“I’m just prejudiced. I suppose it’s because I used to hear how tough actresses were when I was a kid. And because Cora Boyle made a doormat of me. Ain’t it true we never get over the way we’re brought up?—That’s what Gurdy calls a platitude, I guess.”
“Gurdy’s horridly mature for twenty-one, Mark.”
“Thunder,” said Mark, “He was always grown up and he’s knocked around a lot for his age. Enough to make anybody mature!—And he’s in love with sister up to his neck. You should have seen him take a runnin’ jump and start for Chicago the minute he heard she was landing! Simply hopped the next train and flew! Stayed out there a month, pretty nearly. Brings his friends down over Sundays and then sits and watches them wobble round Margot like a cat watching a fat mouse. Love’s awful hard on these dignified kids, Olive.”
“You want them married?” she murmured.
“Of course.—I know I’m silly about the kids but I don’t see where Margot’ll get any one much better. Don’t start lecturin’ me and say that there’s ten million eight hundred thousand and twenty-two better boys loose around than Gurdy. You’d be talking at a stone wall. Waste of breath. And he’s sensible about her too. A kid in love ordinarily wouldn’t argue about anything the way he did about this play of Colonel Duffords. They had a regular cat fight and Gurdy’s right. It’s a pretty poor show.—This is the East river.”
The car moved diligently through the heat. Olive thought that Gurdy had belied his outer calm by his flight to Chicago. But it was hard to think of anything save the thick air. Mark’s tanned face was damp and he fanned Olive steadily. They swung past a procession of vans where the drivers lolled in torn undershirts. The rancorous sun on the houses of unfamiliar shingle dizzied her. She saw strange trees in the country as the suburbs thinned and the blistered paint of billboards showed strange wares for sale.
“Movie plant over there,” said Mark, “Like to be movied for one of the current event weeklies? Lady Olive Ilden, the celebrated British authoress?”
“Horrors! Drinking tea with a Pom in my lap. Never!—Good heavens, Mark, is it like this summer after summer? Why don’t people simply go naked?”
“Margot does her best. If her grandmother Walling could see her bathsuit she’d rise from the tomb.”