Faster! Faster! by E. M. Delafield Page B

academic outlook, of course, and she’s spent too much of her life amongst women and girls—but she’s moderately broad-minded, and very intelligent. She’ll see the point of it.”
    â€œThe point of it being, really, that you want to get right away on your own?”
    â€œPartly that. Three grown-up women in one house would be a mistake, don’t you think? Though I expect Sylvia will marry quite early.”
    â€œPerhaps she will. But couldn’t you get away, on your own, without going quite so far as America?”
    â€œI could, in a way. There’s no question of my having to live at home and do nothing, when I leave school, or anything bloody like that—sorry—but you see, I don’t want to live in London either, and I don’t want to go to an English University, where everybody rides a bicycle and the food is filthy and it’s always cold and people go all earnest about the Great Problems of the Day. I’m quite willing to work, but I want to enjoy myself too. Aunt Anna could give me a perfectly marvellous time. And girls do have fun in America, don’t they? There was a girl from New York at school with me.”
    â€œI scarcely know New York,” Frances said, “but I agree with you that American girls have much more fun than ours, in a good many ways, especially when their parents have money.”
    â€œNaturally,” said Taffy. “Well, you see, I knowexactly what I want. And—which is probably just as important—what I
don’t
want. Amongst other things, I don’t want to marry an Englishman.”
    â€œI think perhaps you’re right about that,” Frances murmured.
    Taffy shot her a look of mingled gratitude and approval.
    â€œI should hate not to marry at all, and I think experimental marriages are rather silly and antisocial—but at the same time, I hate the English domestic ideal. The only men I’m ever likely to meet, if I stay in England and get a job somewhere, are sort of upper-middle-class young men, who either can’t afford to marry at all, or else expect one to live in a bungalow somewhere, and have a daily maid and go all deft and home-making, like the ghastly young matrons one sees in advertisements. Unless they expect one to go on in a job, and help keep them.”
    â€œI thought that was the modern ideal.”
    â€œIt isn’t mine. There’s heaps of lovely fun going in the world, and I want to have it—not just spend my youth worrying about expenses and bills and how I can educate my children—if I can afford to have them at all. Look at Mother!”
    â€œYes, I see,” Frances said thoughtfully.
    â€œI want to work out a
totally
different life-pattern,” said Taffy emphatically. “I think Aunt Anna—and America—are my best chance.”
    â€œOn the whole, I’m inclined to agree with you. You do thoroughly know what you want, don’t you?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    â€œFrom what I saw of America, and Americans, you’re much more likely to get it over there. Of course there are plenty of people there who aren’t well off—though their standard of comfort and enjoyment
is
much higher than ours. I expect you’ve realized, too, that the young matron of the advertisements is a very, very well-known figure in the Middle West? I’m not sure she didn’t come from there in the first place.”
    Taffy laughed appreciatively.
    â€œThat’s the whole point of Aunt Anna and Uncle Adolf,” she explained. “He’s got a place in San Francisco, and they rent an apartment when they’re in New York. It wouldn’t be Middle West young matrons, or Middle West young men, with them. Aunt Anna knows all the amusing people— the rich ones—the kind that I want to know, in fact.”
    â€œYou really mean, don’t you, the kind that you eventually hope to marry?”
    â€œYes, I do,” said