“We girls must have a good time when we’re young, or do without for ever and ever, amen! And as to catching the men, why, I suppose Bernard Shaw knows what he’s talking about.”
“Man and Superman, eh?”
“Yes.”
Under some little pressure from Cicely, Agatha, with unabashed candour, and without picking her phrases, set forth her experiences in London “on her own.” Cicely was informed that girls of the wage-earning class who want husbands must make the most of their opportunities before they reach thirty, or find themselves stranded on the bleak shores of celibacy, with a glimpse of the workhouse in the far distance.
“They do fight like animals for a good time,” said Agatha.
Then, to Cicely’s amazement, this protégée of her mother’s opened a smart Dorothy bag, examined her nose in a tiny mirror, and proceeded calmly to powder it. Cicely thought that she looked thinner, and wondered if the colour on the girl’s cheeks came out of the Dorothy bag.
“Have you lost weight, Agatha?” she asked.
“Well, we do skimp food to buy clothes, but we’re greedy enough when somebody else pays for our meals.”
After this unabashed talk, Cicely admitted consternation to Tiddy, who gibed at her.
“I never saw such a change in a girl.”