“The honor of soldiers is beyond your ken, Mr. Morrison.”
He flushed darkly and bit his lip.
“You women make a man sick with this rot about soldiers,” he said, the gleam in his eye growing ugly. “A uniform goes to a woman’s head no matter what’s inside it. I don’t see where your vaunted honor of soldiers comes in considering how they accepted the let-down of women during and after the war.”
“How could you see when you stayed comfortably at home?” retorted Carley.
“All I could see was women falling into soldiers’ arms,” he said, sullenly.
“Certainly. Could an American girl desire any greater happiness—or opportunity to prove her gratitude?” flashed Carley, with proud uplift of head.
“It didn’t look like gratitude to me,” returned Morrison.
“Well, it was gratitude,” declared Carley, ringingly. “If women of America did throw themselves at soldiers it was not owing to the moral lapse of the day. It was woman’s instinct to save the race! Always, in every war, women have sacrificed themselves to the future. Not vile, but noble!... You insult both soldiers and women, Mr. Morrison. I wonder—did any American girls throw themselves at you?”
Morrison turned a dead white, and his mouth twisted to a distorted checking of speech, disagreeable to see.
“No, you were a slacker,” went on Carley, with scathing scorn. “You let the other men go fight for American girls. Do you imagine one of them will ever marry you?... All your life, Mr. Morrison, you will be a marked man—outside the pale of friendship with real American men and the respect of real American girls.”