The Fifth Wheel | Page 8

the fifty thousand dollar wrought-iron fence around the
cherished grounds of Grassmere. My trunks followed, and Edith's

hopes followed too!
It was an exciting three days. I had never spent a night in quite such
splendid surroundings; I had never mingled with quite such smart and
fashionable people. It was like a play to me. I hoped I would not forget
my lines, fail to observe cues, or perform the necessary business
awkwardly. I wanted to do credit to my host. And I believe I did.
Within two hours I felt at ease in the grand and luxurious house. The
men were older, the women more experienced, but I wasn't
uncomfortable. As I wandered through the beautiful rooms, conversed
with what to me stood for American aristocracy, basked in the hourly
attention of butlers and French maids, it occurred to me that I was
peculiarly fitted for such a life as this. It became me. It didn't seem as if
I could be the little girl who not so very long ago lived in the old
French-roofed house with the cracked walls, stained ceilings and worn
Brussels carpets, at 240 Main Street, Hilton, Mass. But the day Breck
asked me to marry him I discovered I was that girl, with the same
untainted ideal of marriage, too, hidden away safe and sound under my
play-acting.
"Why, Breck!" I exclaimed. "Don't be absurd. I wouldn't marry you for
anything in the world."
And I wouldn't! My marriage was dim and indistinct to me then. I had
placed it in a very faraway future. My ideal of love was such, that
beside it all my friends' love affairs and many of those in fiction
seemed commonplace and mediocre. I prized highly the distinction of
Breckenridge Sewall's attentions, but marry him--of course I wouldn't!
Breck's attentions continued spasmodically for over two years. It took
some skill to be seen with him frequently, to accept just the right
portion of his tokens of regard, to keep him interested, and yet remain
absolutely free and uninvolved. I couldn't manage it indefinitely; the
time would come when all the finesse in the world would avail nothing.
And come it did in the middle of the third summer.
Breck refused to be cool and temperate that third summer. He insisted
on all sorts of extravagances. He allowed me to monopolize him to the

exclusion of every one else. He wouldn't be civil even to his mother's
guests at Grassmere. He deserted them night after night for Edith's
sunken garden, and me, though I begged him to be reasonable, urging
him to stay away. I didn't blame his mother, midsummer though it was,
for closing Grassmere, barring the windows, locking the gates and
abruptly packing off with her son to an old English estate of theirs near
London. I only hoped Mrs. Sewall didn't think me heartless. I had
always been perfectly honest with Breck. I had always, from the first,
said I couldn't marry him.
Not until I was convinced that the end must come between Breck and
me, did I tell the family that he had ever proposed marriage. There
exists, I believe, some sort of unwritten law that once a man proposes
and a girl refuses, attentions should cease. I came in on Sunday
afternoon from an automobile ride with Breck just before he sailed for
England and dramatically announced his proposal to the family--just as
if he hadn't been urging the same thing ever since I knew him.
I expected Edith would be displeased when she learned that I wasn't
going to marry Breck, so I didn't tell her my decision immediately. I
dreaded to undertake to explain to her what a slaughter to my ideals
such a marriage would be. Oh, I was young then, you see, young and
hopeful. Everything was ahead of me. There was a splendid chance for
happiness.
"I can't marry Breck Sewall, Edith," I attempted at last. "I can't marry
any one--yet."
"And what do you intend to do with yourself?" she inquired in that cold,
unsympathetic way she assumes when she is angry.
"I don't know, yet. There's a chance for all sorts of good things to come
true," I replied lightly.
"You've been out three years, you know," she reminded me icily.
The Sewalls occupied their English estate for several seasons.
Grassmere remained closed and barred. I did not see my young

millionaire again until I was an older girl, and my ideals had undergone
extensive alterations.
CHAPTER IV
A BACK-SEASON DÉBUTANTE
Débutantes are a good deal like first novels--advertised and introduced
at a great expenditure of money and effort, and presented to the public
with fear and trembling. But the greatest likeness comes later. The
best-sellers of one spring must be put up on the high shelves to