Part 9 (1/2)

CHAPTER VII

CAVE-MAN STUFF

”Cave-man stuff,” Billy said to d.i.c.k, pointing a thumb over his shoulder toward the interior of the Broadway moving-picture palace at the exit of which they had just met accidentally. ”It always goes big, doesn't it?”

”It does,” d.i.c.k agreed thoughtfully, ”in the movies anyhow.”

”Caroline says that the modern woman has her response to that kind of thing refined all out of her.” Billy intended his tone to be entirely jocular, but there was a note of anxiety in it that was not lost on his friend.

d.i.c.k paused under the shelter of a lurid poster--displaying a fierce gentleman in crude blue, showing all his teeth, and in the act of strangling an early Victorian ingenue with a dimple,--and lit a cigarette with his first match.

”Caroline may have,” he said, puffing to keep his light against the breeze, ”but I doubt it.”

”Rough stuff doesn't seem to appeal to her,” Billy said, quite humorously this time.

”She's healthy,” d.i.c.k mused, ”rides horseback, plays tennis and all that. Wouldn't she have liked the guy that swung himself on the roof between the two poles?” He indicated again the direction of the theater from which they had just emerged.

”She would have liked him,” Billy said gloomily, ”but the show would have started her arguing about this whole moving-picture proposition,--its crudity, and its tremendous sacrifice of artistic values, and so on and so on.”

”Sure, she's a highbrow. Highbrows always cerebrate about the movies in one way or another. Nancy doesn't get it at just that angle, of course. She hasn't got Caroline's intellectual appet.i.te. She's not interested in the movies because she hasn't got a moving-picture house of her own. The world is not Nancy's oyster--it's her lump of putty.”

”I don't know which is the worst,” Billy said. ”Caroline won't listen to anything you say to her,--but then neither will Nancy.”

”Women never listen to anything,” d.i.c.k said profoundly, ”unless they're doing it on purpose, or they happen to be interested. I imagine Caroline is a little less tractable, but Nancy is capable of doing the most damage. She works with concrete materials. Caroline's kit is crammed with nothing but ideas.”

”Nothing _but_--” Billy groaned.

”As for this cave-man business--theoretically, they ought to react to it,--both of them. They're both normal, well-balanced young ladies.”

”They're both runnin' pretty hard to keep in the same place, just at present.”

”Nancy isn't doing that--not by a long shot,” d.i.c.k said.

”She's not keeping in the same place certainly,” Billy agreed.

”Caroline is all eaten up by this economic independence idea.”

”It's a good idea,” d.i.c.k admitted; ”economic conditions are changing. No reason at all that a woman shouldn't prove herself willing to cope with them, as long as she gets things in the order of their importance. Earning her living isn't better than the Mother-Home-and-Heaven job. It's a way out, if she gets left, or gets stung.”

”I'm only thankful Caroline can't hear you.” Billy raised pious eyes to heaven but he continued more seriously after a second, ”It's all right to theorize, but practically speaking both our girls are getting beyond our control.”

”I'm not engaged to Nancy,” d.i.c.k said a trifle stiffly.

”Well, you ought to be,” Billy said.

d.i.c.k stiffened. He was not used to speaking of his relations with Nancy to any one--even to Billy, who was the closest friend he had. They walked up Broadway in silence for a while, toward the cross-street which housed the university club which was their common objective.

”I know I ought to be,” d.i.c.k said, just as Billy was formulating an apology for his presumption, ”or I ought to marry her out of hand.