"It isn't all like that," the older woman protested, looking out on the pleasant landscape. "You can choose what you will have."
"Do you think I should do any better if I chose your kind, my dear?" Venetia asked quietly. "Or my mother's? Is Maida Rainbow's conversation an improvement on Ted's? It isn't any more grammatical. And Mrs. Ollie Buchanan's talk is worse than mine. Come now, dear lady, tell me the truth! After several winters by the suburban fireside do you still find your heart beating warmly when hubbie plods up the street at eve in his new auto? Do you advise me to marry Mr. Stephen Lane and transfer my activities to Breathett Lodge,—join the tabby chorus, just to keep the tabbies quiet? Is the married state of all these people you and I know out here to be so much desired?"
"Most of the men and women you know here in Chicago are not bad."
"Oh, no! They're good out here, most of 'em, and dull, damn dull. They're afraid to take off their gloves for fear it isn't the correct thing. A lot of 'em aren't used to good clothes, like that Mrs. Rainbow. As uncle says, 'Our best people are religious and moral.' But there's more going on than you dream of, gray mouse."
"You are too wise, Venetia."
"I'll tell you the reason why we sport. We're dull, and we are looking for some fun. The men get all the excitement they need scrambling for money. Girls want to be sports, too, and they can't do the money act. So they sport—otherwise. That's the why."
She rapped the floor with her whip, and laughed at Helen's perplexity.
"I want to be a real sport, and know what men are like, really, when they are off parade, as you nice women don't know 'em."
"Well, what are they like?"
"Some beasts, some cads, some good fellows," Venetia pronounced definitively. "Do you know why I let men kiss me sometimes? To see if they will, if that sort of thing is all they want of me. And most of 'em do want just that, married or single. When a man has the chance, why, he goes back to the ape mighty quick."