Everybody says he's got an idea that he's
got so much better manners and all than what the rest of us have, but if
that's what he calls good manners, I want to know!"
Carol again studied the carving-knife. Blood on the whiteness of a
tablecloth might be gorgeous.
Then:
"Fool! Neurotic impossibilist! Telling yourself orchard fairy-tales--at
thirty. . . . Dear Lord, am I really THIRTY? That boy can't be more than
twenty-five."
IV
She went calling.
Boarding with the Widow Bogart was Fern Mullins, a girl of twenty-two
who was to be teacher of English, French, and gymnastics in the high
school this coming session. Fern Mullins had come to town early, for the
six-weeks normal course for country teachers. Carol had noticed her on
the street, had heard almost as much about her as about Erik Valborg.
She was tall, weedy, pretty, and incurably rakish. Whether she wore a
low middy collar or dressed reticently for school in a black suit with a
high-necked blouse, she was airy, flippant. "She looks like an absolute
totty," said all the Mrs.
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