“We might not,” he said. “There’s such a mob here. Better take no chances. As for the train—no, thanks! Now, do be a nice kid, and not scold me. Don’t you want me to have any pleasures at all?”
“That’s not the question. Oh, Lionel, we could have just as nice a time without being so dreadfully wasteful. It’s ... why, Lionel, it’s mad!”
She had a genuine dislike for extravagance and frivolity. Old traditions from remote Defoe ancestors urged her always toward prudence and restraint. She really couldn’t enter into Lionel’s mood, couldn’t for a moment be careless, and would never pretend to be. She wanted dignity and purpose; she was fond enough of fun, but it wasn’t his kind. She could not enjoy watching other people spend money. Lionel didn’t care to swim, or to walk; he was quite happy to sit on a crowded veranda, drinking cocktails and chaffing his serious girl. He was happy now, in watching the streams of people going in and out of the hotel, over-dressed, over-perfumed, over-fed, over-stimulated. But there was nothing here for Frankie.
All this life that Lionel had pulled her into distressed her. He had urged her to give up her business course, and instead they went out somewhere every evening. Miss Eppendorfer was always ready to let her go, as long as she wasn’t left alone. She absolutely approved of Lionel. From her point of view, he was the ideal lover, attractive and lavish. He was continually bringing presents to Frankie, flowers, chocolates and books. He refused to believe that she was not very fond of sweets, and was deaf to her hints that her taste in reading was not his. She felt like a prig, a bluestocking, with her perpetual advice and rebuke. Her serious soul was in revolt against this waste of time; often when they were at some blatant cabaret, she would be longing for her quiet room and a good book. She was really weary of this ceaseless pleasure-hunt, disgusted, and yet hadn’t the heart to deny his pleasures to Lionel. He never read a book, and was no more capable or desirous of quiet than a small boy.
She took it for granted that he was more or less a rich man, and that as his wife she would be obliged to endure a good deal of this sort of existence. She did ask him, though, if he wouldn’t just as soon live out of town, and he said, whatever she liked. So she was able to picture herself in one of those charming suburban houses on the Sound, with a fine garden, and horses, and dogs. And undoubtedly children; lovely, happy children.
He had started to work in his brother’s office, which pleased Frankie, for she had the American woman’s dislike for an unoccupied man. He said he was doing well, and talked of an early marriage. But that, too, was against Frankie’s principles. She wanted to wait, not because she wasn’t sure of herself or of him, but because a hasty marriage appeared somehow indecent to her. She even refused to tell her own people.
“Wait till I’ve known you a little longer,” she said.
Taken all in all, this “being engaged” was not what Frankie had expected, was by no means the happiest time of her life, as she had always been told it would be. With Lionel, per se, she could find no fault. If he had been made to order for a Defoe he could not have been more satisfactory. He was almost like a brother in his manner, never too ardent, too pressing, or in any way offending her squeamishness. It was for this she really adored him, for his delicacy and genuine kindliness. She was too ignorant fully to appreciate it; she was simply vaguely thankful that he was not like “some men” of whom she had read and heard.
Moreover, she had a little of Horace’s absurd admiration for Lionel’s social graces. All the solid, substantial, serious people in the world have it, this irrational and somewhat pathetic regard for the others, the spenders, the wasters, the ones who refuse to conform to their righteous code, the gay and audacious good-for-nothings. She knew that she wouldn’t have dared to do as he did, live after his style. Sometimes she had misgivings, fancied her ideas for the future were sordid and petty, her hope for an orderly, self-respecting sort of existence, the house in the suburbs, with books and lectures and intellectual friends.... An existence that had no place for the poor fellow’s febrile excitements.
Characteristically she got Lionel into the picture by assuring herself that he would change.