“Gardy, it’s a girl.”
I recalled Chanler’s bachelor fear that some day a shrewd mama would
snare him for her young daughter, and the determination with which he
had fled whenever he found himself growing interested in a girl in a
way that threatened his bachelor’s liberty.
“Arctic Alaska is a long way to run away,” I laughed.
“Hang it, Gardy!” he snapped. “Don’t talk that way. I’m not running
away.”
“No?”
“No. I—I’m doing this because I want to—want to—I know it will shock
you—but, hang it, Gardy! I want to marry her.”
I had an uncomfortable series of visions: Chanler entangled by some
woman, a light actress, probably; family objections, and George being
sent away to the Arctic Circle while the family money convinced the
woman that she had made a mistake.
“You mean that you’re being sent up here?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, his chin sunk on his chest. “Yes, that’s it; I’m
being sent up here.”
“By——”
“By—her.” He looked straight out of the window, gnawing his underlip
nervously. “By a little girl, almost a kid, by Jove!”
He paused again, then went on didactically:
“The trouble with girls, Gardy—young girls; pretty, clever, charming
girls, you know—the trouble is they’re too popular. Too many pursuers.
Men are too eager to marry ’em. Fact. Girls have too many chances. Get
an exaggerated idea of their own importance, and pick and pick before
they decide on a chap, and then they demand that the one they’ve
picked is—is a little, white god. Fact. Even the common ones. Ordinary
man try to marry one—hah! Got to show ’em. Money? Oh, yes; big
percentage, show ’em money and they don’t ask anything else. Limousine
and poodle-dog type.
“But, hang it, Gardy, there’s a new kind of girl growing up in this
country at present, and she’s the one who makes a man trouble. New
American breed. She doesn’t look back over her shoulder to make you
follow her. Hang it, no! She stands right up to you and looks you
square in both eyes. She won’t notice when you show her money; what
she’s looking at is you. Fact. Not what you got; but what you are. New
type.
“Rotten world for men it’s getting to be. Our own fault, though. We
chase ’em; make ’em think themselves worth too much. Men ought to
quit—lose interest. That’d bring ’em to their senses, and they
wouldn’t ask a man uncomfy questions. But hang it, it’d be too late
now to do me any good,” he concluded gloomily. “I’m shot.”