“Thanks,” Mary said, lightly. “I may as well 313 tell you I’ve determined never to marry Steve, for all your good advice.”
“Why?” All the tenseness of her nature rushed to the occasion. This was decidedly interesting, since it resembled her own whims. She felt almost friendly toward the other woman.
“Because,” Mary answered, handing the psychologists another problem for a rainy afternoon.
Beatrice nodded, satisfied at the answer and the eternal damnable woman’s notion inspiring it, for it was just what she would have replied in like circumstances. She felt there was nothing more to be said about the matter and that Gorgeous Girls and commercial nuns had much in common. As usual, Steve was appointed the official blackguard of the inevitable triangle!
Going home that night Mary felt that truly the “day was a bitter almond.” It even began to be dramatically muggy and threatening, in keeping with her state of mind––the sort of forced weather that issues offstage in roars of thunder the moment the villain begins his plotting. She took a street car, having meant to walk and give herself time to pull together and adopt the fat smile of a professional optimist.
A tired-faced woman, heavily rouged, was talking to another tired-faced woman, also rouged. Mary listened because it was a relief to listen to someone else besides herself, to realize there were other persons in this world occupied with other problems besides a commercial nun with a heartache, a tired cave man about to start again, and a Gorgeous Girl defeated in no uncertain terms. The whole thing was beyond Mary’s comprehension just now; as much as the 314 graybeards’ lack of understanding when they try to Freud the schoolboy’s mind.
“That’s me, too, Mame, all over––and when she tried telling me she was a natural blonde, never using lemon juice in even the last rinse water––well, when you’ve been handing out doll dope and baby bluster over the counter of a beauty department as long as I have you know there ain’t no such animal! Good-bye, Mame. I hope you get home safe.”
“There ain’t no such animal,” Mary found herself repeating. “No, there sure ain’t!”
There were no real commercial nuns; it was a premeditated affair entirely, merely a comfortable phrase borrowed by the lonesome ones unwilling to be called old maids; a big, brave bluff that women have adopted during these times of commercial necessity and economic stress. Commercial nuns! As foolish as the tales told children of the wunks living in the coalbins––as if there ever could be such creatures! The reason Mary would not marry Steve was because she, Mary, did not want to disappoint him even as the Gorgeous Girl had done. She did not want to be all helpmate, practical comrade; she had fed herself with this delusion during the years of loneliness. She had adopted the veneer, convinced herself that it was true, but she knew now that it was false. It had taken a Gorgeous Girl to scratch beneath the veneer in true feminine fashion. Mary did wish to be dependent, helpless––to have Gorgeous Girl propensities. The cheap phrases of the shopwomen kept interrupting her attempts to think of practical detail. “There ain’t no such animal.”
She found Luke wild-eyed and excited, brandishing an evening paper.