“She has no right to such a title!”
“I was afraid you’d take it like this. You mustn’t be so hard, Cecily. You must be tolerant.”
“I’m tired of tolerance for laxity. I’m tired of moral laxity, of cheapness of ideals. Why should those of us who are decent do the work for the ones who aren’t decent?”
“Work?”
“Work. Have the children and try to keep them clean and healthy and fine, while the women who won’t have children, who won’t work, won’t do anything but play, get the real interest of every one?”
“They don’t; they don’t get the real respect of people. There may be a kind of attraction, but it’s hardly skin-deep.”
“You’re wrong, mother. You’re wrong. It’s the so-called respect that’s skin-deep. Men will tell you that the ideal woman is the good wife and mother, but you try being a good wife and mother and you’re pretty soon a deadly bore; while the little half moral Dellas and Flisses are the women men give up things for and like to be with.”
Mrs. Warner forced herself to a question. She did not answer Cecily’s tirade, but struck at the root of it.
“Is anything seriously wrong between you and Dick?”
“No. Nothing seriously wrong, I suppose. I suppose I wanted marriage to get deeper and better. It’s getting thinner and almost tawdry. I wanted Dick to be content with it and me. And he’s restless. He likes all this excitement and all these noisy people that I don’t like. He doesn’t want to stay home with me and the children.”