When Marjorie and Bernice reached home at half after midnight
they said good night at the top of the stairs. Though cousins,
they were not intimates. As a matter of fact Marjorie had no
female intimates--she considered girls stupid. Bernice on the
contrary all through this parent-arranged visit had rather longed
to exchange those confidences flavored with giggles and tears
that she considered an indispensable factor in all feminine
intercourse. But in this respect she found Marjorie rather cold;
felt somehow the same difficulty in talking to her that she had
in talking to men. Marjorie never giggled, was never frightened,
seldom embarrassed, and in fact had very few of the qualities
which Bernice considered appropriately and blessedly feminine.
As Bernice busied herself with tooth-brush and paste this night
she wondered for the hundredth time why she never had any
attention when she was away from home. That her family were the
wealthiest in Eau Claire; that her mother entertained
tremendously, gave little diners for her daughter before all
dances and bought her a car of her own to drive round in, never
occurred to her as factors in her home-town social success. Like
most girls she had been brought up on the warm milk prepared by
Annie Fellows Johnston and on novels in which the female was
beloved because of certain mysterious womanly qualities always
mentioned but never displayed.
Bernice felt a vague pain that she was not at present engaged in
being popular. She did not know that had it not been for
Marjorie's campaigning she would have danced the entire evening
with one man; but she knew that even in Eau Claire other girls
with less position and less pulchritude were given a much bigger
rush. She attributed this to something subtly unscrupulous in
those girls. It had never worried her, and if it had her mother
would have assured her that the other girls cheapened themselves
and that men really respected girls like Bernice.
She turned out the light in her bathroom, and on an impulse
decided to go in and chat for a moment with her aunt Josephine,
whose light was still on. Her soft slippers bore her noiselessly
down the carpeted hall, but hearing voices inside she stopped
near the partly openers door. Then she caught her own name, and
without any definite intention of eavesdropping lingered--and the
thread of the conversation going on inside pierced her
consciousness sharply as if it had been drawn through with a
needle.
"She's absolutely hopeless!" It was Marjorie's voice. "Oh, I know
what you're going to say! So many people have told you how
pretty and sweet she is, and how she can cook! What of it? She
has a bum time. Men don't like her."
"What's a little cheap popularity?"
Mrs. Harvey sounded annoyed.
"It's everything when you're eighteen," said Marjorie
emphatically. "I've done my best. I've been polite and I've made
men dance with her, but they just won't stand being bored. When I
think of that gorgeous coloring wasted on such a ninny, and
think what Martha Carey could do with it--oh!"
"There's no courtesy these days."
Mrs. Harvey's voice implied that modern situations were too much
for her. When she was a girl all young ladies who belonged to
nice families had glorious times.
"Well," said Marjorie, "no girl can permanently bolster up a
lame-duck visitor, because these days it's every girl for
herself. I've even tried to drop hints about clothes and things,
and she's been furious--given me the funniest looks. She's
sensitive enough to know she's not getting away with much, but
I'll bet she consoles herself by thinking that she's very
virtuous and that I'm too gay and fickle and will come to a bad
end. All unpopular girls think that way. Sour grapes! Sarah
Hopkins refers to Genevieve and Roberta and me as gardenia girls!
I'll bet she'd give ten years of her life and her European
education to be a gardenia girl and have three or four men in
love with her and be cut in on every few feet at dances."
"It seems to me," interrupted Mrs. Harvey rather wearily, "that
you ought to be able to do something for Bernice. I know she's
not very vivacious."
Marjorie groaned.
"Vivacious! Good grief! I've never heard her say anything to a
boy except that it's hot or the floor's crowded or that she's
going to school in New York next year. Sometimes she asks them
what kind of car they have and tells them the kind she has.
Thrilling!"
There was a short silence and then Mrs. Harvey took up her
refrain:
"All I know is that other girls not half so sweet and attractive
get partners. Martha Carey, for instance, is stout and loud, and
her mother is distinctly common. Roberta Dillon is so thin this
year that she looks as though Arizona were the place for her.
She's dancing herself to death."
"But, mother," objected Marjorie impatiently, "Martha is cheerful
and awfully witty and an awfully slick girl, and Roberta's a
marvellous dancer. She's been popular for ages!"
Mrs. Harvey yawned.
"I think it's that crazy Indian blood in Bernice," continued
Marjorie. "Maybe she's a reversion to type. Indian women all
just sat round and never said anything."
"Go to bed, you silly child," laughed Mrs. Harvey. "I wouldn't
have told you that if I'd thought you were going to remember it.
And I think most of your ideas are perfectly idiotic," she
finished sleepily.
There was another silence, while Marjorie considered whether or
not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over
forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At
eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at
forty-five they are caves in which we hide.
Having decided this, Marjorie said good night. When she came out
into the hall it was quite empty.