第34章 High Walk and the Ladies(3)

"Of course,I am well aware,"Mrs.Gregory pursued,"that the young people of to-day believe they can all 'teach their grandmothers to suck eggs,'as we say in Kings Port.""We say it elsewhere,too,"I mildly put in.

"Indeed?I didn't know that the North,with its pest of Hebrew and other low immigrants,had retained any of the good old homely saws which we brought from England.But do you imagine that if the control of marriage rested in the hands of parents and grandparents (where it properly belongs),you would be witnessing in the North this disgusting spectacle of divorce?""But,Mrs.St.Michael--"

"We didn't invite you to argue when we invited you to walk!"cried the lady,laughing.

"We should like you to answer the question,"said Mrs.Weguelin St.

Michael.

"And tell us,"Mrs.Gregory continued,"if it's your opinion that a boy who has never been married is a better judge of matrimony's pitfalls than his father.""Or than any older person who has bravely and worthily gone through with the experience,"Mrs.Weguelin added.

"Ladies,I've no mind to argue.But we're ahead of Europe;we don't need their clumsy old plan."Mrs.Gregory gave a gallant,incredulous snort."I shall be interested to learn of anything that is done better here than in Europe.""Oh,many things,surely!But especially the mating of the fashionable young.They don't need any parents to arrange for them;it's much better managed through precocity.""Through precocity?I scarcely follow you."

And Mrs.Weguelin softly added,"You must excuse us if we do not follow you."But her softness nevertheless indicated that if there were any one present needing leniency,it was myself.

"Why,yes,"I told them,"it's through precocity.The new-rich American no longer commits the blunder of keeping his children innocent.You'll see it beginning in the dancing-class,where I heard an exquisite little girl of six say to a little boy,'Go away;I can't dance with you,because my mamma says your mamma only keeps a maid to answer the doorbell.'When they get home from the dancing-class,tutors in poker and bridge are waiting to teach them how to gamble for each other's little dimes.I saw a little boy in knickerbockers and a wide collar throw down the evening paper--""At that age?They read the papers?"interrupted Mrs.Gregory.

"They read nothing else at any age.He threw it down and said,'Well,Iguess there's not much behind this raid on Steel Preferred.'What need has such a boy for parents or grandparents?Presently he is travelling to a fashionable boarding-school in his father's private car.At college all his adolescent curiosities are lavishly gratified.His sister at home reads the French romances,and by eighteen she,too,knows (in her head at least)the whole of life,so that she can be perfectly trusted;she would no more marry a mere half-millionaire just because she loved him than she would appear twice in the same ball-dress.She and her ball-dresses are described in the papers precisely as if she were an animal at a show--which indeed is what she has become;and she's eager to be thus described,because she and her mother--even if her mother was once a lady and knew better--are haunted by one perpetual,sickening fear,the fear of being left out.And if you desire to pay correct ballroom compliments,you no longer go to her mother and tell her she's looking every bit as young as her daughter;you go to the daughter and tell her she's looking every bit as old as her mother,for that's what she wishes to do,that's what she tries for,what she talks,dresses,eats,drinks,goes to indecent plays and laughs for.Yes,we manage it through precocity,and the new-rich American parent has achieved at least one new thing under the sun,namely,the corruption of the child.

My ladies silently consulted each other's expressions,after which,in equal silence,their gaze returned to me;but their equally intent scrutiny was expressive of quite different things.It was with expectancy that Mrs.Gregory looked at me--she wanted more.Not so Mrs.Weguelin;she gave me disapproval;it was shadowed in her beautiful,lustrous eyes that burned dark in her white face with as much fire as that of youth,yet it was not of youth,being deeply charged with retrospection.

In what,then,had I sinned?For the little lady's next words,coldly murmured,increased in me an uneasiness,as of sin:--"You have told us much that we are not accustomed to hear in Kings Port.""Oh,I haven't begun to tell you!"I exclaimed cheerily.

"You certainly have not told us,"said Mrs.Gregory,"how your 'precocity'escapes this divorce degradation.""Escape it?Those people think it is--well,provincial--not to have been divorced at least once!"Mrs.Gregory opened her eyes,but Mrs.Weguelin shut her lips.

I continued:"Even the children,for their own little reasons,like it.

Only last summer,in Newport,a young boy was asked how he enjoyed having a father and an ex-father.""Ex-father!"said Mrs.Gregory."Vice-father is what I should call him.""Maria!"murmured Mrs.Weguelin,"how can you jest upon such topics?""I am far from jesting,Julia.Well,young gentleman,and what answer did this precious Newport child make?""He said (if you will pardon my giving you his little sentiment in his own quite expressive idiom),'Me for two fathers!Double money birthdays and Christmases.See?'That was how he saw divorce."Once again my ladies consulted each other's expressions;we moved along High Walk in such silence that I heard the stiff little rustle which the palmettos were making across the street;even these trees,you might have supposed,were whispering together over the horrors that I had recited in their decorous presence.

It was Mrs.Gregory who next spoke."I can translate that last boy's language,but what did the other boy mean about a 'raid on Steel Preferred'--if I've got the jargon right?"While I translated this for her,I felt again the disapproval in Mrs.