But Phyllis, like many another good woman of these Liberal times, turned her bored back on "county," and only remembered what was "done" the better not to do it; fought for, and won a latchkey; asserted her right to come home at night as late as she pleased, and how she pleased—for she had come home from a dance one night on a benevolent motor lorry, which she had begged to pick her up on Piccadilly in pity for her "tired bones," and which, in cumbrously dropping her at mother's door, woke up the whole street. And I can so well imagine Phyllis, as she fitted in her latchkey, murmuring, languidly, but without much conviction, "What fun women have...."
But, in the reaction of her type against the preceding age of Victoria, she went to the other extreme; saw life too much through the medium of a couple of absinthe cocktails before each meal, and sex too much as though it were entirely a joke, which it isn't ... quite. She cut her hair short, and took to saying "damn" more often than was strictly necessary. In fact, she would have been quite unbearable if she hadn't been pretty, which she delightfully was. And, unlike her more careless sisters of Chelsea, Hampstead, and Golders' Green, she did not make the terrible mistake of dressing all anyhow, or make a point of being able to "put up with anything"; such as, sleeping on studio floors after a party, in such a way as to collect the maximum amount of candle grease and spilled drink on her skirts, and wearing men's discarded felt hats, cut as no decent man would be seen alive wearing one, and Roger Fry sort of blouses which don't quite make two ends meet at the back, and carrying queer handbags made, perhaps, out of the sole of a Red Indian's threadbare moccasin.... Bohemians indeed, but without so much as a "Bo" anywhere about them!
They can "stand anything," as they have let it be generally known. But, by dressing like freaks and by being able to stand anything, they have detracted considerably from their attraction for men; for freaks are well enough in freak-land but look rather silly in the world as it is—which is the world that matters, after all; and what the devil is the good of being polite and making a fuss of a woman if she tells you repeatedly that she can "stand anything," and much prefers the feeling of independence fostered by lighting cigarettes with her own matches, and opening doors with her own so unmanicured fingers?
I suddenly realise at this very moment of writing why those months in South Kensington seemed so overpoweringly dismal, and that even now it is only time which lends a real pleasure to the memory of the tall, dim figure (Mr. Charles Garvice would have called her "sylph-like." I wish I were Mr. Garvice) which stood on my doorstep on an autumn night, and so mysteriously asked for me. For that beginning had a dreary end, as indeed all endings are dreary if the silken cord is not swiftly and sharply cut, thus leaving a neat and wonderful surprise, instead of the long-drawn ending of frayed edges and worn-out emotions which drive quite nice young men into a premature cynicism of dotage.
For we very soon tired of each other, and began to slip away into our different lives with a great deal of talk about our "wonderful friendship"; though we both of us knew very well that there is nothing left to eat in an empty oyster, and nothing to talk about on a desert island except how deserted it is, and nothing to look forward to when you have too quickly reached Ultima Thule but to get as quickly back again and examine your bruises—but he is a coward who hasn't enough kick left in him to begin again and repeat his mistake, for though two wrongs may not make a right, three or four mistakes of this sort do certainly make a man.... So we both set out to get back again, but not as quickly as possible, because Phyllis is a woman, and, perhaps, I am by way of having a few manners left—and, therefore, we had to take the longest way back; and were both very tired and bored with each other when at last I suddenly left her one night after dinner at her house at half-past nine, because I had a headache—"my dear, aspirin isn't any good, really it isn't"—and was sure she had one, too....
Six months ago I had a letter from her, saying that she was going to marry a nice fat baronet, a real, not a Brummagem one, and not so much because of his money, but because of his nice, solid, middle-class ideas, which would help to tone down hers. Phyllis was like that, and I've often wondered very much about that wretched baronet, whether he will tone her down, or whether she will persuade him to open a hat shop off Bond Street in aid of a "bus conductors'" orphanage.
Phyllis, Phyllis, you really can't go through life with half a cold grouse in one hand and a pint of Cliquot '04 in the other. There are other things ... so they say.
