The Fifth Wheel | Page 9

make
room for new merchandise the next. At the end of several years the
once besought and discussed book can be found by the dozens on
bargain counters in department stores, marked down to fifty cents a
copy.
The first best-seller I happened to observe in this ignominious position
was a novel that came out the same fall that I did. It was six years old
to the world, and so was I. I stopped a moment at the counter and
opened the book. It had been strikingly popular, with scores of reviews
and press notices, and hundreds of admirers. It had made a pretty little
pile of money for its exploiters. Perhaps, too, it had won a few friends.
But its day of intoxicating popularity had passed. And so had mine.
And so must every débutante's. By the fourth or fifth season, cards for
occasional luncheons and invitations to fill in vacancies at married
people's dinner parties must take the place of those feverish all-night
balls, preceded by brilliantly lighted tables-full of débutantes, as
excited as yourself, with a lot of gay young lords for partners and all
the older people looking on, admiring and taking mental notes. Such
excitement was all over with me by the time I was twenty-two. I had
been a success, too, I suppose. Any girl whom Breckenridge Sewall
had launched couldn't help being a success.
During the two or three years that Breck was in Europe I passed
through the usual routine of back-season débutantes. They always
resort to travel sooner or later; visit boarding-school friends one winter;
California, Bermuda or Europe the next; eagerly patronize winter

resorts; and fill in various spaces acting as bridesmaids. When they
have the chance they take part in pageants and amateur theatricals,
periodically devote themselves to some fashionable charity or other,
read novels, and attend current event courses if very desperate.
I used to think when I was fifteen that I should like to be an author,
more specifically, a poet. I used to write verses that were often read out
loud in my English course at the Hilton High School. And I designed
book plates, too, and modeled a little in clay. The more important
business of establishing ourselves socially interrupted all that sort of
thing, however. But I often wish I might have specialized in some line
of art. Perhaps now when I have so much time on my hands it would
prove my staunchest friend. For a girl who has no established income it
might result in an enjoyable means of support.
I have an established income, you see. Father kindly left me a little
stock in some mines out West, stock or bonds--I'm not very clear on
business terms. Anyhow I have an income of about eight hundred
dollars a year, paid over to me by my brother Tom, who has my affairs
in charge. It isn't sufficient for me to live on at present, of course. What
with the traveling, clothes--one thing and another--Edith has had to
help out with generous Christmas and birthday gifts. This she does
lavishly. She's enormously rich herself, and very generous. My last
Christmas present from her was a set of furs and a luxurious coon-skin
motor coat. Perhaps I wouldn't feel quite so hopeless if my father and
mother were living, and I felt that my idleness in some way was
making them happy. But I haven't such an excuse. I am not necessary
to the happiness of any household. I am what is known as a fifth
wheel--a useless piece of paraphernalia carried along as necessary
impedimenta on other people's journeys.
There are lots of fifth wheels in the world. Some are old and rusty and
out of repair, and down in their inmost hubs they long to roll off into
the gutter and lie there quiet and undisturbed. These are the old
people--silver-haired, self-effacing--who go upstairs to bed early when
guests are invited for dinner. Some are emergency fifth wheels, such as
are carried on automobiles, always ready to take their place on the road,

if one of the regular wheels breaks down and needs to be sent away for
repairs. These are the middle-aged, unmarried aunts and
cousins--staunch, reliable--who are sent for to take care of the children
while mother runs over to Europe for a holiday. And some are fifth
wheels like myself--neither old nor self-effacing, neither middle-aged
nor useful, but simply expensive to keep painted, and very hungry for
the road. It may be only a matter of time, however, when I shall be
middle-aged and useful, and later old and self-effacing; when I shall
stay and take care of the children, and go upstairs early when the young
people are having a party.
A young technical college graduate told me once,