MAY hath 31 days SWEET May stood putting on her last venereal Touches while Patience Scalpel held forth in that divine and ethereal Voice for which she was noted, the Voice of one whose Ankles are nibbled by the Cherubs, while amid the Rugs Dame Musset brought Doll Furious to a certainty. "What", said Patience Scalpal, "can you women see in each other? Where is the Parting of the Ways and the Horseman that hunts? Where", she reflected, "there is Prostitution and Drunkeness, there is bound to be Immorality, or I do not count the Times, but what is this?" "And", said Dame Musset, rising in Bed, "that's all there is, and there is no more!" "But oh!" cried Doll. "Down Woman", said Dame Musset in her friendliest, "there may be a mustard seed!" Now the sisters Nip and Tuck, two hearty Lasses who claimed all of Spain as their Torment, knocking on the Shutters, were let in. "We come", said they "to let you know there is a Flall loose in the Town who is crying from Corner to Niche, in that lamenting Herculean Voice that sounds to us like a Sister lost, for certainly it is not the Whine of Motherhood, but a more mystic, sodden Sighing. So it seems to us, as Members of the Sect, we should deliver to you this piece of Information, that you may repair what has never been damaged." "It shall be done, and done most wily well", said the Dame, buckling on her Four-in-hand, and clapping her Busby athwart her roguish Knee, "Where was she last seen, and which way going?" "She was ramping in the Bois", said Nip, "and tearing through the Champs Elysées," said Tuck, "and was last seen in a Cloud of Dust, hot foot after an historic Fact." "A grain, a grain!" lamented Doll. "She shall be thrown", said Dame Musset, regarding not, "and well branded, i' the Bottom, Flank, or Buttocks-boss. To scent, we will chase her into a very Tangle of Temptation!" Now who was it these good Women hunted but Bounding Bess, noted for her Enthusiasm in things forgotten, and having paced it ably up the dusty Lengths of the Elysées, they suddenly came upon her, compounding Maxims by the Wayside. She was grand at History, and nothing short of magnificent at Concentration, so it was that the Sisters Nip and Tuck and the good Saint Musset came to a Pause, and she nowise aware of them, saying to herself (for who ever held that Soliloquy was for Hamlet alone?) "There have been great Women in History and though now they face upward, they have me to repine. Not the least of these was somewhat turned to Love. The good Catherine of Russia thought nothing of twittering over a Man at ten, and at twelve thundering down Diderot, or some as fine, and in like manner was not Sappho herself, though given to singing over the limp Bodies of Girls like any noisy Nightingale, nevertheless held in great Respect by the philosophers of her time? Therefore if I sense in myself a tendency to that Trifle of Craft known hereabouts as Miss Spiritus, who sings Psalms for the Rosicrucians, or whatever that new Cult may be, why should I, in yielding to that Impulse, necessarily come a Cropper, and be found witless and wanting, though laid all of a Stretch on some enchanting Green? One can but try! Nay, but I think it a Chance in a million to prove, no matter what the Mount, that one may come down well enough in one's Wits, to yet be taken seriously when discussing the Destiny of Nations." "That woman's Feet", said Dame Musset, in that hard, practical and clear Voice, which has been heard coming from all Lungs the World over, an they blow in a Spartan Chest, "are all Heels, and what do they ever portend but a pedant. They are always gaited thus, and know not whether they are walking into or out of Truth. She is not for us!" and so saying, she cracked her Whip against her Boot, turning toward a Pasty Shop hard by, Nip at her Heels, but sensing a short Sound in the Herd, the Dame turned back, there to behold (as was her Custom) Miss Tuck seated a little too close to History, or whatever it was that Bounding Bess radiated, and toying, in that brief Second, with minor Details that went as far back as the Fall of Rome. "She is, has been, and ever will be," said Miss Nip, "a darling Detriment to Sleep and Sequence, and will, no doubt, come home as riddled as a Medlar, resembling, in no small degree, the first Round of a Butcher's Picnic, or the premier Half of a Trunk Murder, for that Girl," she said pleasantly, "has in her a trifle of Terrier Blood, and must be forever worrying at every Petticoat as ever dangled over a Hip in this our time!" "Tis a blessing, " commented Dame Musset, selecting two of the happiest combinations in Cake, "that some of us are mortal and must suffer Death. The Future needs it, as we need Sleep. I live," she added, "for two remaining Ferocities, Food and Understanding!" "Tell me about it!" said Nip, for she was at best a little curious, being hard pressed by Journalism, and could not let a Morsel go, though she knew well that it could be printed nowhere and in no Country, for Life is represented in no City by a Journal dedicated to the Undercurrents, or for that matter to any real Fact whatsoever. "In my day," said Dame Musset, and at once the look of the Pope, which she carried about with her as a Habit, waned a little, and there was seen to shine forth the Cunning of a Monk in Holy Orders, in some Country too old for Tradition, "in my day I was a Pioneer and a Menace, it was not then as it is now, chic and pointless to a degree, but as daring as a Crusade, for where now it leaves a woman talkative, so that we have not a Secret among us, then it left her in Tears and Trepidation. Then one had to lure them to the Breast, and now," she said, "You have to smack them, back and front to ween them at all! What joy has the missionary," she added, her Eyes narrowing and her long Ears moving with Disappointment, "when all the Heathen greet her with Glory Halleluja! before she opens her Mouth, and with an Amen! before she shuts it! I would," she said, "that there were one Woman somewhere that one could take to task for Lethargy. Ah!" she sighed, "there were many such when I was a Girl, and in particular I recall one dear old Countess who was not to be convinced until I, fervid with Truth, had finally so floored her in every capacious Room of that dear ancestral Home, that I knew to a Button, how every Ticking was made! And what a lack of Art there is in the Upholstery Trade, for that they do not finish off the under Parts of Sofas and Chairs with anything like Elegance showered upon that Portion which comes to the Eye! There should," she added, with a touch of that committee strain which flowed in a deep wide Stream in her Sister, "be Trade for Contacts, guarding that on which the Lesbian Eye must, in its March through Life, rest itself. I would not, however," she said, "have it understood that I yearn with any very great Vastness for the early eighties; then Girls were as mute as a Sampler, and as importunate as a War, and would have me lay on, charge and retreat the night through, as if," she finished, "a Woman, be she ever so good of Intention and a Martyr, could wind herself upon one Convert, and still find Strength in the Nape of her Neck for the next. Still," she remarked, sipping a little hot tea, "they were dear Creatures, and they have paced me to a contented and knowing fifty. I am well pleased. Upon my Sword there is no Rust, and upon my Escutcheon so many Stains that I have, in this manner, created my own Banner and my own Badge. I have learned on the Bodies of all Women, all Customs, and from their Minds have all Nations given up their Secrets. I know that the Orientals are cold to the Waist, and from there flame with a mighty and quick crackling Fire. I have learned that Anglo Saxons thaw slowly but that they thaw from Head to Heel, and so it is with their Minds. The Asiatic is warm and willing, and goes out like a Firecracker; the Northerner is cool and cautious, but burns and burns, until," she said reminiscently, "you see that Candle lit by you in youth, burning about your Bier in Death. It is time now that I find me a Night-light, and just what Fusion of Bloods it be, I have not as yet determined, but--I think I have found it." "Where!" exclaimed Nip, looking about her with a touch of kindly Apprehension. "The Night-Light of Love," said Saint Musset, "burns I think me in the slightly muted Crevices of all Women who have been a little sprung with continual playing of the Spring Song, though I may be mistaken, for be it known, I have not yet made certain on this Point. There is one such in our midst on whom I have had a Weather Eye these many Years. She is a little concocted of one bad night in Venice and one sly Woman going to morning Mass, her Name is writ from here to Sicily, as Cynic Sal. She dressed like a Coachman of the period of Pecksniff, but she drives an empty Hack. And that is one Woman," she said, "who shall yet find me as Fare, and if at the Journey's end, she still cracks as sharp a Whip, and has never once descended the Drivers's Seat to put her Head within to see what rumpled meaning there sits, why she may sing for her Pains, I shall get off at London and find me another who has somewhat of a budding Care for a Passenger." "But she not the Woman," said Nip flightily, "who is of so vain and jealous a Nature that do what you will you cannot please her, and mention this or that, she is not contented? For if it be the one, she has passed through my ken as Timid Tom, or Most-Infirm-of-Purpose." "It may be," said Dame Musset, "and it may not." "How true that is when 'tis said of a Woman," acknowledged Nip; "no Man could be both one and neither like to us, and now," she said "I see Miss Tuck this way wending, hot and hunting, and I think me she stands in Need of a fal-lal or two in the shape of a Sandwich, and a dish of Tea, for she has the look to me of one who has laid Waste a barren Land. That pathetic Expression one occasionally observes on the Faces of our younger, less acute Generation; her under Lip doth hang with a Dexterity that has found no Thanks." "Ah Woe is me!" sighed Miss Tuck, seating herself at the Table, and leaning upon a tiny pocket Handkerchief, "you, my dear Musset were, as always, quite right. She thaws nothing but Facts, do what I would, nor one unfathomed Mystery in the Lot! Nor alas, one gentle Fancy such as sends the Pigeon up among his Feathers, nay, nor one Crumb untabulated, be it ever so infinitesimal. For no matter what I came upon but that Wench had some Word for it! Now it was Horace, now it was Spinoza, and yet again it was the Descent of Man," she shuddered, "and that Descent," said she in a dreadful Whisper, "I will have nothing to do with, here or then! When a Woman is as well seasoned in her every Joint as she, with exact and enduring Knowledge, there is nothing for it but to let her add herself up to an impossible Zero, and so come to her Death of that premeditated Accuracy, but then," she said, putting a soft little Hand into that of Miss Nip, "you know how fast I recover, and how many Hours there are in a Day." "Some women", said Dame Musset, "are Sea-Cattle, and some are Land-Hogs, and yet others are Worms crawling about our Almanacks, but some," she said, "are Sisters of Heaven, and these we must follow and not be side-tracked." "How am I to help it if I go astray," cried Miss Tuck, "when every Law of Love and Desire was long ago as mixed as a Contortion of Traffic? I do not know a blind Alley from a Boulevard, nor a Cross-Road to what it may be running to, and Sign-Posts never serve for anything but unsettling my Mind!" "You," cut in Miss Nip, "would follow, all painting and blind with good Intentions, the Trail of a Field Mouse! There is no Land so uncharted of Trails but you would find a Ribbon of Comfort even in the Desert, and lead yourself, by your very Fury of Willingness, into a Wallow of Trouble before Sundown!" "Oh God, don't I know it!" sobbed Tuck. *