294
FLAMING
YOUTH
From the groping figure below her, glamour fell like @ decaying garment. She forgot the genius, the inner fire; beheld only the outer shell, uncouth, pulpy, nauseous to her senses. With cheeks afire and chin high, she walked up the aisle, turned into the ladies’ room and found safe refuge there, until the train moved on.
At the South Station
she took the next train back to New York. Cary Scott bore her unsolicited company. straight to Edna Carroll with the story.
The image of She went Edna was
alarmed, relieved, puzzled.
“But, after going so far, why—why—why?” she demanded. In response Pat delivered one of those final and damning sentences upon man which women express only to women: ‘When I saw him that way I knew that his socks would be dirty.”
