Winnie roused herself to make contribution to the chorus: “It was awful of you to have gone on letting him talk to you after he had insulted you.”
“Why? I was curious what he had done it for. It can’t have been passion, romance—not even the dawn of love, Winnie—for any stray girl in a railway carriage. I had just wanted to be friendly. And I was frightened out of being friendly, by ... well, the male habit. I’d had no desire to spring upon him the moment we were alone. I told him so.”
“You didn’t! Deb, you are! What did he say?”
“Grinned and said: ‘You’re an odd kid. Here’s your station, isn’t it? Good-bye and good luck.’ He helped me out, and I asked if I might finish the cigarette or if under the circumstances it was etiquette to throw it away?... Oh, the incident was nothing; the whole moral of it is, that it wouldn’t have happened to Antonia, so it’s no good lecturing me according to the Antonian standard. Or the Gillian standard either—great loves don’t come to such as me.”
“Because you experiment in small loves,” Gillian lit a cigarette and planted both feet on the mantelpiece, “small loves and small loaves and half loaves——”
“Better than no bread.”
“Wrong again. You must have learnt by now that it’s either Heaven ... or always the same.”
“Men always the same?—indeed they’re not!” Zoe had returned mentally refreshed from pantry society. “If they were always the same, we needn’t bother so to keep on changing them, need we? It’s the different ways of approach that are so perfectly fascinating; and the different idea each one has of the same identical you; and how long each is going to take, and what sort of places they choose, and their pasts, and their way of holding you—I do like to be nicely held, don’t you, Antonia?—Oh no, I forgot, you don’t! There are dozens and thousands of differences, and each has to be managed differently; and what encourages one kind, puts another right off ... even what they prefer to eat, and if they like their kisses hard or soft—I say, doesn’t that sound like eggs? Oh, I do think, I really do, that variety is most of the fun; and seeing how they get to the point. They bore me when they’re within shouting distance.... Besides, I get so specially interested in what each new man is going to give me. You would soon get to know that, if you always kept to the same. Pinto, for instance ... he gives me olives, and I hate them. You don’t think me greedy, do you? I’d hate to be greedy, but I do like presents!”
“I believe you’re the demi-maid by temperament,” Gillian said, smiling at her, while she reflected that as fast as that greedy right hand of Zoe plundered, the generous left hand of Zoe gave. “Deb isn’t. And that’s why Deb has to be spoken to seriously by her pals. We’re waiting to hear about Blair.”
“What about Blair?” Deb seemed inclined to sulk. “Throw me a cig, Winnie. And a match. And the box to strike it on—thanks. What about Blair? He’s the demi-man, if you like, as far as I’m concerned. I was wrong when I said the male of the transition period didn’t exist. The Male who Pursues has ceased to exist. Nowadays he implies, more or less delicately, that he has no wish to make you his wife and you needn’t think it; but being your own mistress—well, will you? And you imply equally delicately: ‘Yes, but not yours, so you needn’t think it!’ Then you both know where you are. The rest is on debatable ground.”