“You’d even make me believe there was no Santa Claus,” she protested, the actress in her rallying to her support. “Don’t tell me to don a pinafore and become interested in botany! It’s such fun to play—and so new; none of you seem to realize that.” Here she trailed off into silence, busy with her own thoughts, Mark’s corsage slipping from her fingers.
She was remembering Dan and Lorraine and the day the child Thurley and Philena pledged to be missionaries, the advent into the Clergy mansion as a madcap mischief, the singing in Betsey’s parlor that momentous June day, the quarrel with Dan, the wonderful journey to the city with the ghost-lady, then Bliss ... here the thoughts ended and she found herself thanking Sam for returning her corsage.
“As for this sort of thing,” the old actor finished, pointing at the corsage, “you’ll have many of them—but choose wisely and for all time. Don’t waste time on worthless phantoms; remember ‘To-morrow feeds on yesterday.’ Even if you fancy you are merely playing at being a ‘grand lady,’ and that you yourself are unspoiled and truly great, think of the bon mot: ‘Imitation is sincerest flattery,’ and do not ape Lissa any more than you can help.”
“None of you understand,” she cried, rebelliously. “I shall do as I wish and live as I choose—as you have all done.”
“Look at us and take warning,” ended Sam promptly. “Well, if you get crowded to the wall, call on me. I’ll be about.” After this he went on his way undecided whether or not merely to admire Thurley as another dear charmer on whom his heart had undeniably been frittered away or to take her seriously as if she were a hope-to-die ward given into his guardianship.
Meanwhile, Thurley went on to the dinner party remembering Sam’s audacity with annoyance intermingled with delight. There was and always will be to every woman, if she is honest, a rare charm in being treated as a little girl. White-haired matrons delight in being named “girl” and being told by some one a trifle whiter of hair and more numerous of birthdays: “My child, what in the world are you dreaming of?” It is a harmless notion with which every woman is endowed.
Thurley was born more or less of a woman, so that Sam’s attitude appealed to her. But the peacock which is also in all women and the love of domination, remnant of glorious idol worship, made her reject his halfway offered protectorship.
It was wonderful to dress in rich fashion, to have Mark take her to some bohemian table d’hôte—like that of the Petispas Sisters—to know she would be the handsomest and best-dressed person there and that Lissa was helplessly furious at Mark’s new object of adoration, yet obliged to smile instead of snarl in Thurley’s presence. It was fun to read letters from unknown admirers, to have schoolgirls with vast ambitions and opinions of their abilities appeal to her, as well as embryo tenors from small towns who only needed a gracious, sisterly hand to guide them, and press agents out of a job who were capable of the greatest scheme for procuring public interest that ever alarm-clocked! Thurley was just realizing the parasites, so-called artistic, who beg, steal or demand their living from those who really work and earn one. She was beginning to classify the large army of restless rebel women who really delude themselves into believing they have a mission in life, badgering all those who simply do the work they were intended for. These women interested Thurley. She regarded them as one views a new member of the zoo, poking sticks at them through the bars when the guard is not alert.
She had listened to these creatures tell their woes with childish audacity; she liked their superlative mode of expression rendering their case hopelessly weak and insincere, she was amused by the comic opera fashion in which they dressed or the masculine over-emphasis in costume details. There were women of the pale, willowy type—“misunderstood” was their slogan. There were the bold, aggressive women who despised sentiment and who longed to prove to men that they were truly a non-essential race, who grew so enthusiastic over what they could do for one Thurley Precore as her advance agent, companion, secretary and so on that Thurley fully expected them to bark or walk up the wall, as she told Ernestine. There were women of the dreamy, neurotic type who never mentioned mother back in Oshkosh still cooking “three squares a day” for her houseful of boarders in order that Myrtle or Poincianna might have a winter in New York in which to study design! Design was right—but not as mother fancied it was!