I
“But don’t worry, my dearest girl!” said Lionel.
“I can’t help it,” said Frances. “It’s such a waste. We could just as
well take a train. Or anyway the taxi needn’t wait. We could always find
another.”
They were on the veranda of a hotel at Long Beach, on a Sunday
afternoon, part of the crowd that Lionel liked so much.
“We might not,” he said. “There’s such a mob here. Better take no
chances. As for the train--no, thanks! Now, do be a nice kid, and not
scold me. Don’t you want me to have _any_ pleasures at all?”
“That’s not the question. Oh, Lionel, we could have just as nice a time
without being so dreadfully wasteful. It’s ... why, Lionel, it’s _mad_!”
She had a genuine dislike for extravagance and frivolity. Old traditions
from remote Defoe ancestors urged her always toward prudence and
restraint. She really couldn’t enter into Lionel’s mood, couldn’t for a
moment be careless, and would never pretend to be. She wanted dignity
and purpose; she was fond enough of fun, but it wasn’t his kind. She
could not enjoy watching other people spend money. Lionel didn’t care to
swim, or to walk; he was quite happy to sit on a crowded veranda,
drinking cocktails and chaffing his serious girl. He was happy now, in
watching the streams of people going in and out of the hotel,
over-dressed, over-perfumed, over-fed, over-stimulated. But there was
nothing here for Frankie.
All this life that Lionel had pulled her into distressed her. He had
urged her to give up her business course, and instead they went out
somewhere every evening. Miss Eppendorfer was always ready to let her
go, as long as she wasn’t left alone. She absolutely approved of Lionel.
From her point of view, he was the ideal lover, attractive and lavish.
He was continually bringing presents to Frankie, flowers, chocolates and
books. He refused to believe that she was not very fond of sweets, and
was deaf to her hints that her taste in reading was not his. She felt
like a prig, a bluestocking, with her perpetual advice and rebuke. Her
serious soul was in revolt against this waste of time; often when they
were at some blatant cabaret, she would be longing for her quiet room
and a good book. She was really weary of this ceaseless pleasure-hunt,
disgusted, and yet hadn’t the heart to deny his pleasures to Lionel. He
never read a book, and was no more capable or desirous of quiet than a
small boy.
She took it for granted that he was more or less a rich man, and that as
his wife she would be obliged to endure a good deal of this sort of
existence. She did ask him, though, if he wouldn’t just as soon live out
of town, and he said, whatever she liked. So she was able to picture
herself in one of those charming suburban houses on the Sound, with a
fine garden, and horses, and dogs. And undoubtedly children; lovely,
happy children.
He had started to work in his brother’s office, which pleased Frankie,
for she had the American woman’s dislike for an unoccupied man. He said
he was doing well, and talked of an early marriage. But that, too, was
against Frankie’s principles. She wanted to wait, not because she wasn’t
sure of herself or of him, but because a hasty marriage appeared somehow
indecent to her. She even refused to tell her own people.
“Wait till I’ve known you a little longer,” she said.
Taken all in all, this “being engaged” was not what Frankie had
expected, was by no means the happiest time of her life, as she had
always been told it would be. With Lionel, _per se_, she could find no
fault. If he had been made to order for a Defoe he could not have been
more satisfactory. He was almost like a brother in his manner, never too
ardent, too pressing, or in any way offending her squeamishness. It was
for this she really adored him, for his delicacy and genuine kindliness.
She was too ignorant fully to appreciate it; she was simply vaguely
thankful that he was not like “some men” of whom she had read and heard.
Moreover, she had a little of Horace’s absurd admiration for Lionel’s
social graces. All the solid, substantial, serious people in the world
have it, this irrational and somewhat pathetic regard for the others,
the spenders, the wasters, the ones who refuse to conform to their
righteous code, the gay and audacious good-for-nothings. She knew that
she wouldn’t have _dared_ to do as he did, live after his style.
Sometimes she had misgivings, fancied her ideas for the future were
sordid and petty, her hope for an orderly, self-respecting sort of
existence, the house in the suburbs, with books and lectures and
intellectual friends.... An existence that had no place for the poor
fellow’s febrile excitements.
Characteristically she got Lionel into the picture by assuring herself
that he would change.