"Glenn, you distress me when you talk like this," replied Carley,

soberly. "You did not use to talk so. It seems to me you are bitter

against women."

"Oh no, Carley! I am only sad," he said. "I only see where once I was

blind. American women are the finest on earth, but as a race, if they

don't change, they're doomed to extinction."

"How can you say such things?" demanded Carley, with spirit.

"I say them because they are true. Carley, on the level now, tell me how

many of your immediate friends have children."

Put to a test, Carley rapidly went over in mind her circle of friends,

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with the result that she was somewhat shocked and amazed to realize how

few of them were even married, and how the babies of her acquaintance

were limited to three. It was not easy to admit this to Glenn.

"My dear," replied he, "if that does not show you the handwriting on the

wall, nothing ever will."

"A girl has to find a husband, doesn't she?" asked Carley, roused to

defense of her sex. "And if she's anybody she has to find one in her

set. Well, husbands are not plentiful. Marriage certainly is not the end

of existence these days. We have to get along somehow. The high cost of

living is no inconsderable factor today. Do you know that most of the

better-class apartment houses in New York will not take children? Women

are not all to blame. Take the speed mania. Men must have automobiles.

I know one girl who wanted a baby, but her husband wanted a car. They

couldn't afford both."

"Carley, I'm not blaming women more than men," returned Glenn. "I don't

know that I blame them as a class. But in my own mind I have worked it

all out. Every man or woman who is genuinely American should read the

signs of the times, realize the crisis, and meet it in an American way.

Otherwise we are done as a race. Money is God in the older countries.

But it should never become God in America. If it does we will make the

fall of Rome pale into insignificance."

"Glenn, let's put off the argument," appealed Carley. "I'm not--just up

to fighting you today. Oh--you needn't smile. I'm not showing a yellow

streak, as Flo puts it. I'll fight you some other time."

"You're right, Carley," he assented. "Here we are loafing six or seven

miles from home. Let's rustle along."




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