“My generation is the tragic generation,” De Saint Omer had often said to me. Would this, too, be our tragic generation,—a generation brought up only to play, to enjoy life gluttonously, to pursue pleasure riotously—abruptly halted in the full of the revelry and summoned to face the recurring test of the ages?
* * * * *
I dare say the mood was morbid and my own mental condition was accountable for much in it. Yet there was cause for irritation. My ears were filled with the chatter of silliness. I was paraded for the curiosity of empty-headed girls, outrageously décolleté and bejeweled. Had I been afraid? Wouldn’t I please tell them about the atrocities? Had I really killed a man? What did it feel like? What sort of uniform did I wear? Was it attractive?
One disappointed young lady exclaimed:
“Oh, dear! Then you’re not an aviator. I’m just crazy to have one of those dinky little caps!”
* * * * *
Molly, who divined my irritation, saved the situation by drawing me away into the library, where I shook hands with Mr. Brinsmade, and presently, ashamed of my too evident ill-humor, I returned to the ballroom.
I was a little hurt, too, that Anne had not made more of my coming. I remembered her diffidence, her quick yielding to others who pressed around her, and I asked myself moodily the reason for this attitude. Was it the memory of old days, of certain things half expressed in her letters? Had her father spoken to her as he had to me? Did she expect that I would assume any rights over her? This last thought increased my irritation. I stood at the door of the conservatory, watching her as she danced.
It was not the Anne that I remembered. There was a finished charm about all she did, a grace of conscious assurance, a sure sense of her own value, that for some reason offended me. She was no longer an impulsive girl, but a brilliant and confident woman. From the tumult of her golden hair to the decolleté of her black jet gown, that revealed too boldly the lithe and graceful lines of her body; in the ready smile of attention, to the eyes which had the fevered sense of pleasure, she was one of them,—of a vapid, inconsequential society which, that night, offended every instinct in me.
“And the worst is, she feeds upon it,” I said to myself gloomily.