HAYING TIME 



and anxious antagonists whose prerogative it was 

 to aggravate, and baffle, and outwit. They always 

 kept one trying to make out what was beneath 

 their decorative exteriors. Woman to me had 

 been for several years a predetermined hallucina 

 tion from which man was always in danger of 

 being freed by marrying it. Her most delightful 

 piquancy was a little apprehension that she would 

 at some time be caught and found out, and I fell 

 into the easy cynicism of my set, believing it was 

 pleasantest to be deceived and even saying that if 

 love began with understanding, it would begin 

 where it ought to end and that would be very 

 much like an acorn beginning by being an oak. 

 But then it is so different with a butter-pat ! You 

 are liable to melt all its lineaments unless you 

 keep it cool. Of course the masculine nature 

 never sees a butter-pat fresh and inviting, but it 

 has an irresistible dairy impulse to mould it anew 

 and generally makes a mess of it. But when a 

 man reaches the age of forty-four, perhaps butter 

 is not so apt to melt in his mouth. 



There was a fine paternal dignity on my part 

 for several weeks with this handmaiden. I in 

 structed her about Charlie and other duties with 

 a proper sense of the chasm that was to yawn 

 between us, and over which she invariably skipped 

 without the slightest recognition of it. In other 

 words, the butter-pat went on in its dairy way, 

 and I was the thing that was melted. 



Now I think of it, it was the absence of shock 

 that was doing all the work without my knowing 



49 



