Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-03
TNsTALLNTENT VIII.

YUST what had gone wrong, just
what had happened to spoil
things for Martha and Tack
~ Peter didn't know. Betty Roger
shrugged her shoulders; If sl2
had views, she wasn't broadcasting
them.
my dear!" said Carol TITS the life
these young people lead"
"You talk as If you were SOL" said
Peter.
mot at all. But It's true. and you
ought to be able to see 1t for yourself.
They won't accept the standards we
were all brought up with, and they
haven't evolved any new ones for them
selves. They're reckless and impatient
and self-centered. They won't realize
that marriage involves compromise,
that it means certain amount of give
and take. They don't understand the
difference between love and passion,
Just for one thing.
They-oh, I do think, sometimes,
they're cropping for something-that
they're working toward something that
would be rather gorgeous If they could
only get it. But / think the trouble Is
they're cropping for it by themselves and
for themselves, instead of making an
adventure of looking for it together"
That rather silenced Peter. Carol
had a way of doing that to him, some
times. He did't admit that she was
right, so far as Martha was concerned.
But there were plenty of these kids ne
vas seeing to whom what she'd said
certainly did apply. That was what he
wanted-to find some girl, and start
out with her. looking for something YOU
never could find by yourself.
He was inclined to think that Carol
wasn't far from being right. The key
to a lot of the trouble he saw around
him, made and in the making, to I'M
happiness, to many divorces, seemed to
him to be the egotiSm of these young
sters. They weren't, as a matter OF
fact, particularly selfish, he thought,
most of them; they were perfectly pre-
pared to do astonishingly unselflsh and
decent things, indeed, when some one
suggested them. But self-centered they
emphatically were: self-centered and
egocentric to 4 rather appalling degree.
They just didn't accept the fact that
there was anything comparable In i'm
portance and urgency to the satisfac-
ton and qualification OF their own de-
sires.
And, correspondingly, 1t seemed to
Peter, they embraced, with extraordi-
nary eagerness, cynical and material
istic philosophy. They believed or af-
fected to believe, that nothing lasted,
that the only chance of achieving hap
piness at all lay in snatching at 1t as
IL passed. They professed an utter lack
of belief in the essential good faith
and unselfshness of other people: 1t
was an article of their common creed
that they must at all times look out
for themselves, since, If they did not,
no one else would.
He wasn't himself inclined to take
all this too seriously. A lot of it, he
thought, was just talk; he remembered
talking q lot of nonsense himself, and
hearing lot more, at New Haven, In
his own salad days. A different sort OF
nonsense, specifically, TO be sure, but
nonsense none the less.
Peter argued with Martha sometimes
about these matters. He was talking
abstractly, he told himself, but he was
increasingly doubtful, as a matter OF
fact, of the truth of any such pretense.
It was getting harder all the time for
him to keep up the Illusion that his
interest in Martha was conferred on her
mind: that 1t didn't embrace her whole
being to o disturbing and even alarm
ing degree.
They had rushed headlong into in
timacy, Of course There'd been other
luncheons at Romi's and such places.
There was nothing clandestine at all
about those meetings; they both re-
ferred to them quite casually before
Tack, who certainly never showed any
resentment. They had lunch at Romi's,
rather than at some place where they
were likely to be drawn into crowd.
because they liked to talk.
And so they argued, quarreled, de-
hated with another about life-about
distractions and theories. AS rule,
that was. Occasionally something broke
down the wall they were both inclined
10 build up about realities. There was
one day when she was pale and worn,
with deep violet shadows under her
eyes. She looked dreadful, and some
shocked comment was torn from him.
"Oh, I'm all right" she said. 81
look like the devil, I know But that's
because couldn't get an appointment
90 have my face done until after lunch.
I didn't have any sleep, that's all.
Tack-veil, Tack was pretty bad last
night"