“Oh, well,” Honey exclaimed impatiently, let’s not argue any more.  You always go round in a circle.  I hate argument.  It never changes, anybody.  You never hear what the other fellow says.  You always come out of it with your convictions strengthened.”

Frank made a gesture of despair.  He drew a little book from his pocket and began to read.

“There’s one thing about them that certainly is to laugh,” Honey said after a silence, a glint of amusement in his big eyes, “and that is the care they take of those useless feet of theirs.  Lulu’s even taken to doing hers up every night in oil or cream.  It’s their particular vanity.  Now, take that, for instance.  Men never have those petty vanities.  I mean real men — regular fellows.”

“How about the western cowboy and his fancy boots?” Frank shot back over his book.

“Oh, that’s different,” Ralph said.  “Honey’s right.  That business of taking care of their feet symbolizes the whole sex to me.  They do the things they do just because the others do them — like sheep jumping over a wall.  Their fad at present is pedicure.  Peachy’s at it just like the rest of them.  Every night when I come home, I find her sitting down with both feet done up in one of those beautiful scarfs she’s collected, resting on a cushion.  It’s rather amusing, though.”  Ralph struggled to suppress his smile of appreciation.

“Clara’s the same.”  Pete smiled too.  “She’s cut herself out some high sandals from a pair of my old boots.  And she wears them day and night.  She says she’s been careless lately about getting her feet sunburned.  And she’s not going to let me see them until they’re perfectly white and transparent again.  She says that small, beautiful, and useless feet were one of the points of beauty with her people.”

“Julia’s got the bug, too.”  Billy’s eyes lighted with a gleam of tenderness.  “Among the things she found in the trunk was a box of white silk stockings and some moccasins.  She’s taken to wearing them lately.  It always puts a crimp in me to get a glimpse of them — as if she’d suddenly become a normal, civilized woman.”

“Now that I think of it,” Frank again came out of his book.  “Chiquita asked me a little while ago for a pair of shoes.  She’s wearing them all the time now to protect her feet — from the sun she says.”

“It is the most curious thing,” Billy said, “that they have never wanted to walk.  Not that I want them to now,” he added hastily.  “That’s their greatest charm in my eyes — their helplessness.  It has a curious appeal.  But it is singular that they never even tried it, if only out of curiosity.”

“They have great contempt for walking,” Honey observed.  “And it has never occurred to them, apparently, that they could enjoy themselves so much more if they could only get about freely.  Not that I want them to — any more than you.  That utter helplessness is, as you say, appealing.”