“Carley, the only thing wrong with you is that you jilted poor Glenn—­and are breaking your heart over him still.”

“Don’t—­don’t!” cried Carley, shrinking.  “God knows that is true.  But there’s more wrong with me than a blighted love affair.”

“Yes, you mean the modern feminine unrest?”

“Eleanor, I positively hate that phrase ‘modern feminine unrest!’ It smacks of ultra—­ultra—­Oh!  I don’t know what.  That phrase ought to be translated by a Western acquaintance of mine—­one Haze Ruff.  I’d not like to hurt your sensitive feelings with what he’d say.  But this unrest means speed-mad, excitement-mad, fad-mad, dress-mad, or I should say undress-mad, culture-mad, and Heaven only knows what else.  The women of our set are idle, luxurious, selfish, pleasure-craving, lazy, useless, work-and-children shirking, absolutely no good.”

“Well, if we are, who’s to blame?” rejoined Eleanor, spiritedly.  “Now, Carley Burch, you listen to me.  I think the twentieth-century girl in America is the most wonderful female creation of all the ages of the universe.  I admit it.  That is why we are a prey to the evils attending greatness.  Listen.  Here is a crying sin—­an infernal paradox.  Take this twentieth-century girl, this American girl who is the finest creation of the ages.  A young and healthy girl, the most perfect type of culture possible to the freest and greatest city on earth—­New York!  She holds absolutely an unreal, untrue position in the scheme of existence.  Surrounded by parents, relatives, friends, suitors, and instructive schools of every kind, colleges, institutions, is she really happy, is she really living?”

“Eleanor,” interrupted Carley, earnestly, “she is not. . . .  And I’ve been trying to tell you why.”

“My dear, let me get a word in, will you,” complained Eleanor.  “You don’t know it all.  There are as many different points of view as there are people. . . .  Well, if this girl happened to have a new frock, and a new beau to show it to, she’d say, ‘I’m the happiest girl in the world.’  But she is nothing of the kind.  Only she doesn’t know that.  She approaches marriage, or, for that matter, a more matured life, having had too much, having been too well taken care of, knowing too much.  Her masculine satellites—­father, brothers, uncles, friends, lovers—­all utterly spoil her.  Mind you, I mean, girls like us, of the middle class—­which is to say the largest and best class of Americans.  We are spoiled. . . .  This girl marries.  And life goes on smoothly, as if its aim was to exclude friction and effort.  Her husband makes it too easy for her.  She is an ornament, or a toy, to be kept in a luxurious cage.  To soil her pretty hands would be disgraceful!  Even f she can’t afford a maid, the modern devices of science make the care of her four-room apartment a farce.  Electric dish-washer, clothes-washer, vacuum-cleaner, and the near-by delicatessen and the caterer simply rob a young wife of her housewifely heritage.  If she has a baby—­which happens occasionally, Carley, in spite of your assertion—­it very soon goes to the kindergarten.  Then what does she find to do with hours and hours?  If she is not married, what on earth can she find to do?”