"Oh, marriage. Marriage and happiness and—she said every unmarried woman was a failure."
"That shouldn't have bothered Celia. She's married, safe enough. She certainly had Beck there."
"Beck intimated that Orville wasn't worth waiting ten years for."
"Most men aren't," spoke up great-aunt Charlotte from her corner, "and their wives don't know it until after they've been married ten years; and then it's too late. Celia had plenty of time to find it out first and she married him anyway. That's better. She'll be happy with him."
"Charlotte Thrift!" called Charley, through the laughter. "You couldn't be so wise just living to be seventy-four. Oh, you hoop-skirted gals weren't so prunes-and-prismy. You've had a past. I'm sure of it."
"How d'you suppose I could have faced the future all these years if I hadn't had!" retorted Aunt Charlotte.
"That Schaefer girl had better go slow." Henry Kemp blew a whole flock of smoke-rings for Charley's edification at which Charley, unedified, announced that she could blow better rings than any of these in size, number, and velocity with a despised gold-tipped perfumed cigarette and cold-sore on the upper lip. "Some day," he predicted, "some day she'll run away with a bell-hop. Just the type."
"Who's run away with a bell-hop?" Mrs. Payson chose this unfortunate moment to enter the living room after her kitchen conference.
"Beck Schaefer," said Charley, mischievously.
You should have seen, then, the quick glance of terror that Mrs. Payson darted at Lottie. You might almost have thought that Lottie had been the one who had succumbed to the lure of youth in blue suit and brass buttons.