She went back to the old life. But it was in a bitter, restless,
critical spirit, conscious of the fact that she could derive neither
forgetfulness nor pleasure from it, nor see any release from the habit
of years.
One afternoon, late in the fall, she motored out to a Long Island club
where the last of the season's golf was being enjoyed by some of her
most intimate friends. Carley did not play. Aimlessly she walked around
the grounds, finding the autumn colors subdued and drab, like her mind.
The air held a promise of early winter. She thought that she would go
South before the cold came. Always trying to escape anything rigorous,
hard, painful, or disagreeable! Later she returned to the clubhouse to
find her party assembled on an inclosed porch, chatting and partaking
of refreshment. Morrison was there. He had not taken kindly to her late
habit of denying herself to him.
During a lull in the idle conversation Morrison addressed Carley
pointedly. "Well, Carley, how's your Arizona hog-raiser?" he queried,
with a little gleam in his usually lusterless eyes.
"I have not heard lately," she replied, coldly.
The assembled company suddenly quieted with a portent inimical to their
leisurely content of the moment. Carley felt them all looking at her,
and underneath the exterior she preserved with extreme difficulty, there
burned so fierce an anger that she seemed to have swelling veins of
fire.
"Queer how Kilbourne went into raising hogs," observed Morrison. "Such a
low-down sort of work, you know."
"He had no choice," replied Carley. "Glenn didn't have a father who made
tainted millions out of the war. He had to work. And I must differ with
you about its being low-down. No honest work is that. It is idleness
that is low down."
"But so foolish of Glenn when he might have married money," rejoined
Morrison, sarcastcally.
"The honor of soldiers is beyond your ken, Mr. Morrison."
He flushed darkly and bit his lip.
"You women make a man sick with this rot about soldiers," he said, the
gleam in his eye growing ugly. "A uniform goes to a woman's head
no matter what's inside it. I don't see where your vaunted honor of
soldiers comes in considering how they accepted the let-down of women
during and after the war."
"How could you see when you stayed comfortably at home?" retorted
Carley.
"All I could see was women falling into soldiers' arms," he said,
sullenly.
"Certainly. Could an American girl desire any greater happiness--or
opportunity to prove her gratitude?" flashed Carley, with proud uplift
of head.