"Oh, these things!... Massage and manicure and primp!--hot baths and
lotions and primp!--sleep and a little exercise to make pink cheeks and
primp some more. Hours and hours every day just to coddling our little
bodies! Isn't it all rather sickening, when you really stop to think?"
"I must say," answered Mattie, quite stiffly, "I can see nothing
sickening about it. I think it's a woman's duty to look just as well
as she can."
Carlisle rested her arm on her chair-back, and went on rubbing.
"Duty?--I wonder. Duty to whom, do you mean?"
"To everybody, to the world, to society."
"I was just trying to think," said Cally, "and it's quite fun. I believe
I'll do it at least once a week after this.--What would we think of a
man who spent four hours a day decorating himself, everlastingly working
at himself to look pretty?"
Mattie opened her wide eyes yet wider. She was now plaiting her
well-brushed hair, and looked very sweet and girlish.
"Why, that's a _very_ different thing, Cally! The same qualities aren't
expected of men and women--or they couldn't complement each other! Women
are _expected_ to be sweet and attractive, while--"
"Expected by whom?" quizzed Cally, and screwed the top down on her cold
cream (if such, indeed, it was).
"By everybody," said Mattie, falling back upon her tried phrase, "by the
world, by--"
"Why shouldn't it be expected of men to look nice, too, just as much?
Why should we have to do the whole performance? Why shouldn't we give
some of all this time to something useful, as men do?--cultivating our
minds, for instance?"
"But don't you _see_, Cally?--that isn't expected of us! Men simply do
_not_ care for clever women," cried Mattie, who had built up a
considerable social success on that very principle.
"Why should we let _them_ decide for us what we're to be? Why?--Why?
That's just what they do! We're human beings just as much as they are,
aren't we?... Oh, I'm sick of men," cried Cally.
"_You're sick of men_!" echoed Mattie, aghast as at a blasphemy.
Cally nodded slowly, her lovely eyes on her friend's tremulous face.
"Oh, it's the men who make us put in all this time tricking up ourselves
to look pretty. You know it, too, for you just gave yourself away....
Oh, Mats, wouldn't it be great to appeal to _somebody_ sometimes in some
other way!"
Mattie, apparently on the verge of tears, murmured her complete
inability to follow Cally's strange talk. Observing her, Carlisle gave a
reassuring little laugh and rose abruptly. Not that it made any special
difference, but she didn't care about setting her best friend's alert
wits too busily to work.
"Dear old Mats!--Don't take me so dreadfully _seriously_. It's all what
I read in a magazine article to-night before the German, waiting for
Robert to come. He thought he was displeased with me, and came very
late, on purpose. You don't seem to like it?"
"I _don't_ like to hear you talk so, Cally, even in fun," replied dear
old Mats, rather stiffly. "You've been strange all evening, and you
told me you didn't care whether you ever saw Mr. Canning again or not.
It isn't a bit like you."
"It certainly isn't, as mamma frequently remarks," said Cally, her laugh
dying. "Well, I'm going to be just like myself after this, never
fear.... Gentlemen always welcome. We strive to please."
She put an arm over her friend's shoulder, and in this true-friendship
attitude they strolled through the little entry and connecting bath to
the spare-room at the back where Mattie always spent the night.
"I feel terribly sorry for poor Mr. Beirne," said Mattie, in a just
voice. "You know he had a sinking-spell, and they were saying to-night
he can't possibly get well."
"Yes, I know," said Carlisle, stifling a yawn. "By the way, I must leave
cards there to-morrow. Remind me. Climb in, dear. I'll tuck you in."
"I haven't said my prayers," said Mattie, standing by the bed. "Cally,
suppose he dies and leaves a lot of money to that cunning nephew of his!
You know--Dr. Vivian--that I introduced to you that night at his house?
They say Mr. Beirne's terribly fond of him."
Cally nodded in reply, her gaze entirely blank. It appeared that in this
world there was escape neither from the nephew nor from the topic
of him.
"But what do you suppose he'd _do_ with it," queried Mattie, who was a
dear romantic thing--"living off down there in the Dabney House?
Somebody told me he didn't care at _all_ for money, only think!"
"Perhaps he'd feel differently if he had any," said Cally. "Papa says
coming into money's a sure cure for Socialism and everything of
that sort."
"Why, don't you think he's terribly _sincere_?... Don't you think lame
people usually are, somehow?"
"My dear child, I don't see why I should think about him at all.
Besides, Mr. Beirne will leave his money to the Masons. Now for some
beauty slumber--I'm quite ready for it, too! Sleep well, Mats dear."
They kissed, and parted for sweet dreams. At the door, Cally, pausing,
said:
"Oh, Mats, go with me to Madame Smythe's to-morrow? I'm buying things
for New York."
But Mats could not reply, being already at her devotions....
In her own room, Cally prayed briefly with preoccupied thoughts, and
rising, removed her thin blue robe, switched out the lights, raised
shades and windows. In the quiet street below, a cat trotted silently,
swallowed up as she watched in an immense flickering shadow from the
tall street light. The girl stood a moment, looking down, a strange wish
in her heart.
She wished for a confidante, some one to tell her troubles to. Mamma, of
course, was impossible in this connection; you never told things to
mamma, and besides, they were barely on speaking terms most of the time
now. Mattie was hardly less out of the question: a girl with many
excellent merits and her best friend, but the last person you would ever
dream of giving yourself away to. But then you really could not trust
anybody as far as that. In all the world there was no one to whom she
could go and freely pour out her unhappiness and her heart.
A self-contained and self-sufficient girl, she now felt lonesomely that
it would be a great comfort to talk everything over with somebody.
Things seemed only to get worse by being kept locked up so tight in her
own bosom. Everything was changing so, just in a little while; you could
not go by the old landmarks any more. Only a few weeks ago life had been
more serene, more secure and halcyon than ever before. Now, as from the
clouds, one hard stroke fell after another; old established certainties
exploded with a bang all about. Nothing seemed to be fixed or to be
relied upon any more, nothing seemed to be settled. How had she fallen
only this afternoon, supposing herself high-born of great institutions,
to find herself in the turning of an eyelash merely the creature of an
ugly little rattletrap!... But no,--no! That was simply ridiculous.
Business was like that. No one had ever really supposed that a factory
could possibly be anything different....
Agitating such matters as these, Cally Heth got into bed and pulled up
the covers. She repelled the thought of the Works, as she had done, all
evening. Nevertheless the last thing she thought of as she dropped off
to sleep was Dr. Vivian, as he stood and looked up at her from the dingy
sidewalk. She wondered whether she would have agreed to speak to papa
about that girl, if only the Works hadn't looked so _awful_....