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Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald
page 82 of 302 (27%)


IV


The first week of her visit passed in a whirl. She had her
promised toboggan-ride at the back of an automobile through a
chill January twilight. Swathed in furs she put in a morning
tobogganing on the country-club hill; even tried skiing, to sail
through the air for a glorious moment and then land in a tangled
laughing bundle on a soft snow-drift. She liked all the winter
sports, except an afternoon spent snow-shoeing over a glaring
plain under pale yellow sunshine, but she soon realized that
these things were for children--that she was being humored and
that the enjoyment round her was only a reflection of her own.

At first the Bellamy family puzzled her. The men were reliable
and she liked them; to Mr. Bellamy especially, with his iron-gray
hair and energetic dignity, she took an immediate fancy, once
she found that he was born in Kentucky; this made of him a link
between the old life and the new. But toward the women she felt a
definite hostility. Myra, her future sister-in-law, seemed the
essence of spiritless conversationality. Her conversation was so
utterly devoid of personality that Sally Carrol, who came from a
country where a certain amount of charm and assurance could be
taken for granted in the women, was inclined to despise her.

"If those women aren't beautiful," she thought, "they're nothing.
They just fade out when you look at them. They're glorified
domestics. Men are the centre of every mixed group."
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