“It was his desire to go back to New York City and show his ‘girl bride,’ as he called me, to all his friends and have a taste of real life.
“He met the highest ideal of all my girlish fancies, and was as tender a husband as he was a lover.
“After we had been married six months he came home one night and said, ‘Hurrah, babe, we are going east in a fortnight, thank God, so get your duds packed and be ready.’
“I was glad to make the change, too, for youth loves a change, and I was delighted at the prospect of going to New York, for I had never been further east than Chicago.
“We went at the end of the two weeks. I was received with open arms by all his friends in the east and I thought myself the happiest girl in the world, for he seemed so proud of me. I know now it was not the right kind of pride. He was not proud of me for my goodness and purity, it was rather the pride in the possession of some coveted article, for I was conceded to be beautiful then, and I suppose my figure was good. His was not a nature capable of appreciating nobility of character.
“He took a house there, and we entertained a great deal and on a large scale. I think I might say I was a favorite in his set, but what does all that amount to? His was a fickle nature and when he thought he had fathomed mine, when he thought he knew me in the perfection of every art I possessed, he began to weary. I did not know it at the time, I knew something had caused a change, but always attributed it to business cares. He began by neglecting me occasionally; from that it grew to continuous neglect, even to the point of ignoring my existence altogether.
“Endowed by nature with a cheerful disposition, my volatile spirits were continually on the rebound and even his gross neglect I did not feel deeply until it was brought home to me very forcibly after a year’s time.
“It was by one of his best friends, although many years his junior. He had long treated me with a great deal of consideration, but I never felt it was more than the ordinary courtesy that one friend would show to the wife of another until that night.
“We had been dancing together and he took me to the conservatory to rest and sat down beside me to talk. Perhaps I was unusually tired that night, or perhaps, owing to the round of gayety, I looked worn. At any rate Mr. Mansfield leaned over me with an air of anxiety and said, ‘Lucile, are you sure you are quite well tonight?’