VII
Carol was not unhappy and she was not exhilarated, in the
St. Paul Library. She slowly confessed that she was not visibly
affecting lives. She did, at first, put into her contact with the
patrons a willingness which should have moved worlds. But
so few of these stolid worlds wanted to be moved. When she
was in charge of the magazine room the readers did not ask
for suggestions about elevated essays. They grunted, "Wanta
find the Leather Goods Gazette for last February." When she
was giving out books the principal query was, "Can you tell me
of a good, light, exciting love story to read? My husband's
going away for a week."
She was fond of the other librarians; proud of their
aspirations. And by the chance of propinquity she read scores of
books unnatural to her gay white littleness: volumes of
anthropology with ditches of foot-notes filled with heaps of
small dusty type, Parisian imagistes, Hindu recipes for curry,
voyages to the Solomon Isles, theosophy with modern American
improvements, treatises upon success in the real-estate business.
She took walks, and was sensible about shoes and diet. And
never did she feel that she was living.
She went to dances and suppers at the houses of college
acquaintances. Sometimes she one-stepped demurely;
sometimes, in dread of life's slipping past, she turned into a
bacchanal, her tender eyes excited, her throat tense, as she slid
down the room.
During her three years of library work several men showed
diligent interest in her—the treasurer of a fur-manufacturing
firm, a teacher, a newspaper reporter, and a petty railroad
official. None of them made her more than pause in thought.
For months no male emerged from the mass. Then, at the
Marburys', she met Dr. Will Kennicott.
