“It hurts. It makes these people seem so
beastly and treacherous, when I’ve been perfectly
natural with them. But let’s have it all.
What did they say about my Chinese house-warming party?”
“Why, uh——”
“Go on. Or I’ll make up worse things
than anything you can tell me.”
“They did enjoy it. But I guess some of
them felt you were showing off—pretending
that your husband is richer than he is.”
“I can’t——Their meanness
of mind is beyond any horrors I could imagine.
They really thought that I——And you
want to ‘reform’ people like that when
dynamite is so cheap? Who dared to say that?
The rich or the poor?”
“Fairly well assorted.”
“Can’t they at least understand me well
enough to see that though I might be affected and
culturine, at least I simply couldn’t commit
that other kind of vulgarity? If they must know,
you may tell them, with my compliments, that Will
makes about four thousand a year, and the party cost
half of what they probably thought it did. Chinese
things are not very expensive, and I made my own costume——”
“Stop it! Stop beating me! I know
all that. What they meant was: they felt
you were starting dangerous competition by giving a
party such as most people here can’t afford.
Four thousand is a pretty big income for this town.”
“I never thought of starting competition.
Will you believe that it was in all love and friendliness
that I tried to give them the gayest party I could?
It was foolish; it was childish and noisy. But
I did mean it so well.”
“I know, of course. And it certainly is
unfair of them to make fun of your having that Chinese
food—chow men, was it?—and to
laugh about your wearing those pretty trousers——”
Carol sprang up, whimpering, “Oh, they didn’t
do that! They didn’t poke fun at my feast,
that I ordered so carefully for them! And my little
Chinese costume that I was so happy making—I
made it secretly, to surprise them. And they’ve
been ridiculing it, all this while!”
She was huddled on the couch.
Vida was stroking her hair, muttering, “I shouldn’t——”
Shrouded in shame, Carol did not know when Vida slipped
away. The clock’s bell, at half past five,
aroused her. “I must get hold of myself
before Will comes. I hope he never knows what
a fool his wife is. . . . Frozen, sneering, horrible
hearts.”
Like a very small, very lonely girl she trudged up-stairs,
slow step by step, her feet dragging, her hand on
the rail. It was not her husband to whom she
wanted to run for protection—it was her
father, her smiling understanding father, dead these
twelve years.
Kennicott was yawning, stretched in the largest chair,
between the radiator and a small kerosene stove.
Cautiously, “Will dear, I wonder if the people
here don’t criticize me sometimes? They
must. I mean: if they ever do, you mustn’t
let it bother you.”
