"Say good-by to them," answered her sister.
"Judith!" gasped Beth. But Judith only smiled serenely and left the house. By the assurance in bargaining which always carries its point, and which is distinctly feminine, she got for her furs exactly what she gave for them. That afternoon a typewriter was delivered at the house.
It was Mather who had helped her to buy it, Mather who, happening into the store while she was there, had told her that the increase of his business was forcing him to employ more stenographers. So he, even by the most material of standards, was coming on. In order to forget him, she was forced to think of Ellis, and to repeat such aphorisms as Anyone can be a Gentleman, It takes Genius to be a Man. But after she had thought of Ellis for a little while, again came the revulsion.
Judith, when in her chamber she first removed the cover of her typewriter, stood for a long while gazing at its black enamel and its nickeled keys. The machine became a symbol, a warning of fate, and though in the coming days she practised its use almost eagerly, the typewriter never lost its significance. It was but a feeble defense against the victor of the two rivals.
Victor? The word was bitter. It came always with the force of a blow, staggering her amazonian spirit: must she yield in the end? Bitter, indeed, that while she rebelled against her womanhood she was forced to recognise and dread it. Temporise or struggle as she might, she felt that there lay before her an inevitable choice.
[CHAPTER XIX]
"Put Money in thy Purse"
While Judith Blanchard, as if defying fate, held her head higher than before, there grew on one of our characters, namely Jim Wayne, the habit of looking at the ground. Jim was one of those who, having a weak little conscience, cannot be wicked with an air.