Booth Tarkington

“ So it wasn't her looks that kept the young men from falling in love with her. It was that queer invisible wall surrounding her; though she hadn't put it there herself on purpose, by any means.
The mothers of the young men liked Geraldine Wygate. They were always telling us what a “self-respecting” girl she was—so much more admirable than the “pushing” sort we seemed to favor—and they wondered why we didn't show her more attention. When they asked us about that, we weren't able to give very satisfactory answers, though my cousin Joe Buell once came pretty near the truth of the matter. ”

“ Joe's always been a romanticist, and he says Geraldine is lofty—he thinks her obliteration of self is a holy medieval passion, or something, and the only 'heroism on the grand scale' we've ever seen in this dull town. Did you ever hear of anything more preposterous? To pay no attention whatever to a girl until she begins to make a ninny of herself over another man, and then go and make a ninny of yourself over her! ”

“ Bella was almost right; Bellworthy Cameron's looks were probably responsible for many of his lacks and faults; but young people don't often make allowances for causes, and he hadn't been in town a full year before he was pretty thoroughly unpopular with all of us. The young men found him a little bit too smilingly sleek and superior; he wanted us to feel that he'd been about the world rather more than we had; and probably he had, too; but it's never tactful to make such things evident. As for the girls, what Bella said of him spoke for all—except Geraldine, of course. ”

“ To come out with it right flat-footed, I've got a suspicion that Joe Buell's about as queer as Geraldine. If he hasn't gone and fallen in love with her, what is the matter with him?”
At that, Bella looked angry, but not with me. “It makes me perfectly raging!” she said. “He's a sentimental idiot, and that's the only explanation I know. Here he's lived within a block of that girl all his life and never noticed her; but the minute she falls in love with somebody else, he proceeds to lose his head about her! ”

“ And I wondered if anybody who didn't know her could believe the truth about Geraldine generally: Most people are pretty queer, I suppose, when we get right down to the bedrock truth about them; but that doesn't often happen, and we fall into the way of believing that most of us are rational. ”

“ He wont listen to a thing about her, and if Mamma and I begin talking about her, he gets furious—and if we keep it up, he walks straight out of the house. It began the very day when we looked at her and Cameron out of that window yonder. Don't you remember Joe took it rather queerly? He said she looked beautiful—he'd always thought she was just a walking statuette, or something, but now she'd come to life. ”

“ Isn't it the highest possible privilege we commonplace people can have, to help genius find its opportunity?”
That was her state of mind. Cameron's good looks meant to her that he was supremely endowed with every other gift, as well. If he'd played a tune on the piano, with one finger, Geraldine would have thought Paderewski's only advantage was in having practiced more.
A DAY or two after I had this talk with her, my cousin Bella told me she'd seen Cameron and Geraldine driving in Geraldine's new open car. Cameron's hat flew off, and Geraldine jumped out and ran back and got it for him. ”

“ The most mystifying woman I ever knew was one who hadn't the slightest idea she was puzzling anybody, and she showed genuine amazement when she found out that her conduct was generally thought impossible to understand. ”

“ Cameron has become involved with the Crispwell girl; but just to say that, isn't to tell the truth about it.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I'm getting mixed up. You say he's involved. Do you mean—”
“I mean the girl pestered him to death,” Geraldine said calmly. “She fell violently in love with him, of course, as soon as she saw him; she managed to get herself introduced to him. After that she sought him continuously; she put herself in his way a dozen times a day. Women simply besiege him, of course, and naturally he can't prevent them from making love to him. ”

“ Aunt Sallie said, “it's just about killed that poor old man. The doctor's car is still standing in front of their house, I noticed, as I came by.”
Aunt Sallie didn't exaggerate when she said the trouble between Geraldine and her father had 'just about killed that poor old man'—it did more than that. The doctor's car was still in front of the Wygates' when I left Bella and Aunt Sallie, half an hour later, and went home. By eight o'clock that evening, though, the doctor's car had gone—but there was another one standing there in place of it. ”

“ Cameron's in a terrible mess over that loud girl you see all over the place in a red car, Una Crispwell, and her father's going to have her sue him for breach-of-promise. Mrs. Thomas R. Cloope heard about it yesterday, so it's all over town, today.”
“It must be,” I said, because I recognized that as accurate. If Mrs. Thomas R. Cloope heard a piece of news one day, it would certainly be all over town by the next afternoon. “You don't suppose anybody will think Geraldine ought to be—”
“Oh, yes, I do!” Bella interrupted. “There are too many kind souls excited about how she'll take it. ”

“ What I most object to is his letting a girl do so much for him. It's too much like making use of something a man oughtn't to use. I'd like to see him blackballed right away.”
“No,” Joe said. “We're all friends of the Wygates, and we don't want to hurt people's feelings. ”

“ Aunt Sallie came in just then, and she knew all about it and was full of it.
“People are just buzzing!” she said. “I mean over this scandal about that relative of the Camerons. It seems the Cameron family are hurrying around to everybody, explaining that he's only their third cousin once or twice removed, and that they really hardly knew him until he came here, and they intend to have nothing to do with him from now on. Mrs. Tom Cloope tells me she decided last night that Geraldine Wygate had a right to know what was being said, so she went over there and started to tell her ”

“ IT was a Sunday afternoon, not long after lunch; and Joe and I were lounging in their library, killing time until it got late enough for us to start on a round of “Sunday calls'—a customary procedure with us. ”

“ He's anxious to show what he can do in his profession. He's held down by the older men in Judge Cameron's office, and not given a chance, except in matters of very small importance not worth his attention. ”

“ He's—” She had turned to look out of the window again, as she talked, and her feet were again swinging as they had been; but they began to slow down as something outdoors caught her attention; then they stopped, and her French heels clicked together suddenly. She leaned forward, staring out at the sidewalk. “Speaking of Satan!” ”