Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment

Ballard shook with laughter.

"Oh, that's rather rough, Pope. She's merely the product of a highly sensitized milieu. Because I don't like girls of that stamp doesn't argue her unlikable. I've never heard a word against her except that she has much attention from men. And with her money and looks that's natural enough."

"What happened?" I put in shortly.

"Oh, she was very languid at first and a little formal, thawing effectively as she drew Jerry out. You see she had a little the advantage in knowing his history.

"'I'm very flattered that you should have come so soon,' she said, comprehending us both in her level gaze. 'Will you smoke, Mr. Benham? No? You haven't succumbed yet to all of the amiable weaknesses of human nature. They're very mild. Do change your mind. There! I knew you would,'

"Jerry fingered the thing and lighted it as though it might have been the match of a blunderbuss.

"'I've been wondering for a great many years, Mr. Benham, what you could be like,' she went on in a tone which is more nearly described as a purr than anything else. 'You know, our places up in Ulster County are almost adjoining. At times I've been tempted to scale your wall. It looked so very attractive from outside. But they told me you kept a private banshee, trained to visit those you didn't like. You don't, do you?'

"Jerry laughed. 'The nearest thing I've got to a banshee is my dog Skookums. But he's blind in one eye and his teeth are gone, and he's too lazy even to wag his tail. Besides I don't see why I should set him on you!

"She laughed, showing a row of rather small but even teeth.

"'They say you don't like girls. Tell me it isn't so, Mr. Ballard'—she appealed to me.

"I saw the way the wind was blowing but I chose to humor her.

"'I am sure he adores the very ground you walk on,' I said politely, 'especially when you look like a figure on an Etruscan amphora.'

"She smiled slowly. 'You can say nice things, can't you, Mr. Ballard? But that doesn't quite exculpate Mr. Benham.'

"'I'm sure,' said Jerry very gravely, 'that you're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen!'

"Her fishing prospered. Her eyelashes lowered so that we both could see how long they were and when she raised them again and looked at Jerry her eyes were opened wide.

"'That is the greatest compliment I've ever received in my life,' she said evenly. 'I hope you mean it, Mr. Benham.'

"'I shouldn't have said it if I didn't think so,' said Jerry quickly.

"Something in the positive way he spoke pleased her again for she smiled bewitchingly, effacing me completely. I think we're going to be very good friends,' she said, moving up on the divan a little nearer to him. 'Of course, it takes more than the aesthetic appeal to bring two sensible people together,' she murmured. 'It is not the eye which must catch the reflection, but the mind. You've thought a good deal—and studied? Men are so vapid nowadays.' She sighed. 'I hope some day you will think I'm clever enough for you to talk to me about things.'

"She was playing up to him, you see, I think that Jerry is the most extraordinary male animal that has ambled into her vision this winter.

"'I'd be glad to. Of course you're different from anything I ever saw before,' said Jerry. 'I've always thought of nature as the most beautiful thing in the world. Now I seem to be just as sure that art is.'

"That rather took her aback, but she didn't turn a hair.

"'You think all this—superfluous?'

"'Not superfluous, perhaps. Merely artificial.'

"'Am I artificial?'

"'Yes,' bluntly! 'I don't understand it at all. But it's singularly effective. It's like night with only one star visible—'

"'The more visible,' I put in, 'for being Venus.'

"She looked at me slantways. 'I'm sorry you said that, Mr. Ballard. Venus is not my goddess. Diana—'

"'The Huntress,' I broke in again.

"'Pallas Athene, the guardian and guide of heroes,' she countered neatly.

"'I'm glad you don't like Venus, Miss Van Wyck,' put in Jerry quickly. 'She made a lot of trouble, just because she was pretty. Diana—she was the right sort, no sentimental rot for her.'

"'Of course. Sentiment is rot and so sloppy.'

"Jerry laughed ingenuously. 'That's a good word,' he said. 'Imagine Diana being sloppy.'

"'Women aren't nearly as sentimental as they used to be. As a woman's weapon hysteria has gone to the dust heap. Women are learning independence. You believe in women thinking for themselves, don't you?'

"'Of course,' said Jerry. 'But they don't, do they?'

"'I do. It's one of my gospels to be self-sufficient. Don't you believe me?'

"'I'd like to, you're so lovely to look at. I'd like to think you were perfect in everything.'

"He refreshed her. Her artificialities one by one were falling away from her like discarded garments. And yet I was not sure that it wasn't artifice that was discarding them. She was very clever. I might have guessed it, had I noticed earlier the volumes by Freud and Strindberg on the little ebony side table."

Ballard paused a moment to light a fresh cigarette.

"Bah!" I muttered contemptuously.

He looked over at me thoughtfully. "You may sneer, Pope, my boy," he commented. "But this sort of thing has come to stay. The infants are imbibing it with their bottles—self-expression, self-analysis and all that."

"But this girl is dangerous," I remarked.

"I imagine she is," he said calmly. "At any rate, she's going to prove or disprove your precious hypothesis."

"I'm not afraid for Jerry," I growled. "No chameleon will change his color. What else did she say?"

"She was very much pleased at Jerry's compliment.

"'Someone has taught you to be very polite,' she said with a smile.

"'Polite?' asked Jerry. 'Merely because I was hoping you weren't flabby?'

"'Well, I'm not flabby,' she smiled indulgently. 'I hate flabby people.'

"'I don't see any reason why a woman should be different from a man,' Jerry went on. 'Men don't cry, why should women? I've always thought the Greeks were right. To me there's only one sin the world and that's weakness.'

"You'll pardon me, Pope, if I say that he sounded very much like you," he laughed. "He had the preaching tone, the assertiveness. It was most amusing. Imagine the paradox, this babe, an ascetic and this worldling, a sybarite, meeting upon a common ground! For I really believe she was sincere about her self-sufficiency. Whatever her tastes, she's no weakling."

"But she's trivial, a smatterer, a decadent—"