When the invitation was referred to mother, after a moment of hesitation and worry about the propriety of the proceeding, she gave her consent. Shortly after, the friend and her brother stopped at the house and took the daughter with them.
When she got back home, after midnight, she went to her mother's room and told her, at her bed-side, what had happened.
After they got to the house where the dance was to be and the others had all gathered there, it was decided for some reason to adjourn to another house. To get to this other house, the daughter was put into an automobile with a girl and two young men. She sat in front, beside the young man who was driving. She knew him only slightly, had danced with him a few times and thought him rather nice.
On the way, after chatting and joking, this young man stopped the car, then suddenly kissed her and took her in his arms. She didn't know what to do. When she looked around, she found that the same thing was going on in the back seat between the other boy and girl.
The young man beside her wouldn't listen to her objections. They seemed to take it for granted. If you liked each other, why shouldn't you? He said he liked her.
The occurrence is fairly typical of up-to-date standards—except in one particular. Most girls refrain from mentioning it to mother.
Here is another symptom, of slightly different complexion which applies to married life and suggests the extent to which the new principle is bearing fruit, in society circles.
It was brought to my notice, last summer, that in one colony on Long Island where I happened to be, there were fourteen different houses where the wife had deserted the family and the husband was keeping house alone with the children. This was among members of the fashionable set. In each of these cases, of course, the wife had come across some man who, for the time being at least, appealed to her more than her husband and a divorce had been obtained in some convenient way, or was in the process of obtaining.
It usually happens when a discussion takes place concerning the immorality of the present day, that some member of the party will advance the opinion in a more or less authoritative way that the tendency in question is confined almost entirely to the so-called upper crust of society and is consequently not entitled to the significance which is being attributed to it. The great mass of the people, in their simple homes and simple communities, are not in the least contaminated or disturbed by it. They are just as moral and clean-minded as they ever were, probably more so. Among the rich and idle upper classes, there has always been a lot of dissipation and immorality in all countries, at all times. If America is getting a little more than usual of it, at present, that is nothing to get excited about.
In the face of such sentiments, cheerily and forcibly expressed, the average gossip and fault-finder is usually willing to acquiesce with a shrug. And so the discussion ends with a feeling that an attempt has been made to exaggerate the importance of a restricted and unrepresentative class.