"Why, that's a very different thing, Cally! The same qualities aren't expected of men and women--or they couldn't complement each other! Women are expected to be sweet and attractive, while--"
"Expected by whom?" quizzed Cally, and screwed the top down on her cold cream (if such, indeed, it was).
"By everybody," said Mattie, falling back upon her tried phrase, "by the world, by--"
"Why shouldn't it be expected of men to look nice, too, just as much? Why should we have to do the whole performance? Why shouldn't we give some of all this time to something useful, as men do?--cultivating our minds, for instance?"
"But don't you see, Cally?--that isn't expected of us! Men simply do not care for clever women," cried Mattie, who had built up a considerable social success on that very principle.
"Why should we let them decide for us what we're to be? Why?--Why? That's just what they do! We're human beings just as much as they are, aren't we?... Oh, I'm sick of men," cried Cally.
"You're sick of men!" echoed Mattie, aghast as at a blasphemy.
Cally nodded slowly, her lovely eyes on her friend's tremulous face.
"Oh, it's the men who make us put in all this time tricking up ourselves to look pretty. You know it, too, for you just gave yourself away.... Oh, Mats, wouldn't it be great to appeal to somebody sometimes in some other way!"
Mattie, apparently on the verge of tears, murmured her complete inability to follow Cally's strange talk. Observing her, Carlisle gave a reassuring little laugh and rose abruptly. Not that it made any special difference, but she didn't care about setting her best friend's alert wits too busily to work.