The Price She Paid | Page 4

his own icy-heartedness by
ceasing to think of the problem of his wife and two children without
him to take care of them. On the contrary, he thought of it every day,
and planned what he would do about it--to-morrow. And for his delay
he had excellent convincing excuses. Did he not take care of his
naturally robust health? Would he not certainly out- live his wife, who
was always doctoring more or less? Frank would be able to take care of
himself; anyhow, it was not well to bring a boy up to expectations,
because every man should be self-supporting and self- reliant. As for
Mildred, why, with her beauty and her cleverness she could not but
make a brilliant marriage. Really, there was for him no problem of an
orphaned family's future; there was no reason why he should deny
himself any comfort or luxury, or his vanity any of the titillations that
come from social display.
That one of his calculations which was the most vital and seemed the
surest proved to be worthless. It is not the weaklings who die, after
infancy and youth, but the strong, healthy men and women. The
weaklings have to look out for themselves, receive ample warning in
the disastrous obvious effects of the slightest imprudence. The robust,
even the wariest of them, even the Henry Gowers, overestimate and
overtax their strength. Gower's downfall was champagne. He could not
resist a bottle of it for dinner every night. As so often happens, the
collapse of the kidneys came without any warning that a man of
powerful constitution would deem worthy of notice. By the time the
doctor began to suspect the gravity of his trouble he was too far gone.
Frank, candidly greedy and selfish--``Such a contrast to his father!''
everyone said--was married to the prettiest girl in Hanging Rock and
had a satisfactory law practice in New York. His income was about
fifteen thousand a year. But his wife had tastes as extravagant as his
own; and Hanging Rock is one of those suburbs of New York where
gather well-to-do middle-class people to live luxuriously and to delude
each other and themselves with the notion that they are fashionable,
rich New Yorkers who prefer to live in the country ``like the English.''
Thus, Henry Gower's widow and daughter could count on little help
from Frank--and they knew it.
``You and Milly will have to move to some less expensive place than
Hanging Rock,'' said Frank--it was the living-room conference a few

days after the funeral.
Mildred flushed and her eyes flashed. She opened her lips to
speak--closed them again with the angry retort unuttered. After all,
Frank was her mother's and her sole dependence. They could hope for
little from him, but nothing must be said that would give him and his
mean, selfish wife a chance to break with them and refuse to do
anything whatever.
``And Mildred must get married,'' said Natalie. In Hanging Rock most
of the girls and many of the boys had given names taken from Burke's
Peerage, the Almanac de Gotha, and fashionable novels.
Again Mildred flushed; but her eyes did not flash, neither did she open
her lips to speak. The little remark of her sister-in-law, apparently so
harmless and sensible, was in fact a poisoned arrow. For Mildred was
twenty-three, had been ``out'' five years, and was not even in the way to
become engaged. She and everyone had assumed from her lovely
babyhood that she would marry splendidly, would marry wealth and
social position. How could it be otherwise? Had she not beauty? Had
she not family and position? Had she not style and cleverness?
Yet--five years out and not a ``serious'' proposal. An impudent poor
fellow with no prospects had asked her. An impudent rich man from
fashionable New York had hung after her --and had presently
abandoned whatever dark projects he may have been concealing and
had married in his own set, ``as they always do, the miserable snobs,''
raved Mrs. Gower, who had been building high upon those lavish
outpourings of candy, flowers, and automobile rides. Mildred, however,
had accepted the defection more philosophically. She had had enough
vanity to like the attentions of the rich and fashionable New Yorker,
enough good sense to suspect, perhaps not definitely, what those
attentions meant, but certainly what they did not mean. Also, in the
back of her head had been an intention to refuse Stanley Baird, if by
chance he should ask her. Was there any substance to this intention,
sprung from her disliking the conceited, self-assured snob as much as
she liked his wealth and station? Perhaps not. Who can say? At any rate,
may we not claim credit for our good intentions--so long as, even
through lack of opportunity,