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.