The war took away her last reserves. She was a modern woman, and saw life steadily and saw it whole. She also saw it entirely to her own advantage. The strongest element in her nature was, perhaps, her assured self-confidence in her management of human beings. She had, she would boast, never been known to fail with men or women. Her success in the war had been largely due to the fact that she had applied certain simple rules of her own to everybody alike, refusing to believe in individualities. "Men and women fall into two or three classes. You can tell in five minutes the class you're dealing with; then you act accordingly." Her chief theory about men was that "they liked to be treated as men." "They want you to be one of themselves." She adopted with them a masculine attitude that fitted her less naturally than she knew. She drank with them, smoked with them, told them rather "tall" stories, was never shocked by anything that they said, "gave them as good as they gave her."
After her demobilisation she danced a good deal, dined alone at restaurants with men whom she scarcely knew, went back to men's rooms after the theatre and had a "last whiskey," walked home alone after midnight and let herself into her "attic" with great satisfaction. She had the most complete contempt for girls who "could not look after themselves." "If girls got into trouble it was their own rotten fault."
She had developed during her time in France a masculine fashion of standing, sitting, talking, laughing. Nothing made her more indignant than that a man should offer her his seat in a Tube. How her haughty glance scorned him as she refused him! "It's an insult to our sex," she would say. How she rejoiced in her freedom! "At last," she said, "there is sex equality. We can do what we like."
She was, however, not quite free. The war had left her a legacy in the person of an adoring girl friend, Margery Scales. Margery was an exact opposite to herself in every way—plump and soft and rosy and appealing and entirely feminine. She had been "under" Lois in France; from the first she had desperately adored her. It was an adoration without qualification. Lois was perfect, a queen, a goddess. Margery would die for her instantly if called upon; not that she wanted to die. She loved life, being pretty and healthy, and allowed by loving parents a great deal of freedom.
But what was life without Lois? Lois would tell you, if you asked her, that she had made Margery. "Margery owed her everything." Others, who did not like Lois, said that she had ruined Margery. Margery herself felt that life had simply not begun in those years before Lois had appeared.
Lois had determined that "after the war" she would finish the Margery affair. It unsettled her, disturbed her, refused to fall into line with all the straightforward arrangements that were as easy to manage as "putting your clothes on." The truth was, that Lois was fonder of Margery than she wanted to be. She quarrelled with her, scolded her, laughed at her, scorned her, and at the end of it all had absurdly soft and tender feelings for her that were not at all "sensible."
Margery's very helplessness—a quality that infuriated Lois in others—attracted and held her. She had too much to do to bother about people's feelings; nevertheless, were Margery distressed and unhappy, Lois was uncomfortable and ill at ease. "After the war I'll break it off.... It's sentimental."
Nevertheless, here she was, four months, five months, six months after the Armistice, and it was not broken off. She would dismiss Margery with scorn, tell her that she could not be bothered with her scenes and tears and repentances, and then five minutes after she had expelled her she would want to know where she was, what she was doing.
She would not confess to herself the joy that she felt when Margery suddenly reappeared. Then, as the weeks went by, she began to wonder whether Margery were as completely under her control as she used to be. The girl seemed at times to criticise her. She said quite frankly that she hated some of the men whom Lois gathered round her in the attic.
"Well, you needn't come," said Lois; "I don't want you." Then, of course, Margery cried.