STUDY IN JILTING

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 5288, 28 May 1904, Page 13

STUDY IN JILTING

(Dy Helen Eoivlaud.) •‘Folly Loo'. l ’ I exclaimed, “what on earth are ycyu Join;;?’' Folly was standing behind a big palm an/1 peeping saucily through its leaves it Abbingdon Dure, who was dodging foolishly about a lot of plants at the other end ol the conservatory. ‘■Don’t!" ssiitl Poily. "Don't intorrup'. Mr Bare is just teaching me a rev game'

“It’s ‘Jilt!’” said Abbingdon, looking oven inoro foolish than before. “Very latest thing in London. You play it on i lawn with a lot of trees, you know.” “And you were teaching my fiancee how to—jiilt!” “1 wanted to know/’ said Polly. “And I was just explaining,” said Abbingdon, coming out from behind tinplants and laughing, “that yen could do it in the conservatory.” “No .doubt," I remarked sarcastically. "‘But you needn’t intrude any longer—” “He isn’t intruding,” said Polly. “It’s yon.” “Oh. well Heavyfoatlicr.” said Ahtingdon, with disgusting good- nature, “1 mres-s I’ve had enough. I’m off. Awfully sorry, Miss Lee.” “About what?” Polly's eyebrows archil! -hemsplvi's in beautiful astonishment. “Oh. well, that you’re so very much—engaged.”

“ Everybody is,” said Polly, reassuringly, "except Jack.” “And now.” said X. as Abbingdon Dare’s coat tails disappeared through the door, “will you please explain—” “Oh, yes.” said Polly, spreading out her chiffon, ruffles and sitting composedly on the edge of a huge jardiniere. "It’s very easy. One of von has to follow the other through the trees, and the ana that loses the other first—”

“I didn’t ask you to explain the game!” I corrected. “I asked you to explain about Abbinjrdon Dare.” Hotly looked meditatively at the roses in her hand.

“Oh, x can’t do that.” she said, pulli*-*' tue petals off the largest rose. "It wns »c long ago. Besides.” she went on. glancing up brightly. “Abblngdon’s engaged now, and it wouldn’t do to rake up old—” “I'm not talking of tho past,” I remarked.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” said PoV.y, in a tone of relief. “’Chen you’ll let mo tell yuu »bout tho game. There’s really a a\ art in it. And it’s over so m-ich fun, onco you know how. You see, you both start perfectly fair—” “In the game of ‘Jiltl’” I exclaimed. "Never, Polly. Somebody’s always on tho wrong Ride of tho tree, or in the dark, or inexperienced, or—”

. “Poor players,” said Polly, “should not be let into the game. That makes it uninteresting and inartistic. Nobody enjoys an uneven game. It’s only a i-ory silly woman, or a very shabby man. who chooses an unskilled partner and l dcwT" give Hs or ber opponent a perfectly fair slow” “And yet,” I remarked reflectively, gazing at the trail of smoke from my cigar, as it floated out toward the ballroom, where Abbingdon Dare was wa'tzing with' the auburn-haired Doming girl there have been cases in which brub 3 ha-.- - been left standing at le ni'tair waiting for grooms that never came,- an,d where grooms have been left, brideless right at the wedding party, with the carriage paid for and the wedding cake on the stove—” “Itat.” said Polly, looking scorntn'l.r it the petals of the shattered rose, “is not jilting. It is as much like jilting sc riding a broncho is like bringing a blooded torso under the wire first in a race It is the work of a bung'er, not of tbo artist. And jilting is a tine art. It is not necessary to break anybody’s heart, nor to hurt anybody’s pride, just because you have discovered that ; t is u-cessary to—er—to” “To what?”

"Well to put an end to an affair *haril as grown a littio too serious,’' said Polly, cautiously. “If you are subtle and wise about it, there are ways of jilting that make the jilted person fee! actually grateful, almost aa though you had paid hjm or her a compliment, you know, instead of that you had grown tired and wanted to cal) it off. Leaving a girl at the altar, or deserting a man at the last moment is like waving your scalp in the air and setting the town crier mit to tell the neighbours. It is trudoness and rudeness and folly all in one. It is only in melodrama that the leading lady flings the ring into her lover's face or the leading man flings the weeping maiden from him like an old handkerchief. The artistic jilt goes about with his scalps carefully concealed beneath his waistcoat.”

“Like the gentleman burglar with his tools.” I suggested. “Yes, and the wise girl doesn’t flaunt her mittens in the faces of her friends. Only a savage gloats over the spoils of a battle.”

“But yon are away at the end of the game. Polly. And yon were going to begin at the beginning.” “Oh, yes, I forgot,” said Polly, chewing a rose leaf reflectively. “When a man starts out with the intention of jilting—” “But he never does,” 1 sighed. “He often starts nut without any intentions at all,” said Polly; “and that is exactly the same thing. It is only fair,” she went on. “to give the girl to understand that it is just play—” “It strikes me. Miss Lee,” I said severely, “that yon are looking upon a love affair as a sort of theatrical comedy.” Polly put another rose leaf in her mouth.

“Ninewtenths of them are,” she said nodding wisely. “Only the leading actors don’t realise that it’s comedy unt'l the last moment. It is only when a man is brutal enough to let a flirtation reach the engagement stage or a girl is silly enough to blind herself to the truths that one of them turns out a tragedy of a melodrama.

“I once know a man,” and Polly looked dreamily oil into the distance, where Abbingdon Dare was still waltzing with the auburn-haired Downing girl? who could break off an affair so artistically that the girl felt as though she had broken it off herself, and so effectively that everybody sympathised with him. and applauded instead of hissing when the curtain went down. Some way he knew how to lead up to the climax, and make the girl say the final word and ting down the curtain herself. He was so gently chivalrous, so woefully regretful, so sentimentally sad, that tho girl felt flattered rather than insulted. It was only years afterward that she realised that she had been jilted.” “And did she feel badly then, Polly?” “Not at all. She even took him into the conservatory and had him show her how—” <r Why, Polly. And so that was what yon were doing.” I flung my cigar away and looked severely at Polly, sitting on the tip end of the pardinicrc, dike a butterfly on a rose petal.

“Well,” said Polly, “I had to. I was so lonely.” . , “Why, where was 1?” 1 exclaimed. “And he had to,” went on Polly, b-t----ing tho stem of her rose, “because he felt HO' stupid up against the wall without any pockets to put his hands in and nobody to talk to.” “Where was his fiancee?” I inquired with dignified reproach. Polly took the rose out of her mouth and filing it away spitefully. “You were waltzing together.” she said, “for the third time this evening!’