"What can you find to do in this town?' queried a pretty young matron at a recent afternoon tea. The query so startled the writer that she nearly dropped her tea-cup and absent mindedly refused an alluring caviar sandwich, Partially recovering herself, she countered with: Don't you think there's quite too much to do?" The gasp of astonishment indicated that two irreconcilable points of view had met, and each tightened rein and dug her spurs into her favourite hobby.
"No indeed. At home one could also run up to town for the theatre and concerts and clubs, or down to college or into the country or even over to Paris. Here one stays put and suffocates of ingrowing boredom. Not that I don't like teas—even feminine teas. And of course I like tea dances and evenings at the cafes and clubs. I thought I was going to enjoy managing my house, but that takes about half an hour, in the mornings and the Boy only lets me do that much as a special indulgence.
"Do you belong to the women's clubs?' I asked mildly, to be greeted by an indignant, "De I look like that sort of a person?"
"But why not?" I insisted. "They have sections enough to suit anyone's taste. You can be sporting, musical, literary, domestic, artistic, sinological philanthropic, horticultural—"
"Stop, stop" she pleaded—' do you imply that I could be any one I chose without bothering with the rest?"
"Then I might consider it, for I can't play bridge or mahjongg all day, or even golf or ride or shoot or read or write I keep reading appeals in the papers for work for destitute refugees and the more I read the more impelled I am to start a campaign for job-less wives. If only Jack were in politics and I could make speeches for him, or il! so I could nurse him, or poor so that I'd have to work for him, I'd have considerably more interest in life. It's maddening."
"Are you studying Chinese?" continued in the questionnaire.
"No. Would that give me a purpose in life?"
"Lots of them. And there's always church work, even out here."
"But I'm not much good at Sunday-School classes, though I might qualify for sales of work."
"Or French? Or Russian? Or Chinese art? Or music? Or teaching English to the Russian Cadets? Or substituting for some overworked missionary and. letting her have one of your leisurely mornings? Or collecting porcelains? Or chow dogs? Or writing a series of articles for the Woman's Page, or—But my friend was edging away' as from an unbalanced person who might become violent at any moment. "Of course if one likes and of those things," she said, vaguely disparaging, "but as for me I'm just counting the days until we can go Home."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.