Just what that end might be she found a little vague, rather hard to
define in exact terms. It embraced personal leisure and the good things
of life as a matter of course, a broader existence, a large-handed
generosity toward the less fortunate, an intellectual elevation entirely
unrelated to gross material things. Life, she told herself pensively,
ought to mean something more than ease and good clothes, but what more
she was chary of putting into concrete form. It hadn't meant much more
than that for her, so far. She was only beginning to recognize the
flinty facts of existence. She saw now that for her there lay open only
two paths to food and clothing: one in which, lacking all training, she
must earn her bread by daily toil, the other leading to marriage. That,
she would have admitted, was a woman's natural destiny, but one didn't
pick a husband or lover as one chose a gown or a hat. One went along
living, and the thing happened. Chance ruled there, she believed. The
morality of her class prevented her from prying into this question of
mating with anything like critical consideration. It was only to be
thought about sentimentally, and it was easy for her to so think. Within
her sound and vigorous body all the heritage of natural human impulses
bubbled warmly, but she recognized neither their source nor their
ultimate fruits.
Often when Charlie was holding forth in his accustomed vein, she
wondered what Jack Fyfe thought about it, what he masked behind his
brief sentences or slow smile.
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