But Kedzie was in an unreasoning mood. She had hoped for unreasonable
delights. Marriage had been a goal beyond the horizon, at the base of
the rainbow. She had reached it. The girl Kedzie was no more. She was
a wife. Kedzie Thropp and Anita Adair were now Mrs. Thomas Gilfoyle.
Her soul cried out:
"This is my honeymoon! I am married, married forever to that
tousle-headed, bristle-jawed, brainless, heartless dub. I won't
stand for it. I won't! I won't!"
She wanted to outscream the parrot. Its inarticulate, horrible
cachinnations voiced her humor uncannily. She had to bury her
pouting lips in her round young arm to keep from insanely echoing
that maniacal Ha-ha-ha! That green-and-red philosopher expressed
her own mockery of life and love, with its profound and eloquent
Ha-ha-ha! Oh, ha-ha-ha! Ee, ha-ha-ha!
CHAPTER IV
Now, of course, Kedzie ought to have been happy. Millions of girls
of her age were waking up that morning and calling themselves wretched
because their parents or distance or some other cause prevented them
from marrying young fellows no more prepossessing asleep than Gilfoyle
was.
In Europe that morning myriads of young girls tossed in their beds
and shivered lest their young men in the trenches might have been
killed or mangled by some shell dropped from an airship or sent over
from a cannon or shot up from a mine. And those young men, alive or
dead, looked no better than Gilfoyle, if as neat.
Pages:
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168