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– the word had slipped out before she realized it, and she bit her lip. Too late she decided to be amused, and offered him a flustered smile
Warren was annoyed. Though not accustomed to have that remark taken seriously, still it usually provoked a laugh or a paragraph of sentimental banter. And he hated to be called fresh, except in a joking way. His charitable impulse died and he switched the topic.
‘Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest sitting out as usual,’ he commented.
This was more in Bernice’s line, but a faint regret mingled with her relief as the subject changed. Men did not talk to her about kissable mouths, but she knew that they talked in some such way to other girls.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, and laughed. ‘I hear they’ve been mooning around for years without a red penny. Isn’t it silly?’
Warren’s disgust increased. Jim Strain was a close friend of his brother’s, and anyway he considered it bad form to sneer at people for not having money. But Bernice had had no intention of sneering. She was merely nervous.
II
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 hear 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 opened 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.
III
While Marjorie was breakfasting late next day Bernice came into the room with a rather formal good morning, sat down opposite, stared intently over and slightly moistened her lips.
‘What’s on your mind?’ inquired Marjorie, rather puzzled.
Bernice paused before she threw her hand-grenade.
‘I heard what you said about me to your mother last night.’
Marjorie was startled, but she showed only a faintly heightened color and her voice was quite even when she spoke.
‘Where were you?’
‘In the hall. I didn’t mean to listen – at first.’
After an involuntary look of contempt Marjorie dropped her eyes and became very interested in balancing a stray corn-flake on her finger.’
‘I guess I’d better go back to Eau Claire – if I’m such a nuisance.’ Bernice’s lower lip was trembling violently and she continued on a wavering note: ‘I’ve tried to be nice, and – and I’ve been first neglected and then insulted. No one ever visited me and got such treatment.’
Marjorie was silent.
‘But I’m