“I don’t think of you as a capable machine any more. I used to, that is true enough. I didn’t know or care whether your hair was red or your eyes green––but I know now that you have gray eyes, and–––”
“You really want to know my opinions?” she interrupted, breathlessly.
“As much as I used to seek out the stock reports.”
“Well––I think people who have planned as exactly as you and Mr. Constantine have planned always banish real principle at the start. After a time you are punished by having an almost fungous growth of sickly conscience––you don’t want to face 167 the truth of things, yet isolated incidents, sentimental memories, certain sights and definite statements annoy, haunt, heartbreak you! Still, you have lost your principle, the backbone of the soul, and the fungus-like growth of conscience is such a clumsy imitation––like a paper rose stuck in the ground. Mr. Constantine’s type––your type––is flourishing and multiplying among us, I fear, and such are the wishbone, or sickly conscience, and not the backbone, or sterling principle, of the nation. After all, fortunes alone do not make real gentility––thanks be! But you know as well as I that all the––the Gorgeous Girls and their kind and you and I and the next chap we meet belong to the great majority, and of that we have every right to be proud.
“Furthermore, we ought to hold to our place in the social scheme and be the backbone of the nation, keep our principle and not be nagged eternally by a sickly conscience after we have gone and sold our birthrights. Gorgeous Girls and their sort have the sole fortification of dollars, endless dollars, endless price tags; their whims bring whole wings of foreign castles floating across the ocean by the wholesale to be reassembled somewhere in good old helpless Illinois or New Jersey. And these people try to be everything but good old American stock––which is quite wrong, for their example causes spendthrifts and Bolsheviki to flourish without end.”
“Go on,” he said, almost sulkily, as she paused.
“I’ve watched it for thirteen years from the various angles of the working girl with an average amount of brain and disposition. When all is said and done you really have to work before you have earned the right to pass judgment––work––not read or patronize or 168 take someone else’s statements as final. Do you know how I used to identify the kinds of people that rode in the street cars with me?... From seven until eight there were the Frumps. The majority boasted of white kid boots or someone’s discarded near-electric-seal jacket, plumes in their hats, and an absence of warm woollens. And everyone yawned, between patting thin cheeks with soiled face chamois, ‘What d’ja do las’ night?’
“From eight to nine came the Funnies; and the majority had white kid boots and flimsy silk frocks cut as low as our grandmothers’ party gowns, and plumes in their hats and silver vanity cases. Their main topics of conversation were: ‘He said,’ and ‘She said,’ and ‘I don’t care if I’m late. I’m going to quit anyway!’
“From nine until noon came the Frills––the wives of modest-salaried men who cannot motor, yet write to out-of-town relatives that they do so.
“And every one of those Frumps, Funnies, and Frills apes the Gorgeous-Girl kind––white kids for shopping, low-cut pumps in January, bizarre coat, chiffon waist disclosing a thin little neck fairly panting for protection, rouged cheeks, and a plume in her hat––and not a cent of savings in the bank!