She goes around knocking everybody and
saying New York backs Sodom off the boards. I want her to come out with it
right here."
"I dare say I've talked too much," returned Carley. "It's been a rather
hard winter on me. Perhaps, indeed, I've tried the patience of my friends."
"See here, Carley," said Geralda, deliberately, "just because you've had
life turn to bitter ashes in your mouth you've no right to poison it for
us. We all find it pretty sweet. You're an unsatisfied woman and if you
don't marry somebody you'll end by being a reformer or fanatic."
"I'd rather end that way than rot in a shell," retorted Carley.
"I declare, you make me see red, Carley," flashed Geralda, angrily. "No
wonder Morrison roasts you to everybody. He says Glenn Kilbourne threw you
down for some Western girl. If that's true it's pretty small of you to vent
your spleen on us."
Carley felt the gathering of a mighty resistless force, But Geralda Conners
was nothing to her except the target for a thunderbolt.
"I have no spleen," she replied, with a dignity of passion. "I have only
pity. I was as blind as you. If heartbreak tore the scales from my eyes,
perhaps that is well for me. For I see something terribly wrong in myself,
in you, in all of us, in the life of today.
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