As a result of her strenuous lessons in Attainment she became the admired and envied of other New Thought Ladies. This could not fail to be, for aside from possessing an Original Design for this ever increasing beauty, Mrs. Vanderhook had both the time and money to search for her Highest Self in the best shops and under the most expensive Seers.
Still further and at odd moments Mrs. Vanderhook increased her wisdom by visiting such Mystics as did business near the Beauty Parlors and the Department Stores. To one she would go for a Horoscope—a reading of the Stars. Another would trace her glowing future in the lines of the palm, and another would instruct her in Psychological Polarity, and another dealt in “Character Sketches by Inspiration.”
There were still others who gave short lessons in Vibrations—some who taught “The Inner Meanings of Everything” in small blocks for large checks, and another, the Telo-Psycho-Theraput, who taught his patients to meet him at fixed times—and for fixed rates—out in stellar Space, where “soul to soul” and “freed from the Material,” he best could diagnose and “impart the healing word.”
Still other half hours—for she doted on symbolism—Mrs. Vanderhook would spend with one who advertised as “The World’s Most Famous Seer,” from whom she purchased expensive Charms and Sacred Bugs and things.
Again she would slip into the “Temple” of one whose Circulars “guaranteed” information concerning the Origin of Everything and its “Absorption into Nothing.”
Inspiring moments she would steal for the study of Vivilore and in these brief snatches she would “Contemplate the Path of Perfection,” or, breaking away from the downtown luncheon, she would rush for the Masonic Temple, where an American-East Indian was imparting Fourteen lessons in Philosophy in a few minutes.
With Saturday for Shopping and the Matinee, and Sunday for home and Bill, the mistress of the Mansard Roof led the life of the up-to-date New Woman.
Thus, as time went on, the erstwhile Typewriter became thoroughly “Advanced,” and the “Yards” became a far off memory.
And of all this Bill knew nothing.