"Have a cigarette," he said, holding out his silver monogrammed case.
"Thanks, Larry.I--I guess I'll not take up smoking again.You see, while Iwas West I got out of the habit."
"Yes, they told me you had changed," he returned."How about drinking?""Why, I thought New York had gone dry!" she said, forcing a laugh.
"Only on the surface.Underneath it's wetter than ever.""Well, I'll obey the law."
He ordered a rather elaborate dinner, and then turning his attention to Carley, gave her closer scrutiny.Carley knew then that he had become acquainted with the fact of her broken engagement.It was a relief not to need to tell him.
"How's that big stiff, Kilbourne?" asked Morrison, suddenly."Is it true he got well?""Oh--yes! He's fine," replied Carley with eyes cast down.A hot knot seemed to form deep within her and threatened to break and steal along her veins.
"But if you please--I do not care to talk of him.""Naturally.But I must tell you that one man's loss is another's gain."Carley had rather expected renewed courtship from Morrison.She had not, however, been prepared for the beat of her pulse, the quiver of her nerves, the uprising of hot resentment at the mere mention of Kilbourne.It was only natural that Glenn's former rivals should speak of him, and perhaps disparagingly.But from this man Carley could not bear even a casual reference.Morrison had escaped the army service.He had been given a high-salaried post at the ship-yards--the duties of which, if there had been any, he performed wherever he happened to be.Morrison's father had made a fortune in leather during the war.And Carley remembered Glenn telling her he had seen two whole blocks in Paris piled twenty feet deep with leather army goods that were never used and probably had never been intended to be used.Morrison represented the not inconsiderable number of young men in New York who had gained at the expense of the valiant legion who had lost.But what had Morrison gained? Carley raised her eyes to gaze steadily at him.He looked well-fed, indolent, rich, effete, and supremely self-satisfied.She could not we that he had gained anything.She would rather have been a crippled ruined soldier.
"Larry, I fear gain and loss are mere words, she said."The thing that counts with me is what you are."He stared in well-bred surprise, and presently talked of a new dance which had lately come into vogue.And from that he passed on to gossip of the theatres.Once between courses of the dinner he asked Carley to dance, and she complied.The music would have stimulated an Egyptian mummy, Carley thought, and the subdued rose lights, the murmur of gay voices, the glide and grace and distortion of the dancers, were exciting and pleasurable.
Morrison had the suppleness and skill of a dancing-master.But he held Carley too tightly, and so she told him, and added, "I imbibed some fresh pure air while I was out West--something you haven't here--and I don't want it all squeezed out of me."The latter days of July Carley made busy--so busy that she lost her tan and appetite, and something of her splendid resistance to the dragging heat and late hours.Seldom was she without some of her friends.She accepted almost any kind of an invitation, and went even to Coney Island, to baseball games, to the motion pictures, which were three forms of amusement not customary with her.At Coney Island, which she visited with two of her younger girl friends, she had the best time since her arrival home.What had put her in accord with ordinary people? The baseball games, likewise pleased her.The running of the players and the screaming of the spectators amused and excited her.But she hated the motion pictures with their salacious and absurd misrepresentations of life, in some cases capably acted by skillful actors, and in others a silly series of scenes featuring some doll-faced girl.
But she refused to go horseback riding in Central Park.She refused to go to the Plaza.And these refusals she made deliberately, without asking herself why.
On August 1st she accompanied her aunt and several friends to Lake Placid, where they established themselves at a hotel.How welcome to Carley's strained eyes were the green of mountains, the soft gleam of amber water!
How sweet and refreshing a breath of cool pure air! The change from New York's glare and heat and dirt, and iron-red insulating walls, and thronging millions of people, and ceaseless roar and rush, was tremendously relieving to Carley.She had burned the candle at both ends.But the beauty of the hills and vales, the quiet of the forest, the sight of the stars, made it harder to forget.She had to rest.And when she rested she could not always converse, or read, or write.
For the most part her days held variety and pleasure.The place was beautiful, the weather pleasant, the people congenial.She motored over the forest roads, she canoed along the margin of the lake, she played golf and tennis.She wore exquisite gowns to dinner and danced during the evenings.
But she seldom walked anywhere on the trails and, never alone, and she never climbed the mountains and never rode a horse.
Morrison arrived and added his attentions to those of other men.Carley neither accepted nor repelled them.She favored the association with married couples and older people, and rather shunned the pairing off peculiar to vacationists at summer hotels.She had always loved to play and romp with children, but here she found herself growing to avoid them, somehow hurt by sound of pattering feet and joyous laughter.She filled the days as best she could, and usually earned quick slumber at night.She staked all on present occupation and the truth of flying time.
