Madcap | Page 8

other girls do,
and you might as well let me have my own way--"
"But flying--"
"It's as simple as child's play. If you'd ever done it you'd wonder how
people would ever be content to motor or ride--"
"You've been up--?"
"Last week at Garden City. I'm crazy about it."
"Yes, child, crazy--mad. I've done what I could to keep your
amusements within the bounds of reason and without avail, but I
wouldn't be doing my duty to your sainted mother if I didn't try to save
you from yourself. I shall do something to prevent this--this madcap
venture--I don't know what. I shall see Mr. Winthrop at the Trust
Company. There must be some way--"
The pendants in the good lady's ears trembled in the light, and her hand
groped for her handkerchief. "You can't, Hermia. I'll not permit it. I'll
get out an injunction--or something. It was all very well when you were
a child--but now--do you realize that you're a woman, a grown woman,
with responsibilities to the community? It's time that you were married,

settled down and took your proper place in New York. I had hoped that
you would have matured and forgotten the childish pastimes of your
girlhood but now--now--"
Mrs. Westfield, having found her handkerchief, wept into it, her
emotions too deep for other expression, while Hermia, now really
moved, sank at her feet upon the floor, her arms about her Aunt's
shoulders, and tried to comfort her. "I'm not the slightest use in the
world, Auntie, dear. I haven't a single homely virtue to recommend me.
I'm only fit to ride and dance and motor and frivol. And whom should I
marry? Surely not Reggie Armistead or Crosby Downs! Reggie and I
have always fought like cats across a wire, and as for Crosby--I would
as life marry the great Cham of Tartary. No, dear, I'm not ready for
marriage yet. I simply couldn't. There, there, don't cry. You've done
your duty. I'm not worth bothering about. I'm not going to do anything
dreadful. And besides--you know if anything did happen to me, the
money would go to Millicent and Theodore."
"I--I don't want anything to happen to you," said Mrs. Westfield,
weeping anew.
"Nothing will--you know I'm not hankering to die--but I don't mind
taking a sporting chance with a game like that."
"But what good can it possibly do?"
Hermia Challoner laughed a little bitterly. "My dear Auntie, my life has
not been planned with reference to the ultimate possible good. I'm a
renegade if you like, a hoyden with a shrewd sense of personal morality
but with no other sense whatever. I was born under a mad moon with
some wild humor in my blood from an earlier incarnation and I can't--I
simply can't be conventional. I've tried doing as other--and nicer--girls
do but it wearies me to the point of distraction. Their lives are so pale,
so empty, so full of pretensions. They have always seemed so. When I
used to romp like a boy my elders told me it was an unnatural way for
little girls to play. But I kept on romping. If it hadn't been natural I
shouldn't have romped. Perhaps Sybil Trenchard is natural--or Caroline
Anstell. They're conventional girls--automatic parts of the social

machinery, eating, sleeping, decking themselves for the daily round,
mere things of sex, their whole life planned so that they may make a
desirable marriage. Good Lord, Auntie! And whom will they marry?
Fellows like Archie Westcott or Carol Gouverneur, fellows with
notorious habits which marriage is not likely to mend. How could it?
No one expects it to. The girls who marry men like that get what they
bargain for--looks for money--money for looks--"
"But Trevelyan Morehouse!"
Hermia paused and examined the roses in the silver vase with a
quizzical air.
"If I were not so rich, I should probably love Trevvy madly. But, you
see, then Trevvy wouldn't love me. He couldn't afford to. He's ruining
himself with roses as it is. And, curiously enough, I have a notion when
I marry, to love--and be loved for myself alone. I'm not in love with
Trevvy or any one else--or likely to be. The man I marry, Auntie, isn't
doing what Trevvy and Crosby and Reggie Armistead are doing. He's
different somehow--different from any man I've ever met."
"How, child?"
"I don't know," she mused, with a smile. "Only he isn't like Trevvy
Morehouse."
"But Mr. Morehouse is a very promising young man--"
"The person I marry won't be a promising young man. Promising
young men continually remind me of my own deficiencies. Imagine
domesticating a critic like that, marrying a mirror for one's foibles and
being able to see nothing else. No, thanks."
"Whom will you marry then?" sighed Mrs.