"Demoralized? Why? Everybody behaved as I do before you and William invented your horrid machine. Everybody in the world married at hazard, after being engaged to various interesting young men. And I'm not demoralized; I'm only old-fashioned enough to take chances. Please let me."
The family regarded her sadly. In their amalgamated happiness they deplored her reluctance to enter where perfect bliss was guaranteed.
Her choice of rôle and costume for the Seawanhaka Club water tableaux they also disapproved of; for she had chosen to represent a character now superfluous and out of date--the Lorelei who lured Teutonic yachtsmen to destruction with her singing some centuries ago. And that, in these times, was ridiculous, because, fortified by a visit to the nearest Destyn-Carr machine, no weak-minded young sailorman would care what a Lorelei might do; and she could sing her pretty head off and comb herself bald before any Destyn-Carr inoculated mariner would be lured overboard.
But Flavilla obstinately insisted on her scaled and fish-tailed costume. When her turn came, a spot-light on the clubhouse was to illuminate the float and reveal her, combing her golden hair with a golden comb and singing away like the Musical Arts.
"And," she thought secretly, "if there remains upon this machine-made earth one young man worth my kind consideration, it wouldn't surprise me very much if he took a header off the Yacht Club wharf and requested me to be his. And I'd be very likely to listen to his suggestion."
So in secret hopes of this pleasing episode--but not giving any such reason to her protesting family--she vigorously resisted all attempts to deprive her of her fish scales, golden comb, and rôle in the coming water fête. And now the programmes were printed and it was too late for them to intervene.
She rose, holding out the glittering, finny garment, which flashed like a collapsed fish in the sunshine.
"It's finished," she said. "Now I'm going off somewhere by myself to rehearse."
"In the water?" asked her father uneasily.
"Certainly."