“I’ll be here at two. And, this once––you must cancel every other engagement.”
“Yes, Don.”
She came to the door with him, and stood there until he turned the corner. He did not know where to go, but unconsciously his steps took him downtown. He stopped at a florist’s and ordered a dozen roses to be sent back to the house. He stopped to order a box of her favorite bonbons. Then he kept on downtown toward the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves. But this was the first day of his vacation, and so he had no object in going there. He must find a place to lunch. He came to a dairy lunch, and then he knew exactly what it was he needed. He needed Sally Winthrop to talk over his complication with him.
As he made his way to the counter for his sandwich and coffee, he frowned. He had told her that he would surely need her. Now she was gone. He suddenly recalled that she had not even left her address.
Only two days before he had been discussing with her the final details of the house awaiting Frances, and she had made him feel that everything was perfect.
“She will love it,” she had assured him.
It was as if he heard her voice again repeating 227 that sentence. Once again he reacted to her enthusiasm and saw through her eyes. She had made him feel that money––the kind of money Stuyvesant stood for––was nonsense. A salary of twelve hundred a year was enough for the necessities, and yet small enough to give his wife an opportunity to help.
“When the big success comes,” she had said to him, “then Frances can feel that it is partly her success too. A woman doesn’t become a wife by just marrying a man, does she? It’s only when she has a chance to help that she can feel herself really a wife.”
As she said it he felt that to be true, although to him it was a brand-new point of view.