"I don't like that centerpiece," Fanny observed, "I can't see you.
Still, it's as well, I suppose, since you didn't change. You look so
much better in dark clothes, Lee, thinner."
"You shouldn't make me so comfortable."
"You'd see to that, anyhow; men always do. Honestly, Alice Lucian was a
scream this afternoon, she said that she hated and distrusted all men;
yet I'm sure no one could be more considerate or dependable than
Warner. Now, if she had a husband like George Willard--"
"What would you do," Lee asked, "if I spent my spare time with the very
young ones?"
"I'd have a doctor see you," she replied coolly. "What in the world put
that in your head? Haven't you everything here a man could want? That's
exactly what they were talking about; it's so--so idiotic. Those
younger girls ought to be smacked and put to bed, with their one-piece
swimming-suits and shimmying. They give a very misleading impression."
He lost the course of her speech in considering how little of
themselves women, old and young, showed each other. If Fanny meant, if
she for a moment thought, where the girls they were discussing came in,
that there was smoke without fire.... It was all devilish strange, the
present day, disturbing. The young men, since the war, had grown sober,
and the older men resembled George Willard. The exploding of so much
powder, the release of such naked passions, had over-thrown the balance
of conduct and pressure.
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