She was delighted. At last she was going to look like the women of whom she had been dreaming these last few months. She set about dressing herself, he waiting in the sitting room in a state of acute nervousness. What would be the effect of such a toilet? Would she look like a lady—or like—what she had suggested that morning? She was so changeable, had such a wide range of variability that he dared not hope. When she finally appeared, he was ready to fall down and worship. He was about to take her where his world would see her, where every inch of her would be subjected to the cruelest, most hostile criticism. One glance at her, and he knew a triumph awaited him. No man and no woman would wonder that he had lost his head over such beauty as hers. Hat and dress seemed just what had been needed to bring out the full glory of her charms.
"You are incredibly beautiful," he said in an awed tone. "I am proud of you."
A little color came into her cheeks. She looked at herself in the mirror with her quiet intense secret, yet not covert vanity. He laughed in boyish pleasure. "This is only the small beginning," said he. "Wait a few months."
At dinner and in a box at the theater afterwards, he had the most exquisite pleasure of his life. She had been seen by many of his former friends, and he was certain they knew who she was. He felt that he would have no difficulty in putting her in the place his wife should occupy. A woman with such beauty as hers was a sensation, one fashionable society would not deny itself. She had good manners, an admirable manner. With a little coaching she would be as much at home in grandeur as were those who had always had it.
The last fear of losing her left him. On the way back to the hotel he, in a delirium of pride and passion, crushed her in his arms and caressed her with the frenzy that had always terrified her. She resisted only faintly, was almost passive. "She is mine!" he said to himself, exultantly. "She is really mine!"
When he awoke in the morning she was still asleep—looked like a tired lovely child. Several times, while he was dressing, he went in to feast his eyes upon her beauty. How could he possibly have thought her homely, in whatever moment of less beauty or charm she might have had? The crowning charm of infinite variety! She had a delightfully sweet disposition. He was not sure how much or how little intelligence she had—probably more than most women. But what did that matter? It would be impossible ever to grow weary or to be anything but infatuated lover when she had such changeful beauty.
He kissed her lightly on her thick braids, as he was about to go. He left a note explaining that he did not wish to disturb her and that it was necessary for him to be at the office earlier. And that morning in all New York no man left his home for the day's struggle for dollars with a freer or happier heart, or readier to play the game boldly, skillfully, with success.
Certainly he needed all his courage and all his skill.
To most of the people who live in New York and elsewhere throughout the country—or the world, for that matter—an income of a thousand dollars a month seems extremely comfortable, to say the least of it. The average American family of five has to scrape along on about half that sum a year. But among the comfortable classes in New York—and perhaps in one or two other cities—a thousand dollars a month is literally genteel poverty. To people accustomed to what is called luxury nowadays—people with the habit of the private carriage, the private automobile, and several servants—to such people a thousand dollars a month is an absurd little sum. It would not pay for the food alone. It would not buy for a man and his wife, with no children, clothing enough to enable them to make a decent appearance.