact. And by the way,
Blessy, do you know I was wakened on the roof
this afternoon by hearing my own name called
and I got on to local gossip in regard to my wife
quite some."
" Did you hear that? " I giggled.
" Sure I heard it. Did you? "
" Oh, Jack, it's a funny world, this. I seem
to see Alice looming again. Everything seems
half unreal yet. But we've no time to talk now.
Come along ! "
As we crossed the roof together on our way to
the elevator, hatless and happy as two children,
I grabbed Jack's sleeve, detaining him just a
moment to whisper in his ear:
" There they are, now, Dear, over by the south
tower that huge, ringlety man bending over
the pink clouds in the roller-chair that's the
Brigand, hovering still, I see, around the Gipsy.
Wouldn't it be terrible if he confused yellow
THE COCOON 173
hair with haloes? and she fairly dripping with
any millionaire's diamonds! I wouldn't worry
about him so if he weren't so alluringly rich
they say he's called four kinds of a king in the
west, cattle-king and three others, and he's so
artless. How lost she would be, poor frail sis-
ter, if he insisted on building a cathedral around
her!"
I saw Jack glance searchingly at me as if won-
dering whether, by any chance, my mind had
gone off, just the least bit. Still, his voice was
quite natural when he whispered:
" Don't you fret about these people, my dear.
That man will never offer that woman a cathe-
dral. Yachts and aeroplanes, maybe, and crys-
tal palaces but I respect his discernment in
discovering my little girl for what she really is,
in spite of her somewhat misleading halo. But
ye gods! Who comes here?"
And before I could answer, the Butte, all done
over in pink from aigrette to slippers, and a
mile high, at that, emerging apparently from
nowhere, had rushed forward and taken me in
her arms.
" Don't mind me," she deferred to Jack.
174 THE COCOON
"I'm just obliged to hug her!" And, drawing
me forcibly aside, she confided :
" I've just been layin' in wait for you in the
quilt booth yonder, watchin' for you to come
along. I heard you had company. But, say!
Mine swears he never sent me those yellow roses!
I just had to come and tell you. But I know
who sent 'em. God A'mighty sent 'em, that's
who! Sent 'em out of a clear sky because He
knew how forlorn I felt, and He knew that my
beloved was on the way to me and that all his
thoughts were of yellow roses which he couldn't
find and He took pity on me. Tell me, Dear,
don't you think God could have sent 'em?
Don't you believe He did? "
She was looking straight into my soul my
human, sympathetic, understanding sister-wom-
an's soul and swallowing hard while I said it,
meeting her eager gaze steadily, I answered her.
" Surely, I do. What do we know about di-
vine agencies? Certainly it was He who sent
you your golden roses. Even if He had had to
make them on the spot, that wouldn't be any
trick at all for the One who could think all the
world's roses, and endow them as He has done.
THE COCOON 175
Besides, dear, everything queer is happening.
Nothing could surprise "
But she interrupted:
" An' he's got the license an' everything but,
say ! he denies all that outfit of weddin' flowers,
too denies it pot black ! " Then, lowering her
voice and glancing at Jack, who had slipped back
a bit into the shadow, she flashed: " Oh, say!
Yours is as good lookin' again as his picture,
although I'd know him by it. Of course, I knew
he'd be classy. I heard a swell New Yorker was
up in your room, your l intended,' they said, but
of course I had my own ideas.
" But tell me, you sweet thing, look straight
into my eyes. You couldn't tell a lie, if you
tried. Is mine foolin' me? And didn't those
flowers come anonymous? An' don't you an' I
know in our souls they are my bridal flowers? "
"No, positively, dear. They are for another
wedding and, of course, my husband and I
are in the secret. I didn't know till he came.
They aren't yours, but "
I was thinking fast. What I wanted to do
was to offer her the service of the flowers if she
would take a later hour than the others for her
176 THE COCOON
wedding. But when it came to doing this very
definite thing, I found myself still strangely
timid. I couldn't quite vouch for her sanity.
Indications to the contrary were too recent.
Laying my hand upon her, as in some sort apolo-
gising for my words which I toned as gently as
I could, I plunged:
"And you say your man has really come?"
" ' Really come? ' " she repeated, stung to the
quick, I feared. "Well, I like that!" And
turning quickly, she called over her shoulder :
"You, Willie! Willie Winchester! Come
out here and show yourself ! "
And out from his hiding, behind a stack of
screens, stepped forward, or rather ambled, a
great, kindly, loose-jointed man, so like the
Brigand that I started, almost hesitating before
I offered him my hand, as I made a point of
doing.
But w r hen he had come out into the full light,
and the slanting rays of a low sun fell into his
hair, illumining his face, I saw a man still like
our Brigand, but glorified, younger, gentler, and
of fairer colouring, and I realised how the
camera, which takes no note of half shades, had
THE COCOON 177
seemed to present a replica of the older man,
for even in height and general outline the two
were singularly alike.
" Mr. Winchester, I want to make you ac-
quainted with Mis' Heminway, the lady I've
been writin' you about all this time. In other
words, this is my Little Oasis ; my intended, Mis'
Heminway."
So we were introduced. And then, of course,
I had to call Jack, and he and the " intended "
got into a little talk while the Butte, chuckling
absurdly, drew me apart again to whisper:
" Say, ain't he the spittin' image of Col. Cop-
perthwaite? I saw you see it quick as you laid
eyes on him. They tell me that when I used to
be nervous and half nutty, whilst I was losin'
my sleep so constant, I fairly hounded the
colonel. You see, I took him for my Willie.
Wasn't it fierce? "
Before we parted, it was agreed that by as-
sumed concurrence of the first parties in the
first ceremony the second wedding that evening
should occur at ten o'clock, the floral decorations
to remain intact ; also that, in the absence of any
of her near of kin, I should stand with the second
178 THE COCOON
bride, also, as matron of honour. Then with a
final precautionary " Mum's the word," fairly
wresting myself from the mammoth blush which
suffused me in " just one parting hug," I seized
Jack's arm and we hurried down together to
register and to " make good."
During all this rapid fire, there smouldered
as a red coal in my sub-consciousness a sense of
shame and responsibility as to the letter which
lay deep in my pocket; and so the first thing I
did when we had reached the rotunda, while
Jack was writing his name in the great book,
was to hand the letter, with a sinful tip, to the
porter with a request that he deliver it without
delay to the lady to whom it was addressed, as
it had been sent by mistake in Mrs. Heminway's
mail; on doing which, thus openly, I felt some-
thing like a sense of dignity restored.
And this, Dear Book, is the story as nearly as
I can tell it straight, of how there came to be
two weddings in the chapel at Seafair that even-
ing two notable weddings, indeed, for the real
identity of the Butte and still more of her man,
and their romance, of which it would be only
tantalising to offer a hint and which it would
THE COCOON 179
take much too long to tell all that is another
story.
There was a menacing hitch in the affair for
a little while when it was learned that the train
from Richmond which was to fetch the officiating
ministers had been detained by a "freight
wreck ahead " and could not possibly arrive be-
fore midnight; but while everybody concerned
was consulting and no one able to suggest relief,
into the breach stepped who but the Brigand, if
you please, eager, complaisant, offering his
services.
He had been regularly licensed as the Camp-
bellite " Christian " minister, many years before,
it was true, but he had always kept himself
equipped for emergencies (plural, please notice)
and could marry, baptise, or bury on occasion.
Indeed, before any one could question him, he
had whipped out his license and robes, the use of
the latter, he explained, being a matter of choice.
For himself, although exercising his preroga-
tive only by authority conferred by a church
connection which discountenanced ceremonial
or display, he felt a certain dignity in donning
the surplice and stole for the marriage rite.
180 THE COCOON
Also, the Episcopal form was at their service,
if preferred; and further, he hesitated to sug-
gest and yet why should one hesitate to do
a kindly turn? it was no business of his,
although, of course, it would be a matter of busi-
ness if Mme. Gipsy Fournette could be iuduced
to sing if it was desired, he was not sure, but
perhaps ? She was very expensive, of course,
but if people knew what was what and were
willing to pay for the best Madame had
just been discharged by her physician and would
be returning to her work in a day or so. It was
the chance of a lifetime.
Certainly he would see about it, although he
always advised the principals to approach a pro-
fessional on a matter of business. She was an
artist and could be tres difficile if she were pro-
voked.
Well, the upshot of it all was that when I
walked up the chapel aisle, that evening, pre-
ceding the first bride, correctly, my first surprise
came in the Wedding March from Lohengrin, a
contribution of local talent and admirably done
by whom but the poor Visiting Lady whom I did
not recognise, of course, until later in the even-
THE COCOON 181
ing, when it was my delight to take her hand,
and virtually, if not literally, tell her that I
loved her. And I did, as I implied it, with all
my heart; and I was so glad to discover that
she had the consolations of music when her
thankless task of feeding sugar to jungle beasts
in a menagerie became too hard.
At the moment we reached the chancel and
the waiting groom, even while the last notes of
the organ were dying, there arose a rich con-
tralto voice, tender and sweet in Cantor's beau-
tiful "Oh, Fair, Oh, Sweet and Holy," filling
the chapel with melody so tender, so really
" sweet and holy " in tone suggestion as to be-
come a fitting part of worship, such was the art
of Gipsy Fournette, such nature's endowment to
her.
And while she approached the closing notes
of her song, slowly, noiselessly, from behind the
palms to the left of the high altar, there stepped
the most resplendent creature of us all, for I
assure you, dear, dear Book, our Brigand had
neglected nothing in the way of magnificence.
My recollection of him now is as of a great
blur of crimson and gold, and when I appealed
182 THE COCOON
to Jack afterward, of course, he could give
me little satisfaction as to its significance.
He insisted, however, in taking upon himself
any possible blame in the matter, as he con-
fessed, when I had delivered myself of my opin-
ion on the subject which was that our offici-
ating minister, in the performance of a sacred
Christian ceremony, had got himself up like a
pagan, and that to my mind, his appearance
suggested a cross between a Chinese mandarin
and a cockatoo when I had got this venom out
of my system, I say, Jack insisted that any blame
as to the Brigand's effort in our behalf should
be laid at his door, as w r hen that artless though
dangerously resourceful person had consulted
him in the matter, he was busy with other things
and had playfully thrown at him that this was
to be a full-dress occasion and to " go ahead and
do his damnedest!"
Which it seems, he did. But to do him jus-
tice, when approached playfully at the supper-
table on the subject of " presenting a pagan priest
to a Christian congregation," he was eager to ex-
plain with pains and particularity that he had
carefully selected from such oriental garments
THE COCOON 183
as he had in his trunk only such as symbolised
spiritualism without dogma and which conse-
quently belonged by right to west as well as
east. Christianity had a right to all the lofty
symbolism there was, or " the best that was go-
ing," to quote literally. He wished he could
explain, but it was difficult to interpret the
Orient in the clumsy phrasing of occidental
tongues.
We were glad to know all this, for every rea-
son, and indeed, in any event, it would have been
particularly hard to find serious fault with a
man who, after putting himself to so great pains,
had resented even a mention of compensation for
his services. Besides neither of the parties most
concerned had seemed to find anything to criti-
cise, which was a comfort.
Of course, Jack made the honorarium to
Mile. Fournette with a view to pleasing old
Mother Haldane. Money was positively no ob-
ject, and when a man with no cost to himself
can honestly encourage the arts, entertain a lot
of pleasure-hungry shut-ins, and make two
women supremely happy why not?
And it is fair to suppose that the groom from
184 THE COCOON
Montana duplicated her honorarium, for at the
precise place in the second ceremony where she
had sung in the first, the Gipsy gave us in fine
form, Rubinstein's delightful interpretation of
Heine's " Thou Art Like a Lovely Flower "
gave it thus in English translation, too, which I
regretted, although I was probably the only
person present who was vulgar enough to apply
the words personally to the beaming bride and
to run a troublesome mind swiftly through an
interminable list of familiar flowers, and with-
out result
Let it not be supposed, however, that the
happy bride from Montana, while perhaps fail-
ing to measure up as a flower, fell short in any
particular as to full bridal dress, correct and
elegant, although the ultra critical might have
questioned its fitness for so necessarily uncon-
ventional an occasion ; but this would have been
because they were sentiment -blind and unworthy
witnesses of a ceremony of high romance.
Even before the quiet departure of the first
bridal party, a brilliant line of automobiles had
begun to assemble at the entrance of the Sani-
tarium and guests from afar streamed into the
THE COCOON 185
chapel, even while the posted notices of " general
invitation " were crowding it beyond its doors, so
that resetted ushers in evening dress, Drs. Wei-
born and others of the younger members of the
staff, were kept busy clearing the way for the
second function, when the majestic bride strode
measuredly in her place in full regalia, veil,
orange-flowers and train, yes, and even a train-
bearer, a fairy of five, whom I succeeded in cap-
turing for the occasion from the wife of one of
the resident doctors.
The Butte wished it thus, not that she or her
Willie cared a rap, she assured me, but she " had
had that weddin' outfit so long, and a girl could
wear orange-blossoms only once. Then, too, it
would be somethin' worth tellin' about and
maybe showin', in after years: ' mother in her
bridal dress/ and even grandmother, in time
one never could tell. Of course, she would have
the picture taken the first thing, in New York."
This last wish, however, I easily saw to it that
she should realise without delay, for it needed
only a hint to the good lady of the Boston bag
to have her whip out a camera and " a package
of flash-light," and, at the psychological moment,
186 THE COCOON
the thing was done in a wink done from the
choir-gallery of the chapel, just as the bride
turned smiling from the altar beside her man.
And so it happened that the crowning spec-
tacular event of the evening was the sensational
marriage and departure of the young lady of
Butte, and when the honking cortege finally dis-
appeared, a blaze of glory along the beachroad,
and the nine-days'-wonder of it all had been
whispered out in the corridors and on the roof,
the sanitarium settled down into a dead calm.
Poor Butte! She had had a romantic if sad
and spectacular life up to this. If only I could
tell you her story! And his her Willie's!
what difficulties they had surmounted, and what
they are even now setting out to accomplish,
God help them !
He Mr. Winchester, to be decent was de-
lighted with everything and insisted on throwing
money out promiscuously, but, of course, again,
Jack could not fail the Lady Haldane.
He did relent, however, to the extent of taking
Winchester into his confidence as to the official
reporter, fee and all, with the result that the
press of east and west, from Maine to California,
THE COCOON 187
was supplied with distinguished notices written,
on a duplicate order, by the radiant Joke-man,
whose name for the nonce it seems high time to
be writing with a capital, and who resembled
nothing so much as a migratory grin, as he circu-
lated officially at both functions.
At double weddings, I believe, both ceremonies
are incorporated in a single service; thus, the
affair at Seafair was not strictly of this class,
and yet when my friends of that kindly institu-
tion insisted on calling this a triple wedding, in-
asmuch as the matron-of-honour in her yellow-
ing wedding-gown had not to them been married
until the great occasion, I accepted the role of
stale bride with blushing apology, while old Dr.
Jacques, who is a saint if there ever was one,
took my side like a man while he explained how
it hadn't been my fault in the least, but had all
come about through a slight inadvertence on the
part of their office clerk, who had misunderstood
on my arrival.
And then having the floor, he went on to as-
sure us that Miss Butterfield's marriage had
been pending ever since her admittance and had
only awaited his professional permission, which
188 THE COCOON
had gone into the mail to her people only the day
before the unexpected appearance of the groom,
so that, all other things arranged, he had no
right to interpose objection; after which, with a
twinkle in his kindly old eye such as I had never
seen there before, he laughingly added that while
no doubt he seemed to us an unsuspicious, easily
gulled old codger, he was in fact the custodian
of so many vital secrets that he sometimes felt
like a walking arsenal, and was half afraid to
go near the fire lest he should blow up, and then,
where would we all be?
Well, so ended my brief, if strenuous pursuit
of the Rest Cure, for in the dead calm of my
week of probation, I was ready meekly, con-
tritely and obediently to fold my hands and take
all my orders from Jack, who got them from Dr.
Jacques, of course, with the result that, on my
return home, I looked so renewed and was so
conspicuously able without fatigue to resume the
comparative tranquillity of social life as it is
lived in semi-gay New York that several of
Jack's friends have already sent their nerve-
racked wives to this Haven of Repose with the
189
cogent argument that " it stands to reason that
when a woman is worn out with a thousand
things, there's nothing like a negative existence
still, colourless days with tranquillizing sur-
roundings to bring her through; nothing, in
fact, like a cocoon for the recovery of wings."
And when they talk that way, Jack and I are
still obliged to avoid each other's eyes. After
a first little fling with our friends, we have set-
tled down, and we are really living more quietly,
more sanely than in the old days, taking stated
times off from social things and getting into the
open as much as possible, with sky-spaces for
tranquil thinking and stillness in which to pos-
sess our souls.
The summer cottage in its garden by the sea
is ready for us, its vine-clad veranda fairly
blooming itself away in anticipation of our com-
ing, but we delay going this season because we
are secretly on a still hunt in town for something
very near our hearts; and so, in the cosy even-
ings now, while Jack knits his brow over some
perplexing point in the brief he is trying to
write, on his side of the library table, and the
canaries drowse in their little cage, one on the
190 THE COCOON
nest and the man-bird chirping an occasional
sleepy assurance of guardianship beside her,
Jack glances over his glasses and smiles at them
and then he turns to me. So he did last night,
and seeing me bending to my task of braiding
pink ribbons over and under the rim of a great
basket beside me, he bit his lip and flung at me :
"What's all that about, Blessibus? It looks
awfully fetching."
And I answered merrily :
"You're cheating, Jack. You promised not
to look till it's done. But it's the bassinet, if
you must know. Pink is for girls, Jack."
And we are very happy, even when it is dark
night and raining outside, for we know that be-
yond the rain and above the clouds,
" God's in His heaven,
All's right with the world."
THE END
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