"I'm beginning to realize that I am," nodded Margaret, feeling a
something behind Catherine's tone and countenance that she did not
quite get.
"I might have been reared in a convent for all I've seen of life,
Catherine."
"Yet you've not lacked the essentials," returned Catherine with evident
relief at turning the talk from the subject of money.
"The essentials to what?"
"To making you a truly fine and charming woman. You've lived in an
environment of culture, of big ideas; and you've had no sordid money
cares to embitter you or blunt the sensitive fineness of your spirit."
"But my life has lacked one great essential, Catherine--affection,
love."
"Your uncle must have loved you, dear, he _must_ have. For you are
lovable, you know. Well, rather!"
"He loved me as his handmaid who kept him comfortable. If ever I tried
to be affectionate with him, he would act like a hyena!"
"If he was human, he loved you!"
"He wasn't human, that was it. He had all run to intellect and hadn't
a vulnerable spot left."
"Did you love _him_?"
"I wanted to, but he wouldn't have it. When he died, I did miss him
keenly, he had grown to be a habit with me; a stimulant, too. No one
could live with Uncle Osmond and not keep very much alive. So of
course my life seemed suddenly very empty without him: he had been my
chief care and thought for so many years. I suppose I shall never
quite get over missing him. But I can't say I ever really grieved for
him."
When about a half-hour later, at the end of an exhilarating and
satisfying time together which put a new seal upon their friendship,
the two young women parted to go to their homes, Catherine considered,
as she walked slowly, to give herself time to think, how strange it was
that she, as Mr. Daniel Leitzel's confidential secretary, knew so very
much more about him and his affairs than did his own wife.
"She actually does not know that she has married a multi-millionaire.
And I don't believe it would impress her greatly to discover that she
had. She _is_ unique! For a woman like Margaret to find herself tied
up with those Leitzels, oh!" Catherine laughed to herself at what
seemed to her the extreme absurdity of the combination. "But it is so
tragic, too! Why on earth did she marry him if not for his money?
Will she, I wonder, ever reach the point of telling me why she did?
No," she shook her head conclusively, "not so long as she continues to
live with him will any one ever hear one disloyal syllable from her,
I'm sure. If she ever came to the point of rectifying by divorce the
blunder she made in marrying him, for whatever mysterious reason, then
perhaps she'll explain herself to me."
Catherine wondered how long it would take Margaret to find out that she
was married to one of the richest men in the state.
"If I ever see her inconvenienced by lack of funds, I'll enlighten her
with some facts and figures known only to her husband and myself," she
resolved. "Even I don't know all he has, though I do know what the
public doesn't dream of."
She was aware that her employer had, before ever trusting her with any
knowledge of his financial affairs, tested and proved her to be a very
safe repository of his secrets.
"But his wife, supposed to be one with himself and endowed with all his
worldly goods, has a right to know the extent of them. If I don't
supply her with any actual facts (which would, of course, roll from her
like drops of mercury, leaving no least impression), I can, without
treachery to Mr. Leitzel, give her to understand that her husband
doesn't spend, in the course of a year, more than one thirtieth of the
interest on his capital."
She doubted, however, whether even a succinct statement like that would
make any difference to Margaret unless she became a mother; for
Catherine believed she had succeeded, though with some difficulty, in
impressing upon her friend her own theory that the divine right of
motherhood ought to make a woman, by law, a full and equal partner in
all her husband's "worldly goods."
"I certainly did have a time persuading her that my theory is of any
importance in our modern social economy. Wait until the poor child
learns to know the Pennsylvania Dutch idea of woman's economic
position, and until she begins to get a _little_ acquainted with the
man she has married!"
She drew a long breath as she reached the front door of her "rented"
home. "Well," she concluded, "my intimacy with my employer's wife
promises some excitement!"