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29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are twenty-six and growing set in your ways, she would mentally accuse--"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Office notions are not so nice as the frilly, cry-on-a-shoulder-when-the-biscuits-burn notions, she would end, dolefully."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Fancy my tall self weeping on the superintendent's shoulder because a cablegram has gone astray! Making women over into commercial nuns is a problem--some of us take it easily and don't try to fight back, some of us fight and end defeated and bitter, and some of us don't play the game but just our own hand--like Trudy. And what's the square game for a commercial nun? That is what I'd like to know."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish someone else would try baking these greasy things,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why don't you slip on a kimono instead of a starched house dress, Mary? Whoever is spick-and-span on Sunday morning?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't get Mary to lecturing, Mrs. Faithful warned between bites."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She'll make us all go to church if we're not careful. Are you going out with Gay to-day, Trudy?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes. And I'm awfully mad at him, too. It's fierce the way he gambles."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't be too harsh; it's a mistake to nag too much beforehand. He's a lovely young man and I wish Luke could have one of those green paddock coats. I always like a gentleman's coat with a sealskin collar, don't you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If it's paid for. Trudy's eyes darkened."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just because Gay comes of a wonderful family he thinks he has the keys to the city."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He's a lovely young man, Mrs. Faithful reiterated."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, what did Beatrice Constantine wear when she came down to the office?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Clothes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She looked like a Christmas tree on fire, Luke supplemented."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lovely butter-coloured hair she has!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That will do. She is very nice, but different from our sort."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She's no different; she has money. My things have as much style. Gaylord knows her intimately, and he says she is a wretched dancer and pouts if things don't please her. The best tailors and modistes in the country make her things. Who wouldn't look well? If I had one tenth of her income I'd be a more Gorgeous Girl than she is--and don't I wish I had it! Oh, boy! Why, that girl has her maid, the most wonderful jewellery you ever saw, two automobiles of her own and a saddle horse, and her father owns the best apartment house in town, and Beatrice is going to have the best apartment in it when she marries Steve. And you can just bet she knew she was going to marry him a long time ago--because she knew he'd rob the Bank of England to get a fortune. She's flirted with everyone from an English nobleman to the Prince of Siam, and now she's marrying the handsomest, brightest, most devoted cave man in the world. Trudy glanced at Mary."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yet she doesn't really care for him, she just wants to be married before she is considered passée. Trudy was very proud of her occasional French."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She'll be twenty-six her next birthday!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dear me, girls take their time these days; I was eighteen the day Mr. Faithful led me to the altar."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When are you going to get married?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I'll give Mary a chance. She don't want to dance in the pig trough."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish you people would finish eating. Luke, are you going fishing with me out at the old mill? Then you better get the walks swept. We'll be home in time for dinner, mother. I'll leave the things as nearly ready as I can. How about you, Trudy?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gay wants me to go to the Boulevard Café--they dance on Sunday just the same as weekdays--and then we'll do a movie afterward. I suppose Steve and his Beatrice are now revelling in the Constantine conservatory, with Steve walking on all fours to prove his devotion. Why is it some girls have everything? Look at me--no one cares if I live or die. First I had a stepmother, and then I tried living with a great-aunt, and then I went to work. Here I am still working, and a lot of thanks I get for it. I'd like to see the Gorgeous Girl have to work--well, I would!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm terribly poor this week and if I should have a quarrel with Gay I want to have enough carfare to come home alone--you know how we scrap,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How do they do it? Mary sighed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come, Luke, let's get on the trail of something green and real."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He's Vondeplosshe's boy,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was born in the room over the large bay window; the one next to it was my nursery--a dear old spot. Rather tough, old dear, to have to stand outside! Or:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Father was a charter member of the club, so they carry me along without dues. Decent of them, isn't it? Father was a prince among men, robbed right and left, y'know--always the way when a gentleman tries to be in business. Some say it was Constantine himself who did the worst of it. Of course never repeat it, will you? It takes a man with Steve O'Valley's coarseness to forge ahead."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He is so convenient, she had defended."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You can always call him up at the last minute if someone has disappointed for cards or dinner, and he is never busy. He can shop with you as well as a woman, lunch with you, dance with you--and he does know the proper way to handle small silver. Besides, he loves Monster."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm cross. You were gambling again--yes, you were! Never mind how I know. I know!... I'll have macaroni, ripe olives, and a cream puff."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The same, Gay said, mournfully; adding:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, deary, I have to live!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why not work? I do. You sponge along and waste everyone's time. I'm not getting any younger, and it's pretty rough to be in an office with horrid people ordering you round--to have to hear all about Beatrice Constantine and her wonderful wedding. I'm as good as she is--yet I'll not be asked, and you will be."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course I am. I'm her oldest playmate,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So, you paste jewel, you'll go mincing into church and see her married and dance with everyone afterward; and I'll sit in the office licking postage stamps while you kiss the bride! I'm better looking than she is; and if you are good enough to go to that wedding so am I!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, Trudy, he began, in a bewildered fashion,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No use making a scene in a fifty-cent café, she told him, bitterly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, you're a great little girl, he said, nervously;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm twenty-three and you're twenty-six, and my eyes ache when I work steadily. I'll have to wear glasses in another year--but I'll wash clothes before I'll do it!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When it gets that bad we'll be married,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Married on what?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I can't live at your club, she continued;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I owe more than that, he admitted;"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wouldn't waste time talking. I'd marry you. Her good humour was returning."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Honest, Gay, do you think you might draw down some kale?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish you wouldn't talk that way. When we are married and you meet my friends you'll have to brush up on a lot of things."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I guess I'll manage to be understood, she retorted;"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A perfectly lovely time!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Perfectly lovely! he echoed, politely."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't work too hard to-morrow, Babseley, will you? And do nothing rash until you see me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Call me up to-morrow at eight, Bubseley,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And I'll have to go to work to-morrow,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It will never be the same, darling, she was saying, glancing in a mirror to see if the light showed the rouge boundaries too clearly--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't be silly. You know it's a relief. You can sit back and rest from now on--until I'm divorced,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How can you even say such a thing?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Alice Twill was divorced before she married this specimen; so was Coralie Minter; and Harold Atwater; and both the Deralto girls were divorced, and their mother, too. And Jill Briggs is considering it, and I'm sure I don't blame her. Everyone seems to think a divorce quite the proper caper when things grow dull. You may as well have all the fun you can. Steve wants me to have everything I fancy, and I'm sure he'd never deny me a divorce."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are marrying a splendid, self-made young man who adores you and who is making money every day in the week. No girl is to be more envied--you have had a wonderful ten years of being a 'Gorgeous Girl,' as your dear papa calls it, and at twenty-six you are to become the bride of a wonderful man--neither too early nor too late an age. I cannot really grieve--when I realize how happy you are going to be, and yet----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't work so hard, aunty, Bea said, easily."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course Steve's a wonderful old dear and all that--I wish I had asked him for the moon. I do believe he'd have gotten an option on it."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you call natural feelings of a mother and an aunt 'working hard' I am at a loss----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I don't call anything anything; I'm dead and almost buried. She looked at her small self in the pier glass."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Think of all I have to go through with before it is over and we are on our way west. Here it is half-past twelve and I've not eaten breakfast really. I'm so tired of presents and bored with clothes that I cannot acknowledge another thing or decide anything. I think weddings are a frightful ordeal. Did you know the women on my war-relief committee presented me with a silver jewel box? Lovely of them, wasn't it? But I deserve it--after slaving all last winter. My bronchitis was just because I sold tags for them during that rainy weather."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, I haven't seen it. But I am glad you decided on a church wedding--there is such a difference between a wedding and just a marriage."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Those are all wrong, so back they go; and I can't help it if that woman does need money, I told her I wanted a full inch-and-a-half beading and she has put this crochet edge all round everywhere. I shan't accept a single piece!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Two more days before the wedding, she complained."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's the Twill luncheon to-day and a bridge and tea at Marion Kavanaugh's--I hate her, too. She gave me the most atrocious Chinese idol. I'm going to tell her I have no proper place for it, that it deserves to be alone in a room in order to have it properly appreciated. She laughed at herself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So I'll leave it for papa. The apartment won't hold but just so much--it's a tiny affair. She laughed again, the apartment having only eleven rooms and a profusion of iron grille work at all the windows."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But it's a wonderful way to start--in an apartment--it is such a good excuse for not dragging in all the terrible wedding presents. I can leave everything I like with papa because he never minds anything as long as he has old slippers and plenty of mince pie. After a year or so I'm going to have a wonderful house copied after one I saw in Italy. By then they will all have forgotten what they gave me and I can furnish it so we won't have to go about wearing blinders.... The blue dress, Jody, that's right."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And what is it to-night?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Farmsworth dinner; and to-morrow another luncheon and the garden party at the club. Then the dinner here, rehearsal; and Wednesday, thank heaven, it will be all ended!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The ermine scarf, please."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, Gaylord Vondeplosshe is going to be an usher.... Well, what else could I do at the last moment? Wasn't it absurd for a grown man like Fred Jennings to go have the mumps? Gay knows everyone and I'm sure he is quite harmless.... Oh, Steve is well and terribly busy, you know. He is giving me the most wonderful present. Papa hasn't given me his yet and I'm dying to know what it is, he always gives me such wonderful things, too.... There's the bell. I do hope it isn't Lois Taylor, because she always wants people to sign petitions and appear in court. It is Lois Taylor! Why didn't you leave word to have all petitions checked with wraps? Giggles."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good heavens, what a fright of a hat. Well, are you ready to go down?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You dear---- she began in stereotyped, high-pitched tones as she pressed the spring."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You duck! she added a trifle more enthusiastically, viewing the bowknot of gems in the form of a pin--a design of diamonds four inches wide with a centre stone of pigeon's-blood ruby."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You couldn't have pleased me more --trying it against her dressing gown."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "See, Jody, isn't this wonderful? I must kiss you."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I guess Steve can't go any better than that,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This is a joy,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Tired?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dead. It's terrible, papa. I don't know how I'll stay bucked up. I want to burst out crying every time a bell rings or any one speaks to me.... Oh, Jody, your fingers are all thumbs! Please try it again."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It looks nice,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Harkin detectives will watch the presents, her father ventured again."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There are some more packages downstairs."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm tired of presents; I want to be through unwrapping crystal vases and gold-lined fruit dishes and silly book ends and having to write notes of thanks when I hate the gifts. My mind seems quivering little wires that won't let me have a moment's rest."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When I married your mother, her father remarked, softly, evidently forgetting Johanna's presence,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He looked round the elegant little room."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was getting ten dollars a week--that seemed big money in those days. I rented two rooms in the rear cottage of a house on Ontario Street--it's torn down now. And I bought some second-hand stuff to furnish it."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But your mother liked the rooms--and the things. I remember I bought a combination chair and stepladder for a dollar and it didn't work. He gave a chuckle."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It stayed in a sort of betwixt and between position, about one third stepladder and about two thirds chair, and that worried me a lot. A dollar meant a good deal then. But your mother knew what to do with it, she used it for kindling wood and said we'd charge it up to experience. Yes, sir, we walked to the minister's--she wore a blue-print dress with a little pink sprig in it, and a sort of a bonnet."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, when she came out of the door she looked as pretty as you'll look in all your stuff, and she came right up to me and said, game as a pebble, 'Mark, we're man and wife and we'll never be sorry, will we? And when you're rich and I'm old we will stay just as loving!' I didn't feel sorry or frightened any more--not once. Not until you came and they told me she had gone on. Then I felt mighty sorry--and frightened. She looked so tired when I saw her then--so tired."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I've given you all she would have had,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Daddy, she began with a quick indrawing of her breath,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why wouldn't she?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't know--only I sometimes do almost think--would you suspect it? When I go to the office and watch those queerly dressed women bending over desks and earning a few dollars a week and having to live on it--and when I see how they manage to smile in spite of it--and how I waste and spend--and shed a great many tears--well, I wonder if it is quite safe to start as Steve and I are starting! Then she threw her arms round him."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Steve won't believe that I've been serious, will he? Now, daddy dear, please go 'way and let me dress, for I'm 'way late."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We're doing ourselves proud,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What I told Beatrice this morning. Only she is all nerves. She can't enjoy anything--it will be a relief to me, Mark, as well as a loss, when it is over."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you remember the time you did the beadwork for the head carpenter's wife and when she paid you for it you spent the dollar for liquid rouge? Todd was so mad he wouldn't speak for a week,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't say such things! Think how it would embarrass Bea. Of course I don't remember. Neither do you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, don't I? What's the harm recalling old times? I remember when you tried to make Todd a winter overcoat and he said it looked most as good as a deep-sea diver's outfit. My Hannah nearly died a-laughing."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Aha, the conquerer comes. My dear lad, your lady love has just ousted me from her room, she'll be down presently. Belle, Steve and I are going into the den to smoke."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm trying to look as amiable as possible, but I wish fuss and feathers were not the mode. Steve smiled his sweetest at Aunt Belle and then took Constantine's arm."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The cave-man style of clubbing one's chosen into unconsciousness and strolling at leisure through the jungle with her wasn't half bad. By the way, I did sell the Allandale man to-day, and the razor-factory stock is going to boom instead of flatten out--I'm sure of it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've come on about as well as they ever do, he remarked, unexpectedly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "None of these rich young dogs could have matched you. Seen the presents?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Scads of 'em. Awful stuff. I don't know what half of it is for. Bea is going to hand you most of it. The apartment is to be a thing of beauty and she won't hear of taking the offerings along."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How is the shop?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Splendid--Mary Faithful will manage it quite as well as I do. I shall hear from her daily, you'll stroll over that way, and I can manage to keep my left little finger on the wheel."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mary's a good sort, Constantine mused."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sorry I ever let her go over to your shebang. What's her family like?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't know. Never thought about 'em. Her kid brother works round the place after school. Guess Mary's the man of the family."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How much do you pay her?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Forty a week."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Cheap enough. A man would draw down seventy and demand an assistant. I never had any luck with women secretaries--they all wanted to marry me,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mary's not that sort. Business is her life. If she were a man I'd have a rival. I'm going to give her fifty a week from now on; she's giving up her vacation to stay on the job."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't spoil her."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No danger. I've promised Beatrice to really learn to play bridge,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Accept my sympathy----"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I shan't see you a moment until we're married, he began, mournfully."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've been most awfully neglected. But as you are going to be all mine I can't complain. You're prettier than ever, Bea.... Love me?... Lots?... Whole lots? You don't say it the way I want you to,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll scream it and a crowd can gather to bear witness. She dimpled prettily and nibbled at a rose leaf."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's all like a fairy tale--everyone says so, and lots of the girls would like to be marrying you on Wednesday."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Tell them I belong to the Gorgeous Girl until six men are walking quietly beside me and assisting me to a permanent resting place. Even then I'll belong to her,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Your nose is so handsome,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Talking of noses! Bea, sometimes it's terrible to realize that my ambitions have become true. To dream and work without ceasing and without much caring what you do until your dream merges into reality--it makes even a six-footer as hysterical as a schoolgirl."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're intense, she said, soberly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jill says you'd make a wonderful actor."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Those scatterbrained time wasters--don't listen to them. Let's find our real selves--you and I; be worth while. Now that I've made my fortune I want to spend it in a right fashion--I want to be interested in things, not just dollars and cents. Help me, dearest. You know about such things; you've never had the ugliness of poverty bruise the very soul of you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You mean having a good time--and parties----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No; books, music; studying human conditions. I want to study the slow healing of industrial wounds and determine the best treatment for them. I have made the real me go 'way, 'way off somewheres for a long time until I won my pile of gold that helped me capture the girl I loved. Now it is done the real me wants to come back and stay."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I see, she said, vaguely."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course there are tiny things to brush up on--greeting people, and you mustn't be so in earnest at dinner parties and contradict and thump your fist. It isn't good form."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When whippersnappers like Gaylord Vondeplosshe----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sh-h-h! Gay's a dear. He is accepted every place."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We're nearly there, tough luck! One kiss, please; no one can see. Say you care, then everything else must true up."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wonderful."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Must have cost thousands."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Handsome couple. Couldn't have happened in any other country but America."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "War fortune."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, yes, no doubt of it--hides and razors turned the trick."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, how long do you think it is going to last?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "See Gay, the ragged little beggar, walk up the aisle with one of those rich girls and never glance at me--just because he's a Vondeplosshe? And me have to sit beside Nellie Lunk, who'll cry when the organ plays and wear that ridiculous bathtub of a hat? Never! I won't go unless I can walk up the aisle with Gay. Wait until I see him to-night; I'll make it very pleasant."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Like cattle--peasants--all because of money. A war profiteer, that's what he was. And she isn't anything at all except that she has her father's money. She glanced toward Mary's closed door."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Poor Mary, she thought;"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sh-h-h! Not a word out loud! I want to escape. Mrs. O'Valley is waiting round the corner in a cab. I forgot the long-distance call--the one we expected yesterday."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It came while everyone was at the church. I stayed here in case it did. They will pay your price, so I closed the deal."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hurrah for Mary Faithful! But I wish you could have been there. It was like a picture. I never saw her look so lovely. Well, that's settled. Wire me at Chicago. I think that's everything. Oh, you're to have fifty a week from now on. What man isn't generous on his wedding day? Good-bye, Miss Head of Affairs."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You'd miss even a heartache if it was all you had,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gad! he began, characteristically."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Thought I'd find you in your cool and hospitable office inviting me to have a siesta."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Try it in a few days and we will be quite shipshape. Mary wheeled up a chair for him."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Anything I can do for you?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How are you getting on?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Splendidly. We expect Mr. O'Valley a week from Monday--but of course you know that yourself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gad,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And how is Mr. Constantine?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In the hands of my enemy, he protested."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bea left a hundred and one things to be seen to. My sister has sprained her ankle and is out of the running. It's the apartment that causes the trouble--Bea has sent letter after letter telling what she wants us to do. I thought everything was all set before she went away but--here! He drew out violet notepaper and handed it over."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sorry to bother you, but when that girl gets home and settled I hope she'll be able to tend to her own affairs and leave us in peace. I guess you understand how women are about settling a new house."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Will you help me? Constantine demanded almost piteously."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Belle's out of the running, you know."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm cleaning my own house, Mary began, looking at the surrounding disorder,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Seems to you what, young woman?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I guess women don't like to do things these days --rather disgruntled in general--"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wouldn't ask Gaylord if I had to do it myself, Constantine said, brushing by the maid who opened the door."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There is a young man we could easily spare. If he ever gets as good a job as painting spots on rocking-horses I'll eat my hat."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where--where do we go to from here?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Damned if I know, he panted."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look at that truck!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm afraid I cannot help you, sir. I'm not this sort. I shouldn't be able to please. Besides, it is robbing your daughter of a great joy--and a wonderful duty, if you don't mind my saying it--this arranging of her own home. We have no right to do it for her."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She's asked us to do it,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then you will have to ask her to excuse me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Go back to your filing cabinet and your old-maid silk dusting cloths, to your rest-rooms for girls, and to your arguments with city salesmen. You have no more right here than she will ever have in your office."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Someone explains the difference between men and women by the fact that men swear and women scream, which is true as far as it goes. But in these days you often find a screaming gentleman and a profane lady--and there's a howdy-do! You can't ask the profane lady--no matter if she is a right-hand business man--to come fix pretties. You better write your daughter what I've said, and if you don't mind I'd like to get back to the office."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Profane ladies and screaming gentlemen. Well, I've put a screaming-gentleman tag on Gaylord Vondeplosshe--but what about yourself? Where are you attempting to classify?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Me? I'll be damned if I help you out,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A supper! Mark Constantine demanded crisply that same evening, merely groaning when his sister told him that Gaylord had undertaken all the errands and was such a dear boy."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And send it up to my room--ham, biscuits, pie, and iced coffee, and I'm not at home if the lord mayor calls."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gad, it might as well have happened to some other fellow--for all the good it does you."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A ten-dollar-a-week raise was cheap for such a woman,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gay has telephoned that he is coming to-night. Were you going to use the parlour, Mary?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, I'm going to water the garden. It's as dry as Sahara."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't make Luke help you. He's stoop-shouldered enough from study without making him carry sprinkling cans,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nonsense! It's good for him, and he will be through in an hour."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Too late for the first movie show,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A world tragedy,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wanted to go to-night, her mother insisted."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's a lovely story. Mrs. Bowen was in to tell me about it--all about a Russian war bride. They built a whole town and burnt it up at the end of the story. I guess it cost half a million--and there's fighting in it, too."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All right, go and take Luke. But I don't think the movies are as good for him as working in a garden."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You never want me to have pleasure. Home all day with only memories of the dead for company, and then you come in as cross as a witch, ready to stick your nose in a book or go dig in the mud! Excuse me, Trudy, but a body has to speak out sometimes. Your father to the life--reading and grubbing with plants. Oh, mother's proud of you, Mary, but if you would only get yourself up a little smarter and go out with young people you'd soon enough want Luke to go out, too! I don't pretend to know what your judgment toward your poor old mother would be!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I can't burn the candle at both ends. I work all day and I have to relax when I leave the office. If my form of a good time is to read or set out primroses it is nothing to cry thief for, is it? I want you to go out, mother, as you very well know. And you are welcome to fill the house with company. Only if I'm to do a man's work and earn his wage I must claim my spare time for myself."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now listen here, dear, interposed Trudy, who took Mary's part when it came to a real argument,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Splendid! Who will pay the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now you've got her going, Luke objected."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, Trudy, you don't kill yourself tearing off any work at the shop!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Luke, began his mother,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I admit Mary carries me along on the pay roll--I'm Mary's foolishness, Trudy said, easily."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mary's a good scout even if she does keep us stepping. She has to fall down once in a while, and she fell hard when she hired me and took me in as a boarder."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I try to make you do your share, she began,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I ought to pay more board, Trudy giggled at her own audacity."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But I won't. You're too decent to make me. You know I'm such a funny fool I'd go jump in the river if I got blue or things went wrong, and you like me well enough to not want that. Don't worry about our Mary, Mrs. Faithful. Just let her manage Luke and he won't wander from her apron strings like he will if you and I keep him in tow."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll go ahead and get reserved seats and mother can come when she's ready,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's my son! Get them far enough back, the pictures blur if I'm too close."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll do the dishes, Mary said, briefly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Go and get ready."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'd wipe them only Gay is coming so early,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'd rather be alone."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, deary, if you don't feel right about mother's going, her mother resumed a little later as she poked her head into the kitchen,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Because I'm not Trudy. Good-bye."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're all nerves again. I'd certainly let someone else do the work."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I need a vacation."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That means you want to get away from us. Well, I try to keep the home together. Leave that coffeepot just as it is, I'll want a drop when I get back."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wonder why the great plan did not make it possible for all folks to like their relatives? she asked herself as she finally hung the tea towels on the line;"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've no idea how jolly easy it was, Babseley. There was a dressing case I know Bea will keep--it brought me a cool hundred commission--it had just come in. I plunged and bought two altar scarfs she can use for her reading stand--she likes such things, besides all the bona-fide orders. I've been working for fair--and I've made over a thousand dollars."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You Lamb! Sure you won't have to give it back or that they will tell?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course not! They'd give their own selves away. That's the way such things are always done, y'know. I've an idea that I'll go in seriously for the business by and by. I don't feel any compunction; I'm entitled to every cent of it; in fact, I call it cheap for Bea at a thousand."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But will they really pay you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Constantine credit is like the Bank of England. I'll have my money and we'll make our getaway before Bea arrives in town."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I want to go to New York and see concert managers and father's friends, he evaded."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then we'll visit my sister in Connecticut as long as she'll have us. And when we come back--well, you'll--you'll know the smart ways better."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hurrah for the eternal frolic! she said, adding:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But we'll know Beatrice and Steve socially, won't we?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Keep right on working hard, Trudy said, fondly, as they kissed each other good-night."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll tell Mary to-morrow. I want to leave my big trunk here because we might want to stay here for a few days when we come back."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Never! --masterfully pointing his cane at the moon."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My wife is going to have her own apartment. One of father's friends has built several apartment houses and he'll be sure to let me in."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are we dreaming?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, Babseley, I'll phone you to-morrow and come down. If you see me flying about in a machine don't be surprised; I'm to use their big car as much as I like. But it would be a little thick to have us seen together--just yet."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll see that the whole social set gets a draft from me that will open their eyes,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If old man Constantine knew I drew that money down! Gay chuckled with delight."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When his favourite after-dinner story is to tell how Steve O'Valley lay on his stomach and watched goats for an education."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'd hate to have my finger between his teeth when he learns the truth,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't mourn so, mother. I'm a happy old maid, she insisted when the comments grew too numerous for her peace of mind."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Trudy was not the sort to blush unseen, and it's a relief not to have to cover up her mistakes at the office. Everything will be serene once more. As for Gay's future--I suppose he is likely to bring home anything from a mousetrap to a diamond tiara. I don't pretend to understand his ways."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course it isn't like Mrs. O'Valley's wedding, her mother resumed, with a resonant sniffle."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You have been so used to hearing about her ways that poor little Trudy seems cheap. Perhaps your mother and brother and the little home seem so, too. But we can't all be Gorgeous Girls, and I think Trudy was right to take Gaylord when he had the money for a ring and a license."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He had more than that, Mary ruminated."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "People don't walk to New York."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Did he win it on a horse race?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Maybe his father's friends helped him,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Can't prove anything by me."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wonder where they will live."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not here, her daughter assured her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And if you'd only say yes I could get such a sunny, pretty flat where the work would be worlds easier."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Leave my home? Never! It would be like uprooting an oak forest. Time for that when I am dead and gone. The double chin quivered with indignation."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't see why Trudy and Gay won't come here and take the two front rooms. They'd be company for me."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I kept Trudy only because she needed work--and a home, Mary said, frankly;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't go upsetting him. He eats his three good meals a day and always acts like a little gentleman. You'll nag at him until he runs away like my brother Amos did."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Better run away from us than run over us, Mary argued;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No one has any use for me because I haven't money. Our parlour was good enough for them to do their courting in, and if they don't come and see me real often I'll write Trudy a letter and tell her some good plain facts!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Be sure to say we all think Gay's mother must have been awful fond of children to have raised him,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're mean in spots, Mary told herself."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You know how it would have pleased her."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "After all, she's mother, Mary thought, rounding the corner leading to the office building,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are mine--mine--mine! very likely punctuating the words with kisses. Yet he must return each day to Mary Faithful and say:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are my right-hand man; I need you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A penny for your thoughts. Steve O'Valley was standing beside her."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You look as if work agreed with you. Say something nice now--that a long holiday has improved me!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ah--so I don't please, he bantered."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, tell us all about it. I've a thousand questions--my father-in-law says you are the only thing I have that he covets. How about that?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's nearly eleven, Steve exclaimed,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Here he cut a rosebud from the big wreath and handed it gravely to Mary; he cut a second one and fastened it in his own buttonhole."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lead me out, Hodges. I'm a bit unsteady--been playing too long."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She's kept things humming, hasn't she?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A prize, Steve said, proudly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't find a slip-up any place. I'll be back at two, Miss Faithful, in case any one calls.... How is Bea?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bea doesn't like one half of her things and the other half are so much better than the apartment that she says they don't show up, her father admitted, drolly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She is tired to death--so you'll find her at home, my boy, with a box of candy and the latest novel. Belle was talking her head off when I left the house and the girls keep calling her on the telephone for those little three-quarters-of-an-hour hello talks. It seems to me that for rich girls, my daughter and her friends are the busiest, most tired women I ever knew--and yet do the least."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't pretend to understand them, Steve answered."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Maybe that's why I'm so happy. Bea fusses if the shade of draperies doesn't match her gown, and if Monster has a snarl in her precious hair it is cause for a tragedy. But I just grin and go along and presently she has forgotten all about it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I tried to get that young woman helper of yours to help me fix up Bea's things, Constantine complained."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let's walk to the club--my knees are going stiff on me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She looked round the apartment and plain refused to put away another woman's pots and pans. It was just spunk. I don't know that I blame her. So Belle got that low order of animal life----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Meaning Gaylord?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes; and now the husband, I understand, of one of your thinnest clad and thinnest brained former clerks. Gay was in his element; he kept the machine working overtime and flattered Belle until he had everything his own way. Yet Beatrice seems quite satisfied with his achievements."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You must have been hanging round the house this morning."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I couldn't get down to brass tacks, he admitted."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You've had her all summer--but you can bet your clothes you wouldn't have had her if I hadn't been willing."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bea has the New York idea rather strong. Has she ever hinted it to you?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You and Bea can go play round New York all you like. Let the New York crowd come to see you and be entertained, they'll be glad to eat your dinners and drink your wine if they don't have to pay for it. We can get away with Hanover but we'd be handcuffed if we tried New York. When I made a hundred thousand dollars I was tempted to try New York instead of staying here--to make Bea the most gorgeous girl in the metropolis. But horse sense made me pass it by and stay on my own home diamond. So I've made a good many more hundreds of thousands and, what's to the point, I've kept 'em!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Have him come to our apartment, she left word,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dear me, Bea, what a wonderful hat! her aunt sighed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I never saw anything more becoming."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Steve doesn't appreciate anything in the way of costumes, she complained."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He just says: 'Yes, deary, I love you, and anything you wear suits me.' Quite discouraging and so different from the other boys."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'd call it very comfortable,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I suppose so--but comfortable things are often tiresome. It is tiresome, too, to see too much of the same person. I was really bored to death in the Yosemite--Steve is so primitive--he wanted to stay there for days and days."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Steve comes from primitive people,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't mention it. Didn't he force me to go to Virginia City, the most terrible little ghost world of tumbledown shacks and funny one-eyed, one-suspendered men, and old women smoking pipes and wearing blue sunbonnets! He was actually sentimental and enthusiastic about it all, trying to hunt up old cronies of his grandfather's--I was cross as could be until we came back to Reno. Now Reno is interesting."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, I'm off for home. I think I shall entertain the Red Cross committee first of all. It's only right, I believe --the dove eyes very serious--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Was he--when he found it out?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No; she was dreadfully disappointed. He called her a naughty child and bought her another!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What's happened?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't! People will see us. I was telling aunty about Reno. Oh, it's so good to be here! as she came inside her own door."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I hope people will let me alone the rest of the day. I'm just a wreck."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A charming-looking wreck, I'll say."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And then the beautiful young princess and the brave young prince, having slain the seven-headed monster, lived happily ever, ever after!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What did you want, darling?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To talk to you--I want you to listen to my plan. You are to come with me to New York for the fall opera and all the theatres--oh, along in November. It's terribly dull here. Jill Briggs and her husband and some of the others are going, and we can take rooms at the Astor and all be together and have a wonderful time!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'd rather stay in our own home, he pleaded."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's such fun to have a real home. We can entertain, you know. Besides, I'm the worker and you are the player, and I don't understand your sort of life any more than you can understand mine. So you must play and let me look on--and love me, that's all I'll ever ask."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're a dear, was his reward;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll have to take you down and leave you--I'm needed at the office."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I'd be the odd one--I'd have to have a partner. Steve, dear, you don't have to grub. When we were engaged you always had time for me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Because you had so little for me! And so I always shall have time for you, the anæsthesia causing his decision."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Besides, those were courtship days--and I wasn't quite so sure of you, which is the way of all men."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't want a husband who won't play with me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We'll fix it all right, don't worry. Now was that all you wanted?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I want you to stay home and go driving with me. I want you to call on some people--and look at a new cellaret I'd like to buy. It is expensive, but no one else would have one anywhere near as charming. I need you this afternoon--you're so calm and strong, and my head aches. I'm always tired."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yet you never work,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My dear boy, society is the hardest work in the world. I'm simply dragged to a frazzle by the end of the season. Besides, there is all my war work and my clubs and my charities. And I've just promised to take an advanced course in domestic science."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I see,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I think it is the duty of rich women to know all about frying things as well as eating them,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Quite true. Having money isn't always keeping it"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, papa has loads of money--enough for all of us, she remarked, easily."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It isn't that. I'd never cook if I were poor, anyway; that would be the last thing I'd ever dream of doing. It's fun to go to the domestic-science class as long as all my set go. Well--will you be a nice angel-man and stay home to amuse your fractious wife?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll call Miss Faithful on the phone and say I'm going to play hooky, he consented."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "By the way, you must come down to the office and say hello to her when you get the time."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Must I? I hate offices. Besides, Gaylord has married your prettiest clerk, and there will be no one to play with me except my husband."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Funny thing--that marriage, Steve commented."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If it was any one but Gay I'd send condolences for loading the office nuisance onto him."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wasn't she any use at all?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "None--always having a headache and being excused for the day. That was the only thing I ever questioned in Mary Faithful--why she engaged Trudy and took her into her own home as a boarder."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, so Mary isn't perfection? Don't be too hard on the other girl. I'd be quite as useless if I ever had to work. I'd do just the same--have as many headaches as the firm would stand for, and marry the first man who asked me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But think of marrying Gay!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Poor old Gay--his father was a dear, and he is terribly well behaved. Besides, see how obliging he is. Your Miss Faithful refused to help me out, and Gay ran his legs off to get everything I wanted. I'll never be rude to Gay as long as he amuses me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's the thing that leads them all, isn't it, princess?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Poor tired boy, she used to think when Steve would come into the office with a fagged look on his handsome face and new lines steadily growing across his forehead."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You don't realize yet--you haven't begun to realize."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Every Basque a noble rang true in this descendant of a dark-haired, romantic young woman whom his grandfather had married. There was blood in Steve which Beatrice might have envied had she been aware of it. But Steve was in ignorance, and very willingly so, regarding his ancestors. There had merely been"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ise a naughty dirl--I is--want somebody to play wif me--want to be amoosed. Do oo care? Nice, busy lady--big brain."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If Mrs. O'Valley telephones or calls please say I have gone out to the stockyards, he told Mary."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And will you lend me your office for the afternoon? I'm so rushed I must be alone where I can work without interruption."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll keep you under cover."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What's the joke?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was thinking of how very busy idle people always are and of how much time busy people always manage to make for the idle people's demands."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I should like to know just what these idle people do with themselves but I shall never have the time to find out."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll drive out to the stockyards and get him,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He went with some men and I don't believe I'd try it if I were you,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I see. Well, have him call me up as soon as he comes in. It is very important."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Didn't you get my message?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just as I was leaving the office. I looked in there on--on my way back. I saw no use in telephoning then. What is it, dear?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's too late now. You have ruined my day."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sorry. What is too late?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wanted you to go to Amityville with me; there is a wonderful astrologer there who casts life horoscopes. He predicted this whole war and the Bolsheviki and bombs and everything, and I wanted him to do ours. Alice Twill says he is positively uncanny."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No long-haired cocoanut throwers for mine,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But I wanted you to go."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, I do not approve of such things; they are a waste of time and money."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I have my own money,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I have known that for some time."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Besides, it is rude to refuse to call me when I have asked you to do so. It makes me ridiculous in the eyes of your employees."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It was nothing important, Bea, and I am mighty busy. Your father never had time to play; he worked a great deal harder than I have worked."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I can't help that. You must not expect me to be a little stay-at-home. You knew that before we were even engaged. Besides, I'm no child----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, but you act like one. He spoke almost before he thought."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are a woman nearly twenty-six years old, yet you haven't the poise of girls eighteen that I have known. Still, they were farm or working girls. I've sometimes wondered what it is that makes you and your friends always seem so childish and naïve--at times. Aren't you ever going to grow up--any of you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you want a pack of old women? she demanded."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How can you find fault with my friends? You seem to forget how splendidly they have treated you."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why shouldn't they treat me splendidly? I have never robbed or maltreated any of them. Tell me something. It is time we talked seriously. We can't exist on the cream-puff kind of conversation. What in the world has your way of going through these finishing schools done for you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I had a terribly good time, she began."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Besides, it's the proper thing--girls don't come out at twenty and marry off and let that be the end of it. You really have a much better time now if you wait until you are twenty-five, and then you somehow have learned how to be a girl for an indefinite period. As for the finishing school in America--well, we had a wonderful sorority."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've met college women who were clear-headed persons deserving the best and usually attaining it--but I've never taken a microscope to the sort of women playing the game from the froth end. I'm wondering what your ideas were."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You visited me--you met my friends--my chaperons--you wrote me each day."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I was in love and busy making my fortune. I was as shy as a backwoods product--you know that--and afraid you would be carried off by someone else before I could come up to the sum your father demanded of me. I have nothing but a hazy idea as to a great many girls of all sorts and sizes--and mostly you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, we had wonderful lectures and things; and I had a wonderful crush on some of the younger teachers--that is a great deal of fun."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Crushes?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You must have crushes unless you're a nobody--and there's nothing so much a lark. You select your crush and then you rush her. I had a darling teacher, she is doing war work in Paris now. She was a doll. I adored her the moment I saw her and I sent her presents and left flowers in her room, orchids on Sundays, until she made me stop. One day a whole lot of us who had been rushing her clipped off locks of our hair and fastened them in little gauze bags and we strung a doll clothes line across her room and pinned the little bags on it and left a note for her saying: 'Your scalp line!'"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What did that amount to?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, it was fun. And I had another crush right after that one. Then some of the classes were interesting. I liked psychology best of all because you could fake the answers and cram for exams more easily. Math. and history require facts. There was one perfectly thrilling experience with fish. You know fish distinguish colours, one from the other, and are guided by colour sense rather than a sense of smell. We had red sticks and green sticks and blue sticks in a tank of fish, and for days we put the fish food on the green sticks and the fish would swim right over to get it, and then we put it on the red sticks and they still swam over to the green sticks and waited round--so it was recognizing colour and not the food. And a lot of things like that."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I hope the fish wised up in time."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you had gone to college it might have made a great difference,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Possibly, he admitted;"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, it was omelet. Mine was like leather. The gas stove makes my head ache. But we are going to have a Roman pageant to close the season--all about a Roman matron, and that will be lots of fun."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You eat too much candy; that is what makes your head ache,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is time to dress."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't say there's a party to-night,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course there is, and you know it. The Homers are giving a dinner for their daughter. Everyone is to wear their costumes wrong side out. Isn't that clever? I laid out a white linen suit for you; it will look so well turned inside out; and I am going to wear an organdie that has a wonderful satin lining. There is no reason why we must be frumps."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'd rather stay home and play cribbage, Steve said, almost wistfully."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There's a rain creeping up. Let's not go!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I hate staying home when it is raining. Beatrice went into her room to try the effect of a sash wrong side out."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is so dull in a big drawing room when there are just two people,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Two people make a home,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Would you please take Monster into the kitchen for her supper?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "As pretty as a picture, Mrs. Faithful declared, quite chirked up by the bridal atmosphere."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How do you do it, Trudy? And why didn't you write us something besides postals? They always seem like printed handbills to me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Especially mine, Luke protested."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "One of Sing Sing with the line: 'I am thinking of you.'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I didn't have a minute and I bought postals in flocks. Oh, I adore New York! I'm wild to live there. I nearly passed away in New England, but of course we had to stay as long as they would have us."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I haven't any new jewellery except my wedding ring, she mourned."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I expected Gay's sister to give me one of her mother's diamond earrings--I think she might have. They are lovely stones--but she never made a move that way--she's horrid. As soon as I can afford to be independent I shall cut her, for she did her best to politely ask us to leave."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You were there several weeks, weren't you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes--I grew tame. I learned a lot from her--I was pretty crude in some ways. Which was true. Trudy was quite as well-bred looking, at first glance, as the Gorgeous Girl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is always better to get your experience where the neighbours aren't watching. I didn't lose a minute. If I never did an honest day's work for Steve O'Valley I worked like a steam engine learning how to be a real lady, the sort Gay tried to marry but couldn't!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "As if you weren't a little lady at all times,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course we are stony broke but Gay's brother-in-law just had to loan us some money in order to have us go. They gave us fifty dollars for a wedding present. Well, it was better than nothing. Gay has talked to a lot of concert managers and he's going to have some wonderful attractions next season. People have never taken Gaylord seriously; he really has had to discover himself, and he is----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Are you practising small talk on me?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've said it, Trudy admitted."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That last is the way I'm going to talk about Gaylord to his friends. I'll make him a success if he will only mind me. Just think--I'll be calling on Beatrice O'Valley before long! She will have to know me because Gay helped furnish her apartment and was one of her ushers. It will mean everything for us to know her--and I'm never going to appear at all down and out, either. People never take you seriously if you seem to need money. Debt can't frighten me. I was raised on it. All I need is Gay's family reputation and my own hair and teeth and I'll breeze in before any of the other entries. I came to ask if you won't come to see where I live? She smiled her prettiest."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gay is at his club and we can talk. It was quite a bomb in the enemies' camp when he married--people just can't dun a married man like they do a bachelor."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll come next week."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No--now. I want your advice--and to show you my clothes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You will have clothes, Trudy, when you don't have food."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You have to these days--no good time unless you do."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm not mean, Mary, unless I want to accomplish something--but Gaylord is mean on general principle. He sulks and tells silly lies when you come to really know him. Oh, I'm not madly in love--but we can get along without throwing things. It's better than marrying a clod-hopper who couldn't show me anything better than his mother's green-plush parlour."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Doesn't it seem hard to have to pretend to love him?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, he's so stupid,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We are just starting from here, Trudy reminded her as she watched the gray eyes flicker with humour or narrow with displeasure."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wait and see--we'll soon be living neighbour to the O'Valleys. Besides, there is such an advantage in being married. You don't have to worry for fear you'll be an----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Old maid, finished Mary."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Out with it! You can't frighten me. I hope you and Gay never try changing your minds at the same time, for it would be a squeeze."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Being in the kitchen gets me nothing, so why bother about it? Trudy explained, hardly opening the door."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We have no halls or furnace to care for, and an apartment house sounds so well when you give an address. I wish we could have afforded a front one; it will be hard to have people climbing through the back halls. I have put in a good supply of canned soups and vegetables and powdered puddings, and we can save a lot on our food. We'll be invited out, too, and when we eat at home I can get a meal in a few minutes and I'll make Gay wash the dishes. Besides, I have a wonderful recipe for vanishing cream that his sister bought in Paris, and I'm going to have a little business myself, making it to supply to a few select customers as a favour. I'll sell small jars for a dollar and large ones for three, and I can make liquid face powder, too. Oh, we won't starve. And if you could wait for the money I know I owe you----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Call it a wedding present,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You lamb!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And only take up your mornings! You can slip extra sandwiches in your pockets for me, deary. I'll give you a rubber-pocketed vest for a Christmas present, Trudy exclaimed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, say everything in front of Mary--she knows what we really are!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bea is like all her sort, he warned Trudy when the point of Beatrice's having to invite the Vondeplosshes for dinner was close at hand;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sell them and use the money. I never have practical clothes."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Babseley, she's coming to call to-morrow!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Really? I wish we had a better place. I feel at a disadvantage. If it were a man I wouldn't mind, I could act humble and brave--that sort of dope. But it never goes with a woman; you have to bully a rich woman, and I'm wondering if I can."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I did, he said, his pale eyes twinkling with delight."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It was easy, too. I dragged in O'Valley's orphan-asylum days and all, and how we both married diamonds in the rough. Woof, how she squirmed! He rose and went to the absurd little buffet, pouring out two glasses of"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and gulping down one of them."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wish I had O'Valley's money; I'd put away a houseful of this stuff. I'm going to dig up a few bottles at the club--in case of illness."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You take too much of that stuff, Trudy warned, gathering up her débris;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Shall we eat out?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Too expensive. There's no need for it now. I bought some potato salad and I have canned pineapple and sugar cookies."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What's mine is my own, and what's yours is mine."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Mrs. O'Valley, so good of you. I'm ever so happy to have you. I'm afraid it isn't proper to be wearing this old tea gown but I had a bad headache this morning and I stayed in bed until nearly luncheon, then I slipped into the first thing handy.... Oh, no. Only a nervous headache. We took too long a motor trip yesterday, the sun was so bright.... No, indeed; you do not make my headache worse. It's better right this minute.... Now please don't laugh at our little place. Can't you play you're a doll and this is the house you were supposed to live in? I do--I find myself laughing every time I really take time to stand back and look at the rooms.... Put your coat here. Such a charming one, the skins are so exquisitely matched. I do so want to talk to you."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sit here, Mrs. Steve, for I can't call you Mrs. O'Valley with Gay singing the praises of Bea and Beatrice and the Gorgeous Girl."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then--er--call me Beatrice,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How wonderful! But only on condition that I am Trudy to you. How pleased Gay is going to be! He adores you. You have no idea of how much he talks about you and approves all you do and say. I used to be a teeny weeny bit jealous of you when I was a poor little nobody."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I was glancing through these fashion books this afternoon to get an idea for an afternoon dress. Of course I can't have wonderful things like you have --looking with envy at the Gorgeous Girl's black-velvet costume--"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You have made this place look well, Beatrice said, presently,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is a perfect tinder box. Papa knows the man who built it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We are merely trying out love in a cliffette, she said, sweetly,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It was almost too easy; I didn't have to work as hard as I really wanted to."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you like'em?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No; I told you before that they amused me. She is fun, and poor Gay is a dear."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are you going to have them round all the time? That woman's laugh gets on my nerves, and I want him shot at sunrise. They can't talk about anything but the movies and jazz dancing and clothes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What do you want them to talk about? Don't pace up and down like a wild beast."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Am I a bear? Come and kiss me. If you like them or they amuse you just tote 'em about, darling. Only can't you manage to do it while I am out of town? They do fleck me on the raw."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hermit--beast,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I just want you, he said, simply;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sometimes you frighten me--you sound booky."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm not; I want real things, Bea. I feel hungry for plain people."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You have them all day long in your office and your shops; I should think when you come home you'd welcome a good time."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Our definitions differ. Anyhow, I'm not going to find fault with your friends. I've nothing against them except that they are time wasters."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Trudy boarded at your wonderful Miss Faithful's house."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In spite of Mary's common sense, and not because of it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You think a great deal of that girl, don't you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She deserves a great deal of credit; she has worked since she was thirteen, and she is as true-blue as they come."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Do you think she will ever marry and leave you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I never want her to; I'd feel like buying off any prospective bridegroom."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's not fair. Her hand stole up to pat his cheek."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She has the right to be happy--as we are, Steve!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You funny little wife, he whispered--"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My dear boy, I am very sorry your secretary's muzzy has died--but I cannot change my plans. I accepted for both Trudy Vondeplosshe and myself more than a week ago."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You don't imagine for an instant that Trudy will not go? She boarded there; they did everything for her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She was phoning me before lunch and is all agog with excitement. Poor little thing, it means a lot for her. She will be ready at three and I am to call for her."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't think she understands the funeral is to-day. I know she is heartless and shallow, but even she would scarcely omit such a duty."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dear me, you ought to have been an evangelist. I can't understand why you suddenly become punctilious and altruistic. For years you never did anything but try to make money and wonder if I would marry you--you never cared who was dead or what happened as long as you were secure."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Quite true. But I have made a fortune and married you, and it is time for other things."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are welcome to them, she said, quite enjoying the argument."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Besides, I sent my card with the flowers."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It isn't the same as going yourself, it is your duty to go, Bea. The girl has taken the brunt of business while we played and she has only the reward of a salary. Her mother has died, which means that her home is gone. I call it thick to choose a bridge party instead of paying a humane debt."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why am I dragged into it? She isn't working for me! Papa never asked me to go when any of his people had relatives who died. I don't think he ever went himself unless there was a claim to be adjusted."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I shouldn't ask it if it were any one else--but Mary Faithful is different."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are quite ardent in your defence of her. Be sensible, Steve. What does it matter whether I go or don't go? I think it quite enough if you appear. Now if she were in need of actual money----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, certainly! he said, bitterly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That would give you the chance to play off Lady Bountiful, drive up in state with your check book and accept figurative kisses on the hand! But when a plain American business girl who has served me more loyally than she has herself loses her mother you won't be a few moments late at a bridge party in order to pay her the respect employers should pay their employees. I don't blame Trudy--I expect nothing of her--but I do blame you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So my plans are to be set aside----?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Plans! he interrupted."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If someone else were to tell you that they had an East Indian yogi who was going to give a seance this very afternoon you would hotfoot it to the telephone to inform Trudy that you must break your engagement with her, and send word to your original hostess as well. That is about all your plans amount to."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wish you would remember you are speaking to your wife and not to an employee. I would not go to that funeral now if it meant--if it meant a divorce."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I shall not ask you to go with me,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Have you been at her house?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes. Where is that paper? I dropped it in this chair when I came in for luncheon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I had it taken away. I abominate newspapers in a drawing room--or muddy shoes, she added, looking at his own."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What did she say? What sort of a house is it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What the devil difference does it make to you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't you dare say such things to me. Then she began to cry very prettily in a singsong, high-pitched voice."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Monster--nobody loves us--nobody loves us--we can't have a merry Christmas after all."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I shan't be home for dinner, Steve added more politely."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Miss Faithful's absence just now makes things quite rushed--I'll work until late."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, you are trying to punish me! --pretending mock horror."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Stevuns dear, don't mind my not going! Plans are plans, you must learn to understand. And I'll send her a lovely black waist and a plum pudding for her Christmas. Tell her I was laid up with one of my bad heads.... No? You won't let me fib? Horrid old thing--come and kiss me!... Ah, you never refuse to kiss me, nice cave man with bad manners and muddy shoes, wanting to thump his strong dear fists on my little Chippendale tables--and grow so good and booky all in an instant. Forgets he was ever a bad pirate and robbed everyone until he could buy his Gorgeous Girl. Good-bye, story-book man, don't let the old funeral frazzle you!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We won't give up having a home, Mary told him the night of the funeral;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I guess I'll work pretty hard at school,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course you will. I'm proud of you now, and if you work and show you deserve it I'll help you through college."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Takes too long before I could get to earning real money. You ought to have it easy pretty soon."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I love my work. Besides, you will live your own life, and so you must grow up and love someone and marry her. I can't depend on any one but myself,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm never going to get married. I want to make a lot of money like Mr. O'Valley did--quick. Then we'll go and live in Europe and maybe I'll get a steam yacht and we'll hunt for buried treasure,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All right, dear. Just work hard for now and be my pal; we'll let the future take care of itself. Another thing--we want to have as merry a Christmas as if mother were with us. It's the only thing to do or else we'll find ourselves morbid and unable to keep going."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I guess I'll buy you a silver-backed comb and brush. I got some extra money."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, Luke--dear!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Trudy never came near us,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But Mr. O'Valley came like a regular----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't you think you ought to get to bed? Mary changed the subject."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sleep in the room next to mine if you like."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When are you coming upstairs?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Soon. I want to look over the letters."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are you going to the office right away?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not until New Year's."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Not anybody need take care of myself,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm sorry not to be at the office, she began, thinking he had come to persuade her to return."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sit down. Well--you see, indicating the stacks of addressed envelopes--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I really can't come back until after the New Year. Do you mind? There is a great deal to be seen to here, and I feel I've earned the right to loaf for a week. I want particularly to make the holidays happy for Luke."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course you do. Besides, you never had your vacation."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We'll call this a vacation and I'll work extra hard to prove to you that it was worth the granting."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We'll decide that later. I came to see just--you. Surprised? I wanted to ask if there is anything I can do for you. I want to help if I may."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've no exact plans. Just a definite idea of finding a small apartment and making it as homey as possible. I loathe apartments usually, she added, impulsively,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm glad you are not going to break up and board--though it's none of my business. I brought some fruit. Do you mind?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No. How lovely of you and Mrs. O'Valley!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It was not possible for Mrs. O'Valley to come yesterday, he forced himself to say."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She was very sorry and is going to call on you later."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Thank you,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You have a nice old place here. Mind if I stroll about and stare? I have very seldom been in rooms like this one. An orphan asylum, a ranch, a hall bedroom, star boarder, a club, a better club, the young palace--is my record. How different you seem in your home, Miss Faithful. Perhaps it's the dress. I like soft gray----"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You don't know how I'd like a slice of homemade bread, he pleaded."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Must I turn up my coat collar and go stand at the side door?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I made it because Luke had eaten nothing but pie and cake. You really don't want just bread?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I do--two slices, thick, stepmother size, please."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Man alive, sighed Steve, stretching out leisurely,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I came to console you and I'm being consoled and fed--in body and mind--made fit for work.... I say, what do you think of letting the Boston merger be made public at the banquet on----"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I sprinkled talcum powder on them and the powder is all smudged away, so Jody has been spying. She is packing her things now and I shall refuse any references. But who will ever take such good care of me, Steve? And please get dressed; we are invited to the Marcus Baynes for dinner. They have a wonderful poet from Greenwich Village who is spending the holidays with them--long hair, green-velvet jacket, cigar-box ukulele, and all. A darling! And I am going to take Monster because he does black-and-white sketches and I want one of my ittey, bittey dirl."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I must give you a coin because you gave me a knife, and unless I did so the old superstition might come true--and cut our 'business affections' right straight in two!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are you going to let him go?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I think so; he's a doddering nuisance they tell me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But he's old and he has always served so faithfully. I don't think it's right to send him away now. He does do what is expected of him."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I suppose; but we'll be doddering idiots some day, too. No one will keep us. No one can expect to be carried along indefinitely."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's the first time I have ever asked you to do such a thing, she insisted, fearlessly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To see him trying to act as fit as twenty-five, wearing juvenile shirts and ties, struggling to be brisk, slangy, to oblige everyone and step along, you know. Oh, don't turn him away just yet; he is honest and he tries. I can't tell him, and can't you see his old face quiver when he opens his envelope and finds the dismissal slip?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You ought to be a little sister to the poor. I guess we'll keep Gager for a while. He doesn't smoke cigarettes all day and try to lie about it. How did you like those books?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sh-h-h. It's business. But I did like them--so would you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'd read them if I had an easy-chair and some homemade bread and tea. Do you know what I had to do for my Christmas Day?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Please--I'd rather not----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I must tell someone, and ask if I'm all wrong about it, he said, half humorously, half in earnest."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I told my father-in-law in part and it struck him as a huge joke. He purpled with laughing and said: 'Gad, she'll always have her way!'"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, what did you have to do?"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "After that we dressed in all our grandeur for the fancy-dress ball at Colonel Tatlock's, Beatrice as Juliet and I as the young and dashing Romeo! Shivering in our finery we drove to the Tatlock's to make fools of ourselves until three A. M. and shiver home again with aching heads and a handful of damaged cotillion favours. About the same sort of thing happened on New Year's."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mr. O'Valley has explained how rushed I have been with my classes, she began, prettily,"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't expect you to appreciate my viewpoint and my wishes, but at least be well-bred enough to tolerate them!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sprint a bit, I can catch up to you."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We'll furnish the lunch and the gasolene, and you take us to the picnic grounds!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You see, aunty, she explained one stormy February afternoon while they were having a permanent wave put in their hair,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Trudy is so obliging and useful, and I'm sorry for her. She tries to do so many nice things for me that I never have a chance to become offended. I've tried! But she just won't break away. And I like to tease Steve by knowing her, Steve is such a bear when he doesn't like people. Rude is a mild term. He particularly hates Gay. Now Gay is quite a dear and he always played nicely with me. I should hate to lose him--so how can I offend his wife; particularly when she takes so well with older men?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Men old enough to be her father--you'd think they would appreciate mellowed love instead of a selfish little chicken."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I don't know, Beatrice murmured as she consulted a hand glass."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am beginning to wish I had married a man about papa's age. It would have been much jollier in some ways. Steve is so strenuous and rude. A cave man is fun to be engaged to and keep a record about in your chapbook--but when you marry him it is a different matter. I remember how thrilled and enthusiastic about Steve I used to be when he was working for papa and living in a hall bedroom. I knew he adored me yet had to keep his place, and I used to dream about him and wonder if he really would keep his word and make a fortune so he could marry me. But now he has done it----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wouldn't be too disappointed. Elderly men usually have wheel chairs and diets after a little, and you'd feel it your duty to play nurse."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, it's far better to be disappointed in one's husband than one's friends, Beatrice agreed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I know that. For you can manage to see very little of your husband; but your friends--deary me, they your very existence."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Does Trudy ever mention the days she worked in Steve's office?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes. Clever little thing, she knows enough to admit it prettily every now and then, so there is nothing to badger her about. She has even trained Gay to talk of it occasionally. She has done wonders for him; one of the clubmen is backing him to go into the interior-decorating business. Of course he will make good because everyone will feel morally obliged to go there. So the Vondeplosshes on the strength of this have moved to the Touraine, a different sort of apartment house, I assure you. They are entertaining, if you please; everyone asks them everywhere. Gay is painting garlands of old-fashioned flowers in panels for Jill's boudoir. I think I'll have the same thing done in mine."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gay is painting them?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, no. Some limp artist who could never get the commission for himself. Gay stands about in a natty blue-serge effect and takes the credit and the check. What's new? --turning to the beauty doctor."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm as dull as the Dead Sea."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Horrid creatures, always wanting more! Well, they won't get it. I think Steve is ridiculous with his banquets and bonuses and all, and upon my word, Mary Faithful has as good an Oriental rug in her office as I have in my house. Tell us something really important, Miss Flinks."
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How ripping!"
}
]
|
29753 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Were you near here when you telephoned? Beatrice asked, curiously."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You weren't ten minutes getting here and you look as spick and span as if you had stepped out of a bandbox."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look outside and you'll see that Gay and I have had a true case of auto-intoxication!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well!"
}
]
|
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