The Crocodile | Page 6

for Virginia.
She received it cheerfully.
"Is this in memory of any one?" she asked.
"Yes," I said boldly, "it's in memory of me."
"Then I will keep it, Richard," she said. "Flowers are for the living."
"Yes," I said.
"And crocodiles," said she, "are for the dead."
For a long time I looked upon the innocent gayness and frivolity of Virginia with blinking eyes, as a person blinks at the sudden match lighted in the middle of the night. I had been pledged to darkness from my earliest years, and now, while my character, still happily plastic, was receiving its definite stamps, I blinked hankeringly at the light that I might have loved, and at the same time steeled myself to go through with the prearranged marriage. As in the Yankee states children are brought up to believe that it is wicked to be joyous on Sunday so I had been taught to believe of every twenty-four hours in the week.
I cannot think peacefully of that unhappy period in Virginia's life forced on her by us two moribunds. She was the sun, soaring in bright, beneficent career, brought suddenly to impotence by a London fog. And I take it that to be bright and happy, and to fail in making others so, is the most grievous chapter in life. But Virginia's glowing nature had its effect on mine, and in the end she set my spirits dancing. With my father, however, the effect of a madcap sunbeam in the house was altogether different. For it served only to plunge him deeper into gloom and regret. If we came to dinner with him fresh from the joyous morning and in love with laughter, the misery into which he was too palpably thrown reacted so that for all three of us the afternoon became clouded. Sometimes his sorrow would take the form of mocking at all things peaceful and pleasant. In particular the institution of marriage aroused in him hostility.
"Ay, marry," he would say, "Richard, and beget death. It may be hereditary in our family. Exchange your wife, who is your soul, for a red and puling inconsequence, that shall serve down the tiresome years to remind you day and night of the sunshine which has been extinguished for you."
And I remember once retorting on him sharply to the effect that if he threw me so constantly in my own face I would leave his roof, and in the intemperance of the moment I fully purposed to do so. "I will do no worse among strangers," I said, "or in hell, for that matter."
My father fairly shriveled before the unfilial words and retreated so pathetically from his foolish position that my attack melted clean away.
"But why," I said afterward to Virginia, "wouldn't he let me go? Why did he say that he could not live without me? And why, in God's name, when it was all over, did he cry?"
And Virginia thought for a few moments, which was unusual with her, and said presently: "Richard, either your father is the greatest lover that ever lived, or else he is a tiresome egomaniac. Frankly, I believe the latter. You are an accessory, a dismal carving on the moldy frame in which he pictures himself. When I first came I used to tell him how terribly sorry I was that he had lost his wife. But I've given that up. Between you and me, it made him a little peevish. Now I say to him, 'Uncle Richard, you're the unhappiest man I ever saw,' and that comforts him tremendously. Sometimes he asks me if I really think so, and when I say that I do he almost smiles. And I have caught him, immediately after a scene like that, looking at himself in the mirror and pulling his face even longer than usual.... There, I've shocked you."
"No, Virginia," I said, "but I should hate to believe of any man what you believe of my father. His grief must be sincere."
"It may be," said Virginia, "or it may have been once. I believe it isn't now. I believe that if your mother came to life your father would ----"
Virginia did not finish. We were seated in the cool hall, for the porch was piping hot, and our conversation was interrupted by a loud cry emanating from the library.
"Allah -- Allah -- Allah!"
"If I weren't charitable, which I am," said Virginia, "I would say that that was done for effect. He knows we're here. Bet you, he's looking at himself in the glass."
"Virginia," I began angrily, and I was for telling her that she was ill-natured, when the library door opened and my father came out.
"Oh!" said he, with a fine start, "I did not know you were there...."
Virginia gave me one look, at once hurt and amused. Then she turned to