I couldn't lift him, even to the sofa. Too fat."

[Illustration: Returning home one night Clavering (Conway Tearle) found
Janet Oglethorpe (Clara Bow), daughter of his old friend, in a
semi-intoxicated condition. (_Screen version of "The Black Oxen."_)]

"I suppose you pride yourself on being a good sport."

"Rather. If Donny'd been ill I'd have stayed with him all night, but
he was dead to the world."

"You say he had a party. Why didn't some of the others take you home?"

"Ever hear about three being a crowd? Donny, naturally, was all for
taking me home, and didn't show any signs of collapse till the last
minute."

"But I should think that for decency's sake you'd all have gone down
together."

"Lord! How old-fashioned you are. I was finishing a cigarette and
never thought of it." She opened a little gold mesh bag, took out a
cigarette and lit it. Her cheeks were flushed under the rouge and her
large black eyes glittered in her fluid little face. She was one of
the beauties of the season's debutantes, but scornful of nature. Her
olive complexion was thickly powdered and there was a delicate smudge
of black under her lower lashes and even on her eyelids. He had never
seen her quite so blatantly made up before, but then he had seen little
of her since the beginning of her first season. He rarely went to
parties, and she was almost as rarely in her own home or her
grandmother's. Her short hair curled about her face. In spite of her
paint she looked like a child--a greedy child playing with life.

"Look here!" he said. "How far do you go?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I should. Not for personal reasons, for girls of your age bore me to
extinction, but you've a certain sociological interest. I wonder if
you are really any worse than your predecessors?"

"I guess girls have always been human enough, but we have more
opportunities. We've made 'em. This is our age and we're enjoying it
to the limit. God! what stupid times girls must have had--some of them
do yet. They're naturally goody-goody, or their parents are too much
for them. Not many, though. Parents have taken a back seat."

"I don't quite see what you get out of it--guzzling, and smoking your
nerves out by the roots, and making yourselves cheap with men little
older than yourselves."

"You don't see, I suppose, why girls should have their fling, or"--her
voice wavered curiously--"why youth takes naturally to youth. I
suppo