"I'm not pretending to say ma mayn't be a little peculiar in her ways, but you never saw an old person that wasn't, did you? Neither am I saying it's exactly any girl's idea to start out married life with a third person in—"
"I've always swore to myself, Sam, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, that if I can't marry to improve myself, I'm going to stay single till I can. I'm not a six-dollar-a-week stenog that has to marry for enough to eat. I can afford to buy a seventy-five dollar suit every winter of my life and twelve-dollar shoes every time I need them. The hat on my head cost me eighteen-fifty wholesale, without having to be beholding to nobody, and—"
"Ma don't mean those things, Clara. It's just when she hears the price girls pay for things nowadays she can't help being surprised the way things have changed."
"I'm not a small potato, Sam. I never could live like a small potato."
"Why, you know there's nothing I like better than to see you dressed in the best that money can buy. You heard what I said about that hat just now, didn't you? Whatever it cost, it's worth it. I can afford to dress my little wife in the best that comes. There's nothing too good for her."
"Yes; but—"
"All ma needs, Clara, is a little humoring. She's had to stint so all her life, it's a little hard to get her used to a little prosperity. Take me. Why, if I bring her home a little shawl or a pockabook that cost, say, ten dollars, you think I tell her? No. I say, 'Here's a bargain I picked up for three ninety-eight,' and right away she's happy with something reduced."
"Your mother and me, Sam, and, mind you, I'm not saying she isn't a grand old lady, wasn't no more made to live together than we was made to fly. I couldn't no more live her way than she could live mine. I've got a practical head on my shoulders—I don't deny it—and I want to improve ourselves in this world when we marry, and have an up-to-date home like every young couple that starts out nowadays."
"Sure, we—"
"That flat of yours up there or any other one under the conditions would be run like the ark. I'm an up-to-date girl, I am. There's not a girl living would be willing to marry a well-off fellow like you and go huck herself in a place she couldn't even have the running of herself or have her own say-so about the purse-strings. It may sound unbecoming, but when I marry I'm going to better myself, I am."