“Mammon and the Archer” by O. Henry Essay Example

itself in Mrs. Hemingway's brain. The second day she remarked to Jack Hemingway, her husband, that Loretta was so innocent a young thing that were it not for her sweet guilelessness she would be positively stupid. In proof of which, Mrs. Hemingway told her husband several things that made him chuckle.

By the third day Mrs. Hemingway's plan had taken recognizable form. Then it was that she composed a letter. On the envelope she wrote: "Mr. Edward Bashford, Athenian Club, San Francisco. " "Dear Ned," the letter began. She had once been violently loved by him for three weeks in her pre-marital days. But she had covenanted herself to Jack Hemingway, who had prior claims, and her heart as well; and Ned Bashford had philosophically not broken his heart over it. He merely added the experience to a large fund of similarly collected data out of which he manufactured philosophy.

Artistically and temperamentally he was a Greek-- a tired Greek. He was fond of quoting from Nietzsche, in token that he, too, had passed through the long sickness that follows upon the ardent search for truth; that he too had emerged, too experienced, too shrewd, too profound, ever again to be afflicted by the madness of youths in their love of truth. "'To worship appearance,'" he often quoted; "'to believe in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus of appearance! '" This particular excerpt he always concluded with, "'Those Greeks were superficial

He was a fairly young Greek, jaded and worn. Women were faithless and unveracious, he held--at such times that he had relapses and descended to pessimism from his wonted high philosophical

calm. He did not believe in the truth of women; but, faithful to his German master, he did not strip from them the airy gauzes that veiled their untruth. He was content to accept them as appearances and to make the best of it. He was superficial- -OUT OF PROFUNDITY. "Jack says to be sure to say to you, 'good swimming,'" Mrs. Hemingway wrote in her letter; "and also 'to bring your fishing duds along. "

Mrs. Hemingway wrote other things in the letter. She told him that at last she was prepared to exhibit to him an absolutely true, unsullied, and innocent woman. "A more guileless, immaculate bud of womanhood never blushed on the planet," was one of the several ways in which she phrased the inducement. And to her husband she said triumphantly, "If I don't marry Ned off this time--" leaving unstated the terrible alternative that she lacked either vocabulary to express or imagination to conceive. Contrary to all her forebodings, Loretta found that she was not unhappy at Santa Clara.

Truly, Billy wrote to her every day, but his letters were less distressing than his presence. Also, the ordeal of being away from Daisy was not so severe as she had expected. For the first time in her life she was not lost in eclipse in the blaze of Daisy's brilliant and mature personality. Under such favourable circumstances Loretta came rapidly to the front, while Mrs. Hemingway modestly and shamelessly retreated into the background. Loretta began to discover that she was not a pale orb shining by reflection. Quite unconsciously she became a small centre of things.

When she was at

the piano, there was some one to turn the pages for her and to express preferences for certain songs. When she dropped her handkerchief, there was some one to pick it up. And there was some one to accompany her in ramblings and flower gatherings. Also, she learned to cast flies in still pools and below savage riffles, and how not to entangle silk lines and gut-leaders with the shrubbery. Jack Hemingway did not care to teach beginners, and fished much by himself, or not at all, thus giving Ned Bashford ample time in which to consider Loretta as an appearance. As such, she was all that his philosophy demanded.

Her blue eyes had the direct gaze of a boy, and out of his profundity he delighted in them and forbore to shudder at the duplicity his philosophy bade him to believe lurked in their depths. She had the grace of a slender flower, the fragility of colour and line of fine china, in all of which he pleasured greatly, without thought of the Life Force palpitating beneath and in spite of Bernard Shaw--in whom he believed. Loretta burgeoned. She swiftly developed personality. She discovered a will of her own and wishes of her own that were not everlastingly entwined with the will and the wishes of Daisy.

She was petted by Jack Hemingway, spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by Ned Bashford. They encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while she developed the pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty and delicate women. Her environment acted as a soporific upon her ancient desire always to live with Daisy. This

desire no longer prodded her as in the days of her companionship with Billy. The more she saw of Billy, the more certain she had been that she could not live away from Daisy. The more she saw of Ned Bashford, the more she forgot her pressing need of Daisy. Ned Bashford likewise did some forgetting.

He confused superficiality with profundity, and entangled appearance with reality until he accounted them one. Loretta was different from other women. There was no masquerade about her. She was real. He said as much to Mrs. Hemingway, and more, who agreed with him and at the same time caught her husband's eyelid drooping down for the moment in an unmistakable wink. It was at this time that Loretta received a letter from Billy that was somewhat different from his others. In the main, like all his letters, it was pathological. It was a long recital of symptoms and sufferings, his nervousness, his sleeplessness, and the state of his heart.

Then followed reproaches, such as he had never made before. They were sharp enough to make her weep, and true enough to put tragedy into her face. This tragedy she carried down to the breakfast table. It made Jack and Mrs. Hemingway speculative, and it worried Ned. They glanced to him for explanation, but he shook his head. "I'll find out to-night," Mrs. Hemingway said to her husband. But Ned caught Loretta in the afternoon in the big living-room. She tried to turn away. He caught her hands, and she faced him with wet lashes and trembling lips. He looked at her, silently and kindly.

The lashes grew wetter. There,

there, don't cry, little one," he said soothingly. He put his arm protectingly around her shoulder. And to his shoulder, like a tired child, she turned her face. He thrilled in ways unusual for a Greek who has recovered from the long sickness. "Oh, Ned," she sobbed on his shoulder, "if you only knew how wicked I am! " He smiled indulgently, and breathed in a great breath freighted with the fragrance of her hair. He thought of his world-experience of women, and drew another long breath. There seemed to emanate from her the perfect sweetness of a child--"the aura of a white soul," was the way he phrased it to himself.

Then he noticed that her sobs were increasing. "What's the matter, little one? " he asked pettingly and almost paternally. "Has Jack been bullying you? Or has your dearly beloved sister failed to write? " She did not answer, and he felt that he really must kiss her hair, that he could not be responsible if the situation continued much longer. "Tell me," he said gently, "and we'll see what I can do. " "I can't. You will despise me. --Oh, Ned, I am so ashamed! " He laughed incredulously, and lightly touched her hair with his lips--so lightly that she did not know. "Dear little one, let us forget all about it, whatever it is.

I want to tell you how I love--" She uttered a sharp cry that was all delight, and then moaned-- "Too late! " "Too late? " he echoed in surprise. "Oh, why did I? Why did I? " she was moaning. He was aware of a swift

chill at his heart. "What? " he asked. "Oh, I . . . he . . . Billy. "I am such a wicked woman, Ned. I know you will never speak to me again. " "This--er--this Billy," he began haltingly. "He is your brother? " "No . . . he . . . I didn't know. I was so young. I could not help it. Oh, I shall go mad! I shall go mad! " It was then that Loretta felt his shoulder and the encircling arm become limp.

He drew away from her gently, and gently he deposited her in a big chair, where she buried her face and sobbed afresh. He twisted his moustache fiercely, then drew up another chair and sat down. "I--I do not understand," he said. "I am so unhappy," she wailed. "Why unhappy? " "Because . . . he . . . he wants me to marry him. " His face cleared on the instant, and he placed a hand soothingly on hers. "That should not make any girl unhappy," he remarked sagely. "Because you don't love him is no reason-of course, you don't love him.