“Has she offered to support you?” I asked.
“Oh, no! She ain’t able to do that. Her husband’s well off, but not rich enough to help me much even if I’d let her. She thinks I should marry.”
“How about the man?” I asked, trying to make my tone flippant, though I was far from feeling so. “Have you got one in sight?”
“Oh, yes.” Her tone was a picture of dejection. After a pause she added, almost spitefully: “He riles me so. Every time he comes here I want to jump out the winder.” Another pause. Then pensively: “He’s a good man, though. ’Tain’t his fault I don’t fancy having him around. He’s sober, never touches a drop, polite spoken, comes of a good family, and makes money. His wages are grand—eighty-two a week.”
Still I held my peace though I knew that she was waiting for me to speak.
“I ain’t like my sister; I never was. I don’t mind work.” I saw by her shadow that she glanced around her little flat, spotless in its neatness. “If it wasn’t that folks look down on you for working, I’d like to keep my job till I die.”
“Why don’t you talk to the man as you have to me?” I asked.
“What for?” she cried, startled.
“Sifted down to fundamentals, marriage is a partnership, entered in for the purpose of founding and supporting a home and rearing children,” I told her. “If you were to tell your manager that every time he came around you felt like jumping out the window, I think he would look elsewhere for a forewoman. You have been honest with yourself, I want you to be honest with the man who has asked you to go into partnership with him.”
I’ve had girls by the dozen tell me: