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The Débutante

The time is February. The place is a large, dainty bedroom in the Connage house on Sixty-eighth Street, New York. A girl’s room: pink walls and curtains and a pink bedspread on a cream-colored bed. Pink and cream are the motifs of the room, but the only article of furniture in full view is a luxurious dressing-table with a glass top and a three-sided mirror. On the walls there is an expensive print of “Cherry Ripe,” a few polite dogs by Landseer, and the “King of the Black Isles,” by Maxfield Parrish.

Great disorder consisting of the following items: (1) seven or eight empty cardboard boxes, with tissue-paper tongues hanging panting from their mouths; (2) an assortment of street dresses mingled with their sisters of the evening, all upon the table, all evidently new; (3) a roll of tulle, which has lost its dignity and wound itself tortuously around everything in sight, and (4) upon the two small chairs, a collection of lingerie that beggars description. One would enjoy seeing the bill called forth by the finery displayed and one is possessed by a desire to see the princess for whose benefit—Look! There’s some one! Disappointment! This is only a maid hunting for something—she lifts a heap from a chair—Not there; another heap, the dressing-table, the chiffonier drawers. She brings to light several beautiful chemises and an amazing pajama but this does not satisfy her—she goes out.

An indistinguishable mumble from the next room.

Now, we are getting warm. This is Alec’s mother, Mrs. Connage, ample, dignified, rouged to the dowager point and quite worn out. Her lips move significantly as she looks for IT. Her search is less thorough than the maid’s but there is a touch of fury in it, that quite makes up for its sketchiness. She stumbles on the tulle and her “damn” is quite audible. She retires, empty-handed.

More chatter outside and a girl’s voice, a very spoiled voice, says: “Of all the stupid people——”

After a pause a third seeker enters, not she of the spoiled voice, but a younger edition. This is Cecelia Connage, sixteen, pretty, shrewd, and constitutionally good-humored. She is dressed for the evening in a gown the obvious simplicity of which probably bores her. She goes to the nearest pile, selects a small pink garment and holds it up appraisingly.

Cecelia: Pink?

Rosalind: (Outside) Yes!

Cecelia: Very snappy?

Rosalind: Yes!

Cecelia: I’ve got it!

(She sees herself in the mirror of the dressing-table and commences to tickle-toe on the soft carpet.)

Rosalind: (Outside) What are you doing—trying it on?

(Cecelia ceases and goes out carrying the garment at the right shoulder.

From the other door, enters Alec Connage. He looks around quickly and in a huge voice shouts: Mama! There is a chorus of protest from next door and encouraged he starts toward it, but is repelled by another chorus.)

Alec: So that’s where you all are! Amory Blaine is here.

Cecelia: (Quickly) Take him down-stairs.

Alec: Oh, he is down-stairs.

Mrs. Connage: Well, you can show him where his room is. Tell him I’m sorry that I can’t meet him now.

Alec: He’s heard a lot about you all. I wish you’d hurry. Father’s telling him all about the war and he’s restless. He’s sort of temperamental.

(This last suffices to draw Cecelia into the room.)

Cecelia: (Seating herself high upon lingerie) How do you mean—temperamental? You used to say that about him in letters.

Alec: Oh, he writes stuff.

Cecelia: Does he play the piano?

Alec: Don’t think so.

Cecelia: (Speculatively) Drink?

Alec: Yes—nothing queer about him.

Cecelia: Money?

Alec: Good Lord—ask him, he used to have a lot, and he’s got some income now.

(Mrs. Connage appears.)

Mrs. Connage: Alec, of course we’re glad to have any friend of yours——

Alec: You certainly ought to meet Amory.

Mrs. Connage: Of course, I want to. But I think it’s so childish of you to leave a perfectly good home to go and live with two other boys in some impossible apartment. I hope it isn’t in order that you can all drink as much as you want. (She pauses.) He’ll be a little neglected to-night. This is Rosalind’s week, you see. When a girl comes out, she needs all the attention.

Rosalind: (Outside) Well, then, prove it by coming here and hooking me.

(Mrs. Connage goes.)

Alec: Rosalind hasn’t changed a bit.

Cecelia: (In a lower tone) She’s awfully spoiled.

Alec: She’ll meet her match to-night.

Cecelia: Who—Mr. Amory Blaine?

(Alec nods.)

Cecelia: Well, Rosalind has still to meet the man she can’t outdistance. Honestly, Alec, she treats men terribly. She abuses them and cuts them and breaks dates with them and yawns in their faces—and they come back for more.

Alec: They love it.

Cecelia: They hate it. She’s a—she’s a sort of vampire, I think—and she can make girls do what she wants usually—only she hates girls.

Alec: Personality runs in our family.

Cecelia: (Resignedly) I guess it ran out before it got to me.

Alec: Does Rosalind behave herself?

Cecelia: Not particularly well. Oh, she’s average—smokes sometimes, drinks punch, frequently kissed—Oh, yes—common knowledge—one of the effects of the war, you know.

(Emerges Mrs. Connage.)

Mrs. Connage: Rosalind’s almost finished so I can go down and meet your friend.

(Alec and his mother go out.)

Rosalind: (Outside) Oh, mother——

Cecelia: Mother’s gone down.

(And now Rosalind enters. Rosalind is—just Rosalind. She is one of those girls who need never make the slightest effort to have men fall in love with them. Two types of men seldom do: dull men are usually afraid of her cleverness and intellectual men are usually afraid of her beauty. All others are hers by natural prerogative.

If Rosalind could be spoiled the process would have been complete by this time, and as a matter of fact, her disposition is not all it should be; she wants what she wants when she wants it and she is prone to make every one around her pretty miserable when she doesn’t get it—but in the true sense she is not spoiled. Her fresh enthusiasm, her will to grow and learn, her endless faith in the inexhaustibility of romance, her courage and fundamental honesty—these things are not spoiled.

There are long periods when she cordially loathes her whole family. She is quite unprincipled; her philosophy is carpe diem for herself and laissez faire for others. She loves shocking stories: she has that coarse streak that usually goes with natures that are both fine and big. She wants people to like her, but if they do not it never worries her or changes her.

She is by no means a model character.

The education of all beautiful women is the knowledge of men. Rosalind had been disappointed in man after man as individuals, but she had great faith in man as a sex. Women she detested. They represented qualities that she felt and despised in herself—incipient meanness, conceit, cowardice, and petty dishonesty. She once told a roomful of her mother’s friends that the only excuse for women was the necessity for a disturbing element among men. She danced exceptionally well, drew cleverly but hastily, and had a startling facility with words, which she used only in love-letters.

But all criticism of Rosalind ends in her beauty. There was that shade of glorious yellow hair, the desire to imitate which supports the dye industry. There was the eternal kissable mouth, small, slightly sensual, and utterly disturbing. There were gray eyes and an impeachable skin with two spots of vanishing color. She was slender and athletic, without underdevelopment, and it was a delight to watch her move about a room, walk along a street, swing a golf club, or turn a “cartwheel.”

A last qualification—her vivid, instant personality escaped that conscious, theatrical quality that Amory had found in Isabelle. Monsignor Darcy would have been quite up a tree whether to call her a personality or a personage. She was perhaps the delicious, inexpressible, once-in-a-century blend.

On the night of her début she is, for all her strange, stray wisdom, quite like a happy little girl. Her mother’s maid has just done her hair, but she has decided impatiently that she can do a better job herself. She is too nervous just now to stay in one place. To that we owe her presence in this littered room. She is going to speak. Isabelle’s alto tones had been like a violin, but if you could hear Rosalind, you would say her voice was musical as a waterfall.

Rosalind: Honestly, there are only two costumes in the world that I really enjoy being in—(Combing her hair at the dressing-table.) One’s a hoop skirt with pantaloons; the other’s a one-piece bathing-suit. I’m quite charming in both of them.

Cecelia: Glad you’re coming out?

Rosalind: Yes; aren’t you?

Cecelia: (Cynically) You’re glad so you can get married and live on Long Island with the fast younger married set. You want life to be a chain of flirtation with a man for every link.

Rosalind: Want it to be one! You mean I’ve found it one.

Cecelia: Ha!

Rosalind: Cecelia, darling, you don’t know what a trial it is to be—like me. I’ve got to keep my face like steel in the street to keep men from winking at me. If I laugh hard from a front row in the theatre, the comedian plays to me for the rest of the evening. If I drop my voice, my eyes, my handkerchief at a dance, my partner calls me up on the ’phone every day for a week.

Cecelia: It must be an awful strain.

Rosalind: The unfortunate part is that the only men who interest me at all are the totally ineligible ones. Now—if I were poor I’d go on the stage.

Cecelia: Yes, you might as well get paid for the amount of acting you do.

Rosalind: Sometimes when I’ve felt particularly radiant I’ve thought, why should this be wasted on one man?

Cecelia: Often when you’re particularly sulky, I’ve wondered why it should all be wasted on just one family. (Getting up) I think I’ll go down and meet Mr. Amory Blaine. I like temperamental men.

Rosalind: There aren’t any. Men don’t know how to be really angry or really happy—and the ones that do, go to pieces.

Cecelia: Well, I’m glad I don’t have all your worries. I’m engaged.

Rosalind: (With a scornful smile) Engaged? Why, you little lunatic! If mother heard you talking like that she’d send you off to boarding-school, where you belong.

Cecelia: You won’t tell her, though, because I know things I could tell—and you’re too selfish!

Rosalind: (A little annoyed) Run along, little girl! Who are you engaged to, the iceman? the man that keeps the candy-store?

Cecelia: Cheap wit—good-by, darling, I’ll see you later.

Rosalind: Oh, be sure and do that—you’re such a help.

(Exit Cecelia. Rosalind finished her hair and rises, humming. She goes up to the mirror and starts to dance in front of it on the soft carpet. She watches not her feet, but her eyes—never casually but always intently, even when she smiles. The door suddenly opens and then slams behind Amory, very cool and handsome as usual. He melts into instant confusion.)

He: Oh, I’m sorry. I thought——

She: (Smiling radiantly) Oh, you’re Amory Blaine, aren’t you?

He: (Regarding her closely) And you’re Rosalind?

She: I’m going to call you Amory—oh, come in—it’s all right—mother’ll be right in—(under her breath) unfortunately.

He: (Gazing around) This is sort of a new wrinkle for me.

She: This is No Man’s Land.

He: This is where you—you—(pause)

She: Yes—all those things. (She crosses to the bureau.) See, here’s my rouge—eye pencils.

He: I didn’t know you were that way.

She: What did you expect?

He: I thought you’d be sort of—sort of—sexless, you know, swim and play golf.

She: Oh, I do—but not in business hours.

He: Business?

She: Six to two—strictly.

He: I’d like to have some stock in the corporation.

She: Oh, it’s not a corporation—it’s just “Rosalind, Unlimited.” Fifty-one shares, name, good-will, and everything goes at $25,000 a year.

He: (Disapprovingly) Sort of a chilly proposition.

She: Well, Amory, you don’t mind—do you? When I meet a man that doesn’t bore me to death after two weeks, perhaps it’ll be different.

He: Odd, you have the same point of view on men that I have on women.

She: I’m not really feminine, you know—in my mind.

He: (Interested) Go on.

She: No, you—you go on—you’ve made me talk about myself. That’s against the rules.

He: Rules?

She: My own rules—but you—Oh, Amory, I hear you’re brilliant. The family expects so much of you.

He: How encouraging!

She: Alec said you’d taught him to think. Did you? I didn’t believe any one could.

He: No. I’m really quite dull.

(He evidently doesn’t intend this to be taken seriously.)

She: Liar.

He: I’m—I’m religious—I’m literary. I’ve—I’ve even written poems.

She: Vers libre—splendid! (She declaims.)

“The trees are green,

The birds are singing in the trees,

The girl sips her poison

The bird flies away the girl dies.”

He: (Laughing) No, not that kind.

She: (Suddenly) I like you.

He: Don’t.

She: Modest too——

He: I’m afraid of you. I’m always afraid of a girl—until I’ve kissed her.

She: (Emphatically) My dear boy, the war is over.

He: So I’ll always be afraid of you.

She: (Rather sadly) I suppose you will.

(A slight hesitation on both their parts.)

He: (After due consideration) Listen. This is a frightful thing to ask.

She: (Knowing what’s coming) After five minutes.

He: But will you—kiss me? Or are you afraid?

She: I’m never afraid—but your reasons are so poor.

He: Rosalind, I really want to kiss you.

She: So do I.

(They kiss—definitely and thoroughly.)

He: (After a breathless second) Well, is your curiosity satisfied?

She: Is yours?

He: No, it’s only aroused.

(He looks it.)

She: (Dreamily) I’ve kissed dozens of men. I suppose I’ll kiss dozens more.

He: (Abstractedly) Yes, I suppose you could—like that.

She: Most people like the way I kiss.

He: (Remembering himself) Good Lord, yes. Kiss me once more, Rosalind.

She: No—my curiosity is generally satisfied at one.

He: (Discouraged) Is that a rule?

She: I make rules to fit the cases.

He: You and I are somewhat alike—except that I’m years older in experience.

She: How old are you?

He: Almost twenty-three. You?

She: Nineteen—just.

He: I suppose you’re the product of a fashionable school.

She: No—I’m fairly raw material. I was expelled from Spence—I’ve forgotten why.

He: What’s your general trend?

She: Oh, I’m bright, quite selfish, emotional when aroused, fond of admiration——

He: (Suddenly) I don’t want to fall in love with you——

She: (Raising her eyebrows) Nobody asked you to.

He: (Continuing coldly) But I probably will. I love your mouth.

She: Hush! Please don’t fall in love with my mouth—hair, eyes, shoulders, slippers—but not my mouth. Everybody falls in love with my mouth.

He: It’s quite beautiful.

She: It’s too small.

He: No it isn’t—let’s see.

(He kisses her again with the same thoroughness.)

She: (Rather moved) Say something sweet.

He: (Frightened) Lord help me.

She: (Drawing away) Well, don’t—if it’s so hard.

He: Shall we pretend? So soon?

She: We haven’t the same standards of time as other people.

He: Already it’s—other people.

She: Let’s pretend.

He: No—I can’t—it’s sentiment.

She: You’re not sentimental?

He: No, I’m romantic—a sentimental person thinks things will last—a romantic person hopes against hope that they won’t. Sentiment is emotional.

She: And you’re not? (With her eyes half-closed.) You probably flatter yourself that that’s a superior attitude.

He: Well—Rosalind, Rosalind, don’t argue—kiss me again.

She: (Quite chilly now) No—I have no desire to kiss you.

He: (Openly taken aback) You wanted to kiss me a minute ago.

She: This is now.

He: I’d better go.

She: I suppose so.

(He goes toward the door.)

She: Oh!

(He turns.)

She: (Laughing) Score—Home Team: One hundred—Opponents: Zero.

(He starts back.)

She: (Quickly) Rain—no game.

(He goes out.)

(She goes quietly to the chiffonier, takes out a cigarette-case and hides it in the side drawer of a desk. Her mother enters, note-book in hand.)

Mrs. Connage: Good—I’ve been wanting to speak to you alone before we go down-stairs.

Rosalind: Heavens! you frighten me!

Mrs. Connage: Rosalind, you’ve been a very expensive proposition.

Rosalind: (Resignedly) Yes.

Mrs. Connage: And you know your father hasn’t what he once had.

Rosalind: (Making a wry face) Oh, please don’t talk about money.

Mrs. Connage: You can’t do anything without it. This is our last year in this house—and unless things change Cecelia won’t have the advantages you’ve had.

Rosalind: (Impatiently) Well—what is it?

Mrs. Connage: So I ask you to please mind me in several things I’ve put down in my note-book. The first one is: don’t disappear with young men. There may be a time when it’s valuable, but at present I want you on the dance-floor where I can find you. There are certain men I want to have you meet and I don’t like finding you in some corner of the conservatory exchanging silliness with any one—or listening to it.

Rosalind: (Sarcastically) Yes, listening to it is better.

Mrs. Connage: And don’t waste a lot of time with the college set—little boys nineteen and twenty years old. I don’t mind a prom or a football game, but staying away from advantageous parties to eat in little cafés down-town with Tom, Dick, and Harry——

Rosalind: (Offering her code, which is, in its way, quite as high as her mother’s) Mother, it’s done—you can’t run everything now the way you did in the early nineties.

Mrs. Connage: (Paying no attention) There are several bachelor friends of your father’s that I want you to meet to-night—youngish men.

Rosalind: (Nodding wisely) About forty-five?

Mrs. Connage: (Sharply) Why not?

Rosalind: Oh, quite all right—they know life and are so adorably tired looking (shakes her head)—but they will dance.

Mrs. Connage: I haven’t met Mr. Blaine—but I don’t think you’ll care for him. He doesn’t sound like a money-maker.

Rosalind: Mother, I never think about money.

Mrs. Connage: You never keep it long enough to think about it[.]

Rosalind: (Sighs) Yes, I suppose some day I’ll marry a ton of it—out of sheer boredom.

Mrs. Connage: (Referring to note-book) I had a wire from Hartford. Dawson Ryder is coming up. Now there’s a young man I like, and he’s floating in money. It seems to me that since you seem tired of Howard Gillespie you might give Mr. Ryder some encouragement. This is the third time he’s been up in a month.

Rosalind: How did you know I was tired of Howard Gillespie?

Mrs. Connage: The poor boy looks so miserable every time he comes.

Rosalind: That was one of those romantic, pre-battle affairs. They’re all wrong.

Mrs. Connage: (Her say said) At any rate, make us proud of you to-night.

Rosalind: Don’t you think I’m beautiful?

Mrs. Connage: You know you are.

(From down-stairs is heard the moan of a violin being tuned, the roll of a drum. Mrs. Connage turns quickly to her daughter.)

Mrs. Connage: Come!

Rosalind: One minute!

(Her mother leaves. Rosalind goes to the glass where she gazes at herself with great satisfaction. She kisses her hand and touches her mirrored mouth with it. Then she turns out the lights and leaves the room. Silence for a moment. A few chords from the piano, the discreet patter of faint drums, the rustle of new silk, all blend on the staircase outside and drift in through the partly opened door. Bundled figures pass in the lighted hall. The laughter heard below becomes doubled and multiplied. Then some one comes in, closes the door, and switches on the lights. It is Cecelia. She goes to the chiffonier, looks in the drawers, hesitates—then to the desk whence she takes the cigarette-case and extracts one. She lights it and then, puffing and blowing, walks toward the mirror.)

Cecelia: (In tremendously sophisticated accents) Oh, yes, coming out is such a farce nowadays, you know. One really plays around so much before one is seventeen, that it’s positively anticlimax. (Shaking hands with a visionary middle-aged nobleman.) Yes, your grace—I b’lieve I’ve heard my sister speak of you. Have a puff—they’re very good. They’re—they’re Coronas. You don’t smoke? What a pity! The king doesn’t allow it, I suppose. Yes, I’ll dance.

(So she dances around the room to a tune from down-stairs, her arms outstretched to an imaginary partner, the cigarette waving in her hand.)