In the morning she was dressed and had returned from breakfast before
her mother stirred. The latter moved sharply, brought an arm up over her
head, and swore. It was a long while before she got up or spoke again,
and Linda never remembered her in a worse temper. When, finally,
she came into the room where the breakfast-tray was laid, Linda was
inexpressibly shocked--all that her mother had dreaded about her
appearance had come disastrously true. Her face was hung with shadows
like smudges of dirt and her eyes were netted with lines.
Examining the dishes with distaste she told Linda that positively she
could slap her for letting them bring up orange-juice. “How often must
I explain to you that it freezes my fingers.” Linda replied that she
had repeated this in the breakfast-room and perhaps they had the wrong
order. Neither her mother nor she said anything more until Mrs. Condon
had finished her coffee and started a second cigarette. Then Linda
related something of Mr. Moses Feldt's call on the evening before. “He
cried right into his handkerchief,” she said, “until I thought I should
sink.”
Mrs. Condon eyed her daughter speculatively. “Now if you were only four
years older,” she declared, “it would be a good thing. He was simply
born to be a husband.” Horror filled Linda at the other's implication.
“Yes,” the elder insisted; “you couldn't do better; except, perhaps,
for those girls of his. But then you'd have no trouble making them
miserable. It's time to talk to you seriously about marriage.” The smoke
from the cigarette eddied in a gray veil across her unrefreshed face.
“You're old for your age, Linda; your life has made you that; and, like
I said last night, it is rather better than not. Well, for you marriage,
and soon as possible, is the proper thing. Mind, I have never said a
word against it; only what suits one doesn't suit another. Where it
wouldn't be anything more than an old ladies' home to me you need it
early and plenty. You are too intense. That doesn't go in the world. Men
don't like it. They want their pleasure and comfort without strings tied
to them; the intensity has to be theirs.
“What you must get through your head is that love--whatever it is--and
marriage are two different things, and if you are going to be successful
they must be kept separate. You can't do anything with a man if you love
him; but then you can't do anything with him if he doesn't love you.
That's the whole thing in a breath. I am not crying down love, either;
only I don't want you to think it is the bread and butter while it's
nothing more than those little sweet cakes at Henri's.
“Now any girl who marries a poor man or for love--they are the same
thing--is a fool and deserves what she gets. No one thanks her for it,
him least of all; because if she does love him it is only to make them
miserable. She's always at him--where did he go and why did he stay so
long, and no matter what he says she knows it's a lie. More times than
not she's right, too. I can't tell you too often--men don't want to be
loved, they like to be flattered and flattered and then flattered again.
You'd never believe how childish they are.
“Make them think they're it and don't give too much--that's the secret.
Above all else don't be easy on them. Don't say 'all right, darling,
next spring will do as well for a new suit.' Get it then and let him
worry about paying for it, if worry he must. If they don't give it to
you some one smarter will wear it. But I started to talk about getting
married.
“Choose a Moses Feldt, who will always be grateful to you, and keep him
at it. They are so easy to land it's a kind of shame, too. Perhaps I am
telling you this too soon, but I don't want any mistakes. Well, pick
out your Moses--and mama will help you there--and suddenly, at the right
time, show him that you can be affectionate; surprise him with it and
you so staid and particular generally. Don't overdo it, promise more
than you ever give--
“In the closet, dearie, just a little. That's a good girl. Mama's so
dry.” She rose, the silver cup of the flask in her hand, and moved
inevitably to the mirror. “My hair's a sight,” she remarked; “all
strings. I believe I'll get a permanent wave. They say it lasts for
six months or more, till the ends grow out. Makes a lot of it, too, and
holds the front together. If you've ever had dye in your hair, I hear,
it will break off like grass.”
Linda pondered over what she had been told of love and marriage; on the
whole the exposition had been unsatisfactory. The latter she was able to
grasp, but her mother had admitted an inability exactly to fix love.
One fact, apparently, was clear--it was a nuisance and a hindrance to
happiness, or rather to success. Love upset things. Still she had the
strongest objection possible to living forever with a man like Mr.
Moses Feldt. At once all that she had hoped for from life grew flat and
uninteresting. She had no doubt of her mother's correctness and wisdom;
the world was like that; she must make the best of it.
There was some telephoning, inquiries, and she heard the elder make an
appointment with a hair-dresser for three that afternoon. She wondered
what it would be like to have your hair permanently waved and hoped
that she would see it done. This, too, she realized, was a part of the
necessity of always considering men--they liked your hair to be wavy.
Hers was as straight and stupid as possible. She, in turn, examined
herself in a mirror: the black bang fell exactly to her eyebrows, her
face had no color other than the carnation of her lips and her deep
blue eyes. She moved away and critically studied her figure; inches and
inches too thin, she decided. Undoubtedly her mother was right, and she
must marry at the first opportunity--if she could find a man, a rich
man, who was willing.
Her thoughts returned vaguely to the mystery, the nuisance, of love.
Surely she had heard something before, immensely important, about it,
and totally different from all her mother had said. Her mind was filled
with the fantastic image of a forest, of dangers, and a fat china figure
with curled plumes, a nodding head, that brushed her with fear and
disgust. A shuddering panic took possession of her, flashes burned
before her eyes, and she ran gasping to the perfumed soft reassurances
of her mother.