The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey (read along books txt) 📕

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.”

Morrison leaped up, almost knocking the table over, and he glared at Carley as he gathered up his hat and cane. She turned her back upon him. From that moment he ceased to exist for Carley. She never spoke to him again.

Next day Carley called upon her dearest friend, whom she had not seen for some time.

“Carley dear, you don't look so very well,” said Eleanor, after greetings had been exchanged.

“Oh, what does it matter how I look?” queried Carley, impatiently.

“You were so wonderful when you got home from Arizona.”

“If I was wonderful and am now commonplace you can thank your old New York for it.”

“Carley, don't you care for New York any more?” asked Eleanor.

“Oh, New York is all right, I suppose. It's I who am wrong.”

“My dear, you puzzle me these days. You've changed. I'm sorry. I'm afraid you're unhappy.”

“Me? Oh, impossible! I'm in a seventh heaven,” replied Carley, with a hard little laugh. “What 're you doing this afternoon? Let's go out—riding—or somewhere.”

“I'm expecting the dressmaker.”

“Where are you going to-night?”

“Dinner and theater. It's a party, or I'd ask you.”

“What did you do yesterday and the day before, and the days before that?”

Eleanor laughed indulgently, and acquainted Carley with a record of her social wanderings during the last few days.

“The same old things—over and over again! Eleanor don't you get sick of it?” queried Carley.

“Oh yes, to tell the truth,” returned Eleanor, thoughtfully. “But there's nothing else to do.”

“Eleanor, I'm no better than you,” said Carley, with disdain. “I'm as useless and idle. But I'm beginning to see myself—and you—and all this rotten crowd of ours. We're no good. But you're married, Eleanor. You're settled in life. You ought to do something. I'm single and at loose ends. Oh, I'm in revolt!... Think, Eleanor, just think. Your husband works hard to keep you in this expensive apartment. You have a car. He dresses you in silks and satins. You wear diamonds. You eat your breakfast in bed. You loll around in a pink dressing gown all morning. You dress for lunch or tea. You ride or golf or worse than waste your time on some lounge lizard, dancing till time to come home to dress for dinner. You let other men make love to you. Oh, don't get sore. You do.... And so goes the round of your life. What good on earth are you, anyhow? You're just a—a gratification to the senses of your husband. And at that you don't see much of him.”

“Carley, how you rave!” exclaimed her friend. “What has gotten into you lately? Why, everybody tells me you're—you're queer! The way you insulted Morrison—how unlike you, Carley!”

“I'm glad I found the nerve to do it. What do you think, Eleanor?”

“Oh, I despise him. But you can't say the things you feel.”

“You'd be bigger and truer if you did. Some day I'll break out and flay you and your friends alive.”

“But, Carley, you're my friend and you're just exactly like we are. Or you were, quite recently.”

“Of course, I'm your friend. I've always loved you, Eleanor,” went on Carley, earnestly. “I'm as deep in this—this damned stagnant muck as you, or anyone. But I'm no longer blind. There's something terribly wrong with us women, and it's not what Morrison hinted.”

“Carley, the only thing wrong with you is that you jilted poor Glenn—and are breaking your heart over him still.”

“Don't—don't!” cried Carley, shrinking. “God knows that is true. But there's more wrong with me than a blighted love affair.”

“Yes, you mean the modern feminine unrest?”

“Eleanor, I positively hate that phrase 'modern feminine unrest!' It smacks of ultra—ultra—Oh! I don't know what. That phrase ought to be translated by a Western acquaintance of mine—one Haze Ruff. I'd not like to hurt your sensitive feelings with what he'd say. But this unrest means speed-mad, excitement-mad, fad-mad, dress-mad, or I should say undress-mad, culture-mad, and Heaven only knows what else. The women of our set are idle, luxurious, selfish, pleasure-craving, lazy, useless, work-and-children shirking, absolutely no good.”

“Well, if we are, who's to blame?” rejoined Eleanor, spiritedly. “Now, Carley Burch, you listen to me. I think the twentieth-century girl in America is the most wonderful female creation of all the ages of the universe. I admit it. That is why we are a prey to the evils attending greatness. Listen. Here is a crying sin—an infernal paradox. Take this twentieth-century girl, this American girl who is the finest creation of the ages. A young and healthy girl, the most perfect type of culture possible to the freest and greatest city on earth—New York! She holds absolutely an unreal, untrue position in the scheme of existence. Surrounded by parents, relatives, friends, suitors, and instructive schools of every kind, colleges, institutions, is she really happy, is she really living?”

“Eleanor,” interrupted Carley, earnestly, “she is not.... And I've been trying to tell you why.”

“My dear, let me get a word in, will you,” complained Eleanor. “You don't know it all. There are as many different points of view as there are people.... Well, if this girl happened to have a new frock, and a new beau to show it to, she'd say, 'I'm the happiest girl in the world.' But she is nothing of the kind. Only she doesn't know that. She approaches marriage, or, for that matter, a more matured life, having had too much, having been too well taken care of, knowing too much. Her masculine satellites—father, brothers, uncles, friends, lovers—all utterly spoil her. Mind you, I mean, girls like us, of the middle class—which is to say the largest and best class of Americans. We are spoiled.... This girl marries. And life goes on smoothly, as if its aim was to exclude friction and effort. Her husband makes it too easy for her. She is an ornament, or a toy, to be kept in a luxurious cage. To soil her pretty hands would be disgraceful! Even if she can't afford a maid, the modern devices of science make the care of her four-room apartment a farce. Electric dish-washer, clothes-washer, vacuum-cleaner, and the near-by delicatessen and the caterer simply rob a young wife of her housewifely heritage. If she has a baby—which happens occasionally, Carley, in spite of your assertion—it very soon goes to the kindergarten. Then what does she find to do with hours and hours? If she is not married, what on earth can she find to do?”

“She can work,” replied Carley, bluntly.

“Oh yes, she can, but she doesn't,” went on Eleanor. “You don't work. I never did. We both hated