GITA, now that she was in command, had her meals served in the breakfast-room, as nothing could make cheerful, in the daytime at least, a long high room paneled to the ceiling, whose windows looked directly into somber pine woods. This little room, facing the garden, was bright and cheerful as the girls sat at lunch. It was a meal to satisfy the appetite rather than caress the palate, for Mrs. Carteret, during the last year of her life, had lived on broths, gruels, eggs, and milk, and the cook had “got her hand out,” as she informed her new mistress somewhat apprehensively: it had been an easy place and to the grumbling of nurses she had been haughtily indifferent. Gita, who had a European palate for flavors, had no intention of keeping her and asked Mrs. Brewster if she knew of a good cook.
“I can’t afford a chef, of course,” she said, “and I don’t know enough to train anyone, although I cooked for my mother and myself for a time in San Francisco. But I hate the sight of a kitchen and my accomplishments in that line were limited to meat and vegetables, generally overdone. But I should be able to get a fairly decent cook for what I pay this moron.”
“I know just the thing.” Elsie Brewster was delighted to be of service to this girl whom she liked more every moment and was anxious to study. “That is to say if your Topper would stand for it. The woman is colored.”
“Topper’s opinion will not be asked,” said Gita coolly. “He will suit his tastes to mine or leave. I have no sentiment about old servants, and I am sure he must have saved a lot, to say nothing of my grandmother’s legacy. I’ll make him a present of the discarded furniture and he can set up another boarding-house in Atlantic City! Send your darky along. I’m enormously obliged.”
“Oh, do keep Topper!” cried Elsie. “What would an old manor be without an aged butler? He’s an indispensable part of the tradition.”
“Well, he can’t live forever,” said Gita practically. “And I think the less you bother about traditions the better you get along. Old servants think they own you, anyhow, and there’ll be only one master in this house.”
“I don’t fancy he owned your grandmother. I used to see her sometimes when I went to the Episcopal church with a friend, and thought her quite the most imperious person I had ever seen. You looked just like her when you said that.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s only because I can have things my own way for the first time in my life.”
Elsie looked at her speculatively, wondering how she could get this odd girl to talk about herself. Gita Carteret was a new type in her somewhat limited experience, and it was a confirmed habit to edge everyone she met under an avid and microscopic eye.
“You have met Miss Pleyden,” she began tentatively. “I wonder what you think of her?”
“She’s a good sort. So are several of the other girls she has brought here. Not unlike the San Francisco girls, only more so. But I never could live their life. I fancy I’m old before my time.”
Mrs. Brewster laughed outright. “I never saw anyone look younger! It is difficult to believe you are twenty-two.”
“Well,” said Gita gloomily, “I ought to look forty.”
“But you wouldn’t like to look forty. Come, now, own up.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” Gita was forced to smile. “I suppose that sounded like a grand little pose.”
“I can’t imagine you in a conscious pose of any sort. But, you know, youth can go through a lot without being hopelessly scarred. Otherwise—I have heard vaguely that you had a hard time for a few years, if you’ll pardon me—you wouldn’t look a bare eighteen when you are four years older. I felt very old myself at your age, for I had loved my young husband devotedly; and now I feel, and look, younger, and, I am willing to confide in you, I have almost forgotten the poor man.”
She hoped, by throwing open a window in her own soul, to hear a quick rattling of the shutters opposite, but Gita replied with a frown: “Underground is the best place for husbands as far as my observation goes. I think you were in luck.”
“Perhaps. Although he really was a delightful chap. Still, if he had lived there is no doubt I should be doing the plain domestic act today: several children, repetitional cares of a small house, teas and bridge-parties for diversion. I doubt if I ever should have found myself. The life of a business woman seems to me infinitely preferable, and if I didn’t have this writing kink I’d be quite happy in it. Still, I think every woman should marry, even if it cannot last, one way or another. No woman can be thoroughly poised, able to look at life on all sides, and with a clear analytical eye, unless she has lived with a man in matrimony. Other thing is too one-sided.”
“Some women, perhaps. And as you’re a writer no doubt you have to know it all. But there is no necessity for the masculine woman to marry.”
Elsie bent over her pudding. “Do you really think yourself masculine?” she asked indistinctly.
“Of course I am!” Gita’s voice flew to its upper register. Her grandmother’s and Polly’s gibes had made little impression on her conscious mind. She ascribed them to personal interest and the conventional viewpoint.
“Then—I must ask it—I can’t help it!—why don’t you cut off your eyelashes?”
“Cut off my eyelashes!” Gita raised one narrow sunburnt hand and stroked them tenderly. “If you want the truth I love my eyelashes.”
“Of course you do. And your lovely head and magnificent eyes and all the rest of your beauty, badly as you treat it. But, my dear, I am going to say it if you never speak to me again: you don’t look the least like a boy and you never can.”
She expected to witness a full and final exhibition of the Carteret temper, but to her surprise Gita answered gloomily: “I’ve begun to be afraid I don’t. Two of those horrid men on the Boardwalk this morning tried to flirt with me.”
“What did they say?” asked Elsie eagerly.
“I wouldn’t repeat it.” And her eyebrows were an unbroken black line above flaming eyes at the memory of being called “Cutie.” She, Gita Carteret!
“It might be one thing and it might be another,” observed Mrs. Brewster cryptically. “A girl trying to look like a boy would only amuse some men, but it might lead you into excessively disagreeable experiences with others. To say nothing of—well——”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I fancy you have seen too much of one side of life and very little of another. If you’ll take my advice you will go up to New York—I’d love to go with you!—and buy a lot of feminine frocks and hats. Of course you are in mourning but there are adorable black things.”
“I hate feminine frocks. Besides, if I’m good-looking I never would be able to keep men off.”
“You never will, anyway, but you might have a—well, more satisfactory measure of success if you cast yourself for the part of the cold and indifferent beauty. That’s rather out of date, but as men today are averse from effort of any sort in their relations with women, accustomed to be met half-way, in short, I fancy you’d be able to manage. But do you really never intend to marry?”
“I really do not! If you knew what I know of men your books wouldn’t be fit for publication. What sort of stories do you write, anyway? Realistic or romantic? Are those the terms?”
Once more Gita had eluded her, but she replied with every appearance of eager response: “Terms are out of date but principle remains the same. I write both. When I’m sad and tired I write romance, and when I’m feeling particularly buoyant, I write small-town stuff, with husbands going about the bedrooms in suspenders and forgetting to brush their teeth; and revolting wives (both ways) scraping out the kitchen sink. I always give particular prominence to grease. When the sink is clean, if it ever is, she turns her attention to the fly-specks and marks of heads on the wall-paper.”
Gita’s eyebrows were in their proper place and she was grinning delightedly. “I think you’re a whacker!” she exclaimed. “Do you ever write of New York? That is the one city I long to see—I’ve barely had a glimpse of it. I’m going up to all the theaters and concerts and just walk the streets. Will you come along? I’d love to have you.”
Mrs. Brewster’s eyes glowed, but she answered firmly: “I don’t know anything I’d like better, but I simply won’t walk the streets with you if you insist upon wearing those clothes—and that hat. In the first place it’s a crime and in the second I dislike being conspicuous.”
Gita looked sulkily at her plate. “I’ve dressed like this since I was sixteen. My mother didn’t like it, and she was the only person I cared enough about to mind whether anyone liked it or not. But I’m used to it. I should feel awkward and intolerably strange any other way.”
“Only for a time, and in mourning you wouldn’t notice it so much. You’d be quite accustomed to it by the time you went into colors.”
“I should feel as if a part of my personality had been lopped off.”
“On the contrary, you’d give your personality its first chance to develop itself. If you really had a hard masculine face—the kind that goes with authentic masculoid characteristics—I wouldn’t say a word. I’d not be interested enough. But your type of beauty—real beauty—is the sort to express itself through clothes. Do you really hate beautiful and expressive gowns?” she demanded. “Hate the sight of them on other women?”
“Oh, I like to look at them well enough. And I see at once if details are not right. I fancy I have what an old Frenchman I once knew called ‘le sentiment de la toilette.’ But all that is merely the same thing as knowing a good picture from a bad. I was dragged through all the picture galleries in Europe, and I lived in Paris off and on, where the women are the best dressed in the world. I appreciated them the more because I lived so much in French provincial towns, where the women are certainly the worst dressed in the world. And my mother had lovely things when I was little, and always managed to look better in old rags made over than many that spent thousands a year. But I never longed for things myself—never gave it a thought.”
“Because you had censored your mind so thoroughly. Don’t you really think that if you hadn’t—for reasons best known to yourself—adopted the rôle of pseudo-boy so young, you’d have been as feminine in all ways as other girls?”
Gita, quite unconscious of Elsie’s delicate probing into her past, answered obstinately: “Never thought about it. Or if I had I’d have been glad of another excuse to spend as little as possible on myself. We were frightfully poor, and even in San Francisco, where, for a time, we thought the worst of our troubles were over, we just about made both ends meet. At least we couldn’t save. If I’d been keen to dress like the other girls we’d have been in debt up to our necks.”
Topper, who had received instructions to keep out of the room except when he was serving, had made his final exit some time since, but the girls lingered on with their coffee and cigarettes. Elsie made a curious zigzagging movement along the table with a spoon, denting the cloth; here and there she made an upward curve or straight mark as irregular in height as the crooked line; then, suddenly, she broke off, skipped an inch, and drew a high firm object that looked not unlike a barred gate.
“What on earth are you doing?” asked Gita curiously.
“Outlining your life as I imagine it—in a hazy sort of way. It has never followed the even course of other girls of your class or you wouldn’t be what you are. These upward curves and straight marks represent abrupt changes and milestones. But that”—she pointed to the last figure—“is more than a milestone. It represents a barrier that shuts you off completely from your old life. It opened wide enough to let you through but it is closed and sealed forever. You could not go back if you wished, and I know that you wish nothing less. Behind that barrier is a life you hate to remember. Before it, where you find yourself now, are the pleasant places and all the most romantic girl could have wished for, who was not too extravagant. Position, freedom, an independent income, powerful and admiring friends, and the chance to be stared at as an authentic beauty. Don’t you think you should change with it? If you don’t you’re not as original as you look. Why! You’d be merely commonplace, obstinate, content to go on being one thing all your life. Don’t you know that the really intelligent woman these days crowds as much variety into her life as life will permit? And adds as many sides to her personality?”
“Ah!” Gita had turned pale. Her mouth was open and her nostrils dilating, as if her heart were beating irregularly. “That is something I never thought of. I do like change, and maybe I am obstinate—but I’m not commonplace! . . . Perhaps the time has come . . . anyhow I promised my grandmother I’d let Mrs. Pleyden bring me out, and dress like other girls. She was dying and had been very generous with me, and I couldn’t help promising her. But she died a day or two later and I hadn’t thought of it since. But of course I’ll have to keep my promise—and I might as well begin now of my own free will,” she added characteristically. “And if I really can’t look like a boy, what’s the use? I suppose I’m too old for such nonsense anyhow. I used to feel a lot older than I do now—and looked it, I imagine.” She shot an almost apologetic glance at Elsie, who was beaming: she knew she had succeeded where others had failed. “Reaction, I suppose, and I really never wore such an ugly hat before. . . . But I won’t—and this is positive!—ever marry, or even dance with men.”
“Oh, let the future take care of itself. I can think of nothing now but of helping you buy frocks and hats in the New York shops. I know them all—just where to go. Luckily the hat of the moment comes almost to the bridge of the nose, and by the time fashion changes, your front and side hair will have grown out. I’ll ask for my vacation now if you’ll really start in right away to fit yourself out.”
“I will. And send the bills to Mr. Donald! Although he’s rather a dear and sent me a check for two-fifty the other day. I’ve spent hardly any of it. Come upstairs and see the jewels my grandmother gave me. I suppose I’ll have to be forty before I can wear most of them, but it’s jolly to have inherited lovely things to look at—although I’d forgotten them till this minute!”