It was soft and
satisfying and eminently desirable to have everything one wanted without
the effort of striving for it, but a begging wheedling game on the part
of these women. They were, she told herself rather harshly, an
incompetent, helpless lot, dependent one and all upon some man's favor
or affection, just as she herself had been all her life until the past
few months. Some man had to work and scheme to pay the bills. She did
not know why this line of thought should arise, neither did she so far
forget herself as to voice these social heresies. But it helped to
reconcile her with her new-found independence, to put a less formidable
aspect on the long, hard grind that lay ahead of her before she could
revel in equal affluence gained by her own efforts. All that they had
she desired,--homes, servants, clothes, social standing,--but she did
not want these things bestowed upon her as a favor by some man, the
emoluments of sex.
She expected she would have to be on her guard with her brother, even to
dissemble a little. But she found him too deeply engrossed in what to
him was the most momentous event of his career, impatiently awaiting the
day, rather dreading the publicity of it.
"Why in Sam Hill can't a man and a woman get married without all this
fuss?" he complained once. "Why should we make our private affairs a
spectacle for the whole town?"
"Principally because mamma has her heart set on a spectacle," Linda
laughed. "She'd hold up her hands in horror if she heard you.
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