“So far ahead of them in every way.”
“Ahead of Charley Putney?” said I, jocose but jealous withal.
She laughed with a delightful look of contemptuous scorn in her cute
face. “Oh, _he_!” she scoffed. “He’s getting only eight a week, and
he’ll never get any more.”
“Not if his boss has sense,” said I, thinking myself judicial. “But
let’s talk about ourselves. We can be married now.”
I advanced this timidly, for being a truly-in-love lover I was a little
afraid of her, a little uncertain of this priceless treasure. But she
answered promptly, “Yes, I was thinking of that.”
“Let’s do it right away,” proposed I.
“Oh, not for several weeks. It wouldn’t be proper.”
“Why not?”
She couldn’t explain. She only knew that there was something indecent
about haste in such matters, that the procedure must be slow and
orderly and stately. “We’ll marry the first of next month,” she finally
decided, and I joyfully acquiesced.
Some of my readers--both of the gentle and of the other kind--may
be surprised that a girl of seventeen should be so self-assured, so
independent. They must remember that she was a daughter of the people;
and among the people a girl of seventeen was, and I suppose still is,
ready for marriage, ready and resolved to decide all important matters
for herself. At seventeen Edna, in self-poise and in experience,
judgment and all the other mature qualities, was the equal of the
carefully sheltered girl of twenty-five or more. She may have been
brought up a lady, may have been in all essential ways as useless as
the most admired of that weariful and worthless class. But the very
nature of her surroundings, in that simple household and that simple
community, had given her a certain practical education. And I may say
here that to it she owes all she is to-day. Do not forget this, gentle
reader, as you read about her and as she dazzles you. As you look at
the gorgeous hardy rose do not forget that such spring only from the
soil, develop only in the open.
That very evening we began to look for a home. As soon as we were
outside her front gate she turned in the direction of the better part
of the town. Nor did she pause or so much as glance at a house until
we were clear of the neighborhood in which we had always lived, and
were among houses much superior. I admired, and I still admire, this
significant move of hers. It was the gesture of progress, of ambition.
It was splendidly American. I myself should have been content to settle
down near our fathers and mothers, among the people we knew. I should
no doubt have been better satisfied to keep up the mode of living to
which we had been used all our lives. The time would have come when I
should have reached out for more comfort and for luxury. But it was
natural that she should develop in this direction before I did. She
had read her novels and her magazines, had the cultured woman’s innate
fondness for dress and show, had had nothing but those kinds of things
to think about; I had been too busy trying to make money to have any
time for getting ideas about spending it.
No; while her motive in seeking better things than we had known was in
the main a vanity and a sham, her action had as much _initial_ good in
it as if her motive had been sensible and helpful. And back of the
motive lay an instinct for getting up in the world that has been the
redeeming and preserving trait in her character. It was this instinct
that ought to have made her the fit wife for an ambitious and advancing
man. You will presently see how this fine and useful instinct was
perverted by vanity and false education and the pernicious example of
other women.
“The rents are much higher in this neighborhood,” said I, with a
doubtful but admiring look round at the pretty houses and their
well-ordered grounds.
“Of course,” said she. “But maybe we can find something. Anyway, it
won’t do any harm to look.”
“No, indeed,” I assented, for I liked the idea myself. This better
neighborhood _looked_ more like her than her own, seemed to her lover’s
eyes exactly suited to her beauty and her stylishness--for the “Lady
Book” was teaching her to make herself far more attractive to the eye
than were the other girls over in our part of town. I still puzzle at
why Charley Putney gave her up; the only plausible theory seems to be
that she was so sick in love with him that she wearied him. The most
attractive girl in the world, if she dotes on a young man too ardently,
will turn his stomach, and alarm his delicate sense of feminine
propriety.
As we walked on, she with an elate and proud air, she said: “How
different it smells over here!”
At first I didn’t understand what she meant. But, as I thought of
her remark, the meaning came. And I believe that was the beginning
of my dissatisfaction with what I had all my life had in the way of
surroundings. I have since observed that the sense of smell is blunt,
is almost latent, in people of the lower orders, and that it becomes
more acute and more sensitive as we ascend in the social scale. Up to
that time my ambition to rise had been rather indefinite--a desire
to make money which everyone seemed to think was the highest aim in
life--and also an instinct to beat the other fellows working with me.
Now it became definite. I began to smell. I wanted to get away from
unpleasant smells. I do not mean that this was a resolution, all in
the twinkling of an eye. I simply mean that, as everything must have a
beginning, that remark of hers was for me the beginning of a long and
slow but steady process of what may be called civilizing.
Presently she said: “If we couldn’t afford a house, we might take one
of the flats.”
“But I’m afraid you’d be lonesome, away off from everybody we know.”
She tossed her head. “A good lonesome,” said she. “I’m tired of
_common_ people. I was reading about reincarnations the other day.”
“Good Lord!” laughed I. “What are they?”
She explained--as well as she could--probably as well as anybody could.
I admired her learning but the thing itself did not interest me. “I
guess there must be something in it,” she went on. “I’m sure in a
former life I was something a lot different from what I am now.”
“Oh, you’re all right,” I assured her, putting my arm round her in the
friendly darkness of a row of sidewalk elms.
When we had indulged in an interlude of love-making, she returned to
the original subject. “I wonder how much rent we could afford to pay,”
said she.
“They say the rent ought never to be more per month than the income is
per week.”
“Then we could pay twenty-five a month.”
That seemed to me a lot to pay--and, indeed, it was. But she did not
inherit Weeping Willie’s tightness; and she had never had money to
spend or any training in either making or spending money. That is
to say, she was precisely as ignorant of the main business of life
as is the rest of American womanhood under our ridiculous system of
education. So, twenty-five dollars a month rent meant nothing to her.
“We can’t do anything to-night,” said she. “But I’ve got my days free,
and I’ll look at different places, and when I find several to choose
from we can come in the evening or on Sunday and decide.”
This suited me exactly. We dismissed the matter, hunted out a shady
nook, and sat down to enjoy ourselves after the manner of young
lovers on a fine night. Never before had she given herself freely to
love. I know now it was because never before had she loved me. I was
deliriously happy that night, and I am sure she was too. She no less
than I had the ardent temperament that goes with the ambitious nature;
and now that she was idealizing me into the man who could lead her to
the fairy lands she dreamed of, she gave me her whole heart.
It was the beginning of what was beyond question the happiest period of
both our lives. I have a dim old photograph of us two taken about that
time. At a glance you see it is the picture of two young people of the
working class--two green, unformed creatures, badly dressed and gawkily
self-conscious. But there is a look in her face--and in mine-- To be
quite honest, I’m glad I don’t look like that now. I wouldn’t go back
if I could. Nevertheless-- How we loved each other!--and how happy we
were!
I feel that I weary you, gentle reader. There is in my sentiment too
much about wages and flat rents and the smells that come from people
who work hard and live in poor places and eat badly cooked strong food.
But that is not my fault. It is life. And if you believe that your and
your romancers’ tawdry imaginings are better than life--well, you may
not be so wise or so exalted as you fancy.
The upshot of our inspecting places to live and haggling over prices
was that we took a flat in the best quarter of Passaic--the top and
in those elevatorless days the cheapest flat in the house. We were to
pay forty dollars a month--a stiff rent that caused excitement in our
neighborhood and set my mother and her father to denouncing us as a
pair of fools bent upon ruin. I thought so, myself. But I could have
denied Edna nothing at that time, and I made up my mind that by working
harder than ever at the railway office I would compel another raise.
When I told my mother about this secret resolve of mine, she said:
“If you do get more money, Godfrey, don’t tell Edna. She’s a fool.
She’ll keep your nose to the grindstone all your life if you ain’t
careful. It takes a better money-maker than you’re likely to be to hold
up against that kind of a woman.”
“Oh, she’s like all girls,” said I.
“That’s just it,” replied my mother. “That’s why I ain’t got no use for
women. Look what poor managers they are. Look how they idle and waste
and run into debt.”
“But there’s a lot to be said against the men, too. Saloons, for
instance.”
“And talkin’ politics with loafers,” said my father’s wife bitterly.
“I guess the trouble with men and women is they’re too human,” said I,
who had inherited something of the philosopher from my father. “And,
mother, a man’s got to get married--and he’s got to marry a woman.”
“Yes, I suppose he has,” she grudgingly assented. “Mighty poor
providers most of the men is, and mighty poor use the women make of
what little the men brings home. But about you and Edny Wheatlands--
You ought to do better’n her, Godfrey. You’re caught by her looks and
her style and her education. None of them things makes a good wife.”
“I certainly wouldn’t marry a girl that didn’t have them--all three.”
“But there’s something more,” insisted mother.
“One woman can’t have everything,” said I.
“No, but she can have what I mean--and she’s not much good to a man
without it. If you’re set on marrying her wait till _you’re_ ready,
anyhow. _She_ never will be.”
“What do you mean, mother?”
“Wait till you’ve got money in the savings bank. Wait till you’ve got
used to having money. Then maybe you’ll be able to put a bit on a
spendthrift wife even if you are crazy about her. You’re making a wrong
start with her, Godfrey. You’re giving her the upper hand, and that’s
bad for women like her--mighty bad.”
It was from my mother that I get my ability at business. She and I
often had sensible talks, and her advice started me right in the
railroad office and kept me right until I knew my way. So I did not
become angry at her plain speaking, but appreciated its good sense,
even though I thought her prejudiced against my Edna. However, I had
not the least impulse to put off the marriage. My one wish was to
hasten it. Never before or since was time so leisurely. But the day
dragged itself up at last, and we were married in church, at what
seemed to us then enormous expense. There was a dinner afterward at
which everyone ate and drank too much--a coarse and common scene which
I will spare gentle reader. Edna and I went up to New York City for a
Friday to Monday honeymoon. But we were back to spend Sunday night in
our grand forty-dollar flat. On Monday morning I went to work again--a
married man, an important person in the community.
Never has any height I have attained or seen since equalled the
grandeur of that forty-dollar flat. My common sense tells me that it
was a small and poor affair. I remember, for example, that the bathroom
was hardly big enough to turn round in. I recall that I have sat by the
window in the parlor and without rising have reached a paper on a table
at the other end of the room. But these hard facts in no way interfere
with or correct the flat as my imagination persists in picturing
it. What vistas of rooms!--what high ceilings--what woodwork--and
plumbing!--and what magnificent furniture! Edna’s father, in a moment
of generosity, told her he would pay for the outfitting of the
household. And being in the undertaking business he could get discounts
on furniture and even on kitchen utensils. Edna did the selecting.
I thought everything wonderful and, as I have said, my imagination
refuses to recreate the place as it actually was. But I recall that
there was a brave show of red and of plush, and we all know what that
means. Whether her “Lady Book” had miseducated her or her untrained
eyes, excited by the gaudiness she saw when she went shopping, had
beguiled her from the counsels of the “Lady Book,” I do not know. But I
am sure, as I recall red and plush, that our first home was the typical
horror inhabited by the extravagant working-class family.
No matter. There we were in Arcadia. For a time her restless soaring
fancy, wearied perhaps by its audacious flight to this lofty perch
of red and plush and forty dollars a month, folded its wings and
was content. For a time her pride and satisfaction in the luxurious
newness overcame her distaste and disdain and moved her to keep things
spotless. I recall the perfume of cleanness that used to delight my
nostrils at my evening homecoming, and then the intoxicating perfume of
Edna herself--the aroma of healthy young feminine beauty. We loved each
other, simply, passionately, in the old-fashioned way. With the growth
of intelligence, with the realization on the part of men that her keep
is a large part of the reason in the woman’s mind if not in her heart
for marrying and loving, there has come a decline and decay of the
former reverence and awe of man toward woman. Also, the men nowadays
know more about the mystery of woman, know everything about it, where
not so many years ago a pure woman was to a man a real religious
mystery. Her physical being, the clothes she wore underneath, the
supposedly sweet and clean thoughts, nobler than his, that dwelt in the
temple of her soul--these things surrounded a girl with an atmosphere
of thrilling enigma for the youth who won from her lips and from the
church the right to explore.
All that has passed, or almost passed. I am one of those who believe
that what has come, or, rather, is coming, to take its place is
better, finer, nobler. But the old order had its charm. What a charm
for me!--who had never known any woman well, who had dreamed of her
passionately but purely and respectfully. There was much of pain--of
shyness, fear of offending her higher nature, uneasiness lest I should
be condemned and cast out--in those early days of married life. But
it was a sweet sort of pain. And when we began to understand each
other--to be human, though still on our best behavior--when we found
that we were congenial, were happy together in ways undreamed of, life
seemed to be paying not like the bankrupt it usually is when the time
for redeeming its promises comes but like a benevolent prodigal, like
a lottery whose numbers all draw capital prizes. I admit the truth of
much the pessimists have to say against Life. But one thing I must
grant it. When in its rare generous moments it relents, it does know
how to play the host at the feast--how to spread the board, how to fill
the flagons and to keep them filled, how to scatter the wreaths and
the garlands, how to select the singers and the dancers who help the
banqueters make merry. When I remember my honeymoon, I almost forgive
you, Life, for the shabby tricks you have played me.
Now I can conceive a honeymoon that would last on and on, not in the
glory and feverish joy of its first period, but in a substantial and
satisfying human happiness. But not a honeymoon with a wife who is no
more fitted to be a wife than the office boy is fitted to step in and
take the president’s job. Patience, gentle reader! I know how this
sudden shriek of discord across the amorous strains of the honeymoon
music must have jarred your nerves. But be patient and I will explain.
Except ourselves, every other family in the house, in the neighborhood,
had at least one servant. We had none. If Edna had been at all
economical we might have kept a cook and pinched along. But Edna spent
carelessly all the money I gave her, and I gave her all there was. A
large part of it went for finery for her personal adornment, trash of
which she soon tired--much of it she disliked as soon as it came home
and she tried it on without the saleslady to flatter and confuse. I--in
a good-natured way, for I really felt perfectly good-humored about
it--remonstrated with her for letting everybody rob her, for getting so
little for her money. She took high ground. Such things were beneath
her attention. If I had wanted a wife of that dull, pinch-penny kind
I’d certainly not have married her, a talented, educated woman, bent
on improving her mind and her position in the world. And that seemed
reasonable. Still, the money was going, the bills were piling up, and I
did not know what to do.
And--she did the cooking. I think I have already said that she had
not learned to cook. How she and her mother expected her to get along
as a poor clerk’s wife I can’t imagine. The worst of it was, she
believed she could cook. That is the way with women. They look down on
housekeeping, on the practical side of life, as too coarse and low to
be worthy their attention. They say all that sort of thing is easy, is
like the toil of a day laborer. They say anybody could do it. And they
really believe so. Men, no matter how high their position, weary and
bore themselves every day, because they must, with routine tasks beside
which dishwashing has charm and variety. Yet women shirk their proper
and necessary share of life’s burden, pretending that it is beneath
them.
Edna, typical woman, thought she could cook and keep house because
she, so superior, could certainly do inferior work if she chose. But
after that first brief spurt of enthusiasm, of daily conference with
the “Lady Book’s Complete Housekeeper’s Guide,” the flat was badly
kept--was really horribly kept--was worse than either her home or
mine before we had been living there many months. It took on much the
same odor. It looked worse, as tawdry finery, when mussy and dirty,
is more repulsive than a plain toilet gone back. I did not especially
mind that. But her cooking-- I had not been accustomed to anything
especially good in the way of cooking. Mother was the old-fashioned
fryer, and you know those fryers always served the vegetables soggy. I
could have eaten exceedingly poor stuff without complaining or feeling
like complaining. But the stuff she was soon flinging angrily upon the
slovenly table I could not eat. She ate it, enough of it to keep alive,
and it didn’t seem to do her any harm. How many women have you known
who were judges of things to eat? Do you understand how women continue
to eat the messes they put into their pretty mouths, and keep alive?
I could not eat Edna’s cooking. I ate bread, cold meats and the like
from the delicatessen shop. When the meal happened to be of her own
preparing I dropped into the habit of slipping away after a pretense
at eating, to get breakfast or dinner or supper in a restaurant--the
cheapest kind of restaurant, but I ate there with relish. And never
once did I murmur to Edna. I loved her too well; also, I am by nature a
tolerant, even-tempered person, hating strife, avoiding the harsh word.
In fact, my timidity in that respect has been my chief weakness, has
cost me dear again and again. But----
After ten months of married life Edna fell ill. All you married men
will prick up your ears at that. Why is it that bread winners somehow
contrive to keep on their feet most of the time, little though they
know as to caring for their health, reckless though they are in
eating and drinking? Why is it that married women--unless they have
to work--spend so much time in sick bed or near it? They say we in
America have more than nine times as many doctors proportionately to
population as any other country. The doctors live off of our women--our
idle, overeating, lazy women who will not work, who will not walk,
who are always getting something the matter with them. Of course the
doctors--parasites upon parasites--fake up all kinds of lies, many of
them malicious slanders against the husbands, to excuse their patients
and to keep them patients. But what is the truth?
Edna, who read all the time she was not plotting to get acquainted with
our neighbors--they looked down upon us and wished to have nothing to
do with us--Edna who ate quantities of candy between meals and ate at
meals rich things she bought of confectioners and bakers--Edna fell ill
and frightened me almost out of my senses. I understand it now. But I
did not understand then. I believed, as do all ignorant people--both
the obviously ignorant and the ignorant who pass for enlightened--I
believed sickness to be a mysterious accident, like earthquakes and
lightning strokes, a hit-or-miss blow from nowhere in particular. So I
was all sympathy and terror.
She got well. She looked as well as ever. But she said she was not
strong. “And Godfrey, we simply have got to keep a girl. I’ve borne up
bravely. But I can’t stand it any longer. You see for yourself, the
rough work and the strain of housekeeping are too much for me.”
“Very well,” said I. The bills, including the doctor’s and drug bills,
were piling up. We were more than a thousand dollars in debt. But I
said: “Very well. You are right.” We men do not realize that there
are two distinct and equal expressions of strength. The strength of
bulk, that is often deceptive in that it looks stronger than it is; the
strength of fiber, that is always deceptive in that it is stronger than
it looks. In a general way, man has the strength of bulk, woman the
strength of fiber. So man looks on woman’s appearance of fragility and
fancies her weak and himself the stronger. I looked at Edna, and said:
“Very well. We must have a girl to help.”
I shan’t linger upon this part of my story. I am tempted to linger,
but, after all, it is the commonplace of American life, familiar to
all, though understood apparently by only a few. Why do more than
ninety per cent of our small business men fail? Why are the savings
banks accounts of our working classes a mere fraction of those of the
working classes of other countries? And so on, and so on. But I see
your impatience, gentle reader, with these matters so “inartistic.” We
sank deeper and deeper in debt. Edna’s health did not improve. The girl
we hired had lived with better class people; she despised us, shirked
her work, and Edna did not know how to manage her. If the head of the
household is incompetent and indifferent, a servant only aggravates the
mess, and the more servants the greater the mess. All Edna’s interest
was for her music, her novels, her social advancement, and her dreams
of being a grand lady. These dreams had returned with increased power;
they took complete possession of her. They soured her disposition,
made her irritable, usually blue or cross, only at long intervals
loving and sweet. No, perhaps the dreams were not responsible.
Perhaps--probably--the real cause was the upset state of her health
through the absurd idle life she led. Idle and lonely. For she would
not go with whom she could, she could not go with whom she would.
“I’m sick of sitting alone,” said she. “No wonder I can’t get well.”
“Let’s go back near the old folks,” suggested I. “Our friends won’t
come to see us in this part of the town. They feel uncomfortable.”
“I should think they would!” cried she. “And if they came I’d see to it
that they were so uncomfortable that they would never come again.”
I worked hard. My salary went up to fifteen hundred, to two thousand,
to twenty-five hundred. “Now,” said Edna, “perhaps you’ll get hands
that won’t look like a laboring man’s. How can I hope to make nice
friends when I’ve a husband with broken finger nails?”
Our expenses continued to outrun my salary, but I was not especially
worried, for I began to realize that I had the money-making talent.
Three children were born; only the first--Margot--lived. Looking back
upon those six years of our married life, I see after the first year
only a confused repellent mess of illness, nurses, death, doctors,
quarrels with servants, untidy rooms and clothes, slovenly, peevish
wife, with myself watching it all in a dazed, helpless way, thinking it
must be the normal, natural order of domestic life--which, indeed, it
is in America--and wondering where and how it was to end.
I recall going home one afternoon late, to find Edna yawning
listlessly over some book in a magazine culture series. Her hair hung
every which way, her wrapper was torn and stained. Her skin had the
musty look that suggests unpleasant conditions both without and within.
Margot, dirty, pimply from too much candy, sat on the floor squalling.
“Take the child away,” cried Edna, at sight of me. “I thought you’d
never come. A little more of this and I’ll kill myself. What is there
to live for, anyhow?”
Silent and depressed, I took Margot for a walk. And as I wandered along
sadly I was full of pity for Edna, and felt that somehow the blame was
wholly mine for the wretched plight of our home life.
* * * * *
When I was twenty-eight and Edna twenty-three, I had a series of rapid
promotions which landed me in New York in the position of assistant
traffic superintendent. My salary was eight thousand a year.
It so happened--coincidence and nothing else--that those eighteen
months of quick advance for me also marked a notable change in Edna.
There are some people--many people--so obsessed of the know-it-all
vanity that they can learn nothing. Nor are all these people preachers,
doctors, and teachers, gentle reader. Then there is another species
who pretend to know all, who are chary of admitting to learning or
needing to learn anything, however small, yet who behind their pretense
toil at improving themselves as a hungry mouse gnaws at the wall of
the cheese box. Of this species was Edna. As she was fond of being
mysterious about her thoughts and intentions, she never told me what
set her going again after that long lethargy. Perhaps it was some woman
whom she had a sudden opportunity thoroughly to study, some woman who
knew and lived the ideas Edna had groped for in vain. Perhaps it was
a novel she read or articles in her magazines. It doesn’t matter. I
never asked her; I had learned that wild horses would not drag from her
a confession of where she had got an idea, because such a confession
would to her notion detract from her own glory. However, the essential
fact is that she suddenly roused and set to work as she had never
worked before--went at it like a prospector who, after toiling now
hard and now discouragedly for years, strikes by accident a rich vein
of gold. Edna showed in every move that she not hoped, not believed,
but knew she was at last on the right track. She began to take care,
scrupulous care, of her person--the minute intelligent care she has
ever since been expanding and improving upon, has never since relaxed,
and never will relax. Also she began to plan and to move definitely
in the matter of taking care of Margot--to look after her speech, her
manners, her food, her person, especially, perhaps, the last. Margot’s
teeth, Margot’s hair, Margot’s walk, Margot’s feet and hands and skin,
the shape of her nose, the set of her ears--all these things she talked
about and fussed with as agitatedly as about her own self.
Edna became a crank on the subject of food--what is called a crank
by the unthinking, of whom, by the way, I was to my lasting regret
one until a few years ago. For a year or two her moves in this
important direction were blundering, intermittent, and not always
successful--small wonder when there is really no reliable information
to be had, the scientists being uncertain and the doctors grossly
ignorant. But gradually she evolved and lived upon a “beauty diet.”
Margot, of course, had to do the same. She took exercises morning and
night, took long and regular walks for the figure and skin and to put
clearness and brightness into the eyes. I believe she and Margot, with
occasional lapses, keep up their regimen to this day.
The house was as slattern as ever. The diet and comfort and health
of the family bread-winner were no more the subject of thought and
care than--well, than the next husband’s to his wife. She gave some
attention--intelligent and valuable attention, I cheerfully concede--to
improving my speech, manners, and dress. But beyond that the revolution
affected only her and her daughter. Them it affected amazingly. In
three or four months the change in their appearance was literally
beyond belief. Edna’s beauty and style came back--no, burst forth in an
entirely new kind of radiance and fascination. As for little Margot,
she transformed from homeliness, from the scrawny pasty look of bad
health, from bad temper, into as neat and sweet and pretty a little
lady as could be found anywhere.
You, gentle reader, who are ever ready to slop over with some
kind of sentimentality because in your shallowness you regard
sentimentality--not sentiment, for of that you know nothing, but
sentimentality--as the most important thing in the world, just as
a child regards sickeningly rich cake as the finest food in the
world--you, gentle reader, have already made up your mind why Edna
thus suddenly awakened, or, rather, reawakened. “Aha,” you are saying.
“Served him good and right. She found some one who appreciated her.”
That guess of yours shows how little you know about Edna or the Edna
kind of human being. The people who do things in this world, except in
our foolish American novels, do because they must. They may do better
or worse under the influence of love, which is full as often a drag as
a spur. But they do not _do_ because of love. I shall not argue this. I
shrink from gratuitously inviting an additional vial of wrath from the
ladies, who resent being told how worthless they in their indolence and
self-complacence permit themselves to be and how small a positive part
they now play in the world drama. I should have said nothing at all
about the matter, were it not that I wish to be strictly just to Edna,
and she, being wholly the ambitious woman, has always had and still has
a deep horror of scandal, intrigue, irregularity, and unconventionality
of every sort.
It was necessary that we move to a place more convenient to my
business headquarters in New York City. A few weeks after I got the
eight thousand a year, Edna, and little Margot and I went to Brooklyn
to live--took a really charming house in Bedford Avenue, with large
grounds around it. And once more we were happy. It seemed to me we had
started afresh.
And we had.