"That would leave eight for sleep and ten for enjoyment of the arts and luxuries. Then we really should enjoy them, and if we couldn't have them unless we did our six hours' stint, ennui and the dissipations that it breeds would be unknown.
"I can tell you it is demoralizing, disintegrating, to wake up morning after morning—about ten o'clock!—and know that you have nothing worth while to do for another day—for all the days!—that you have no place in the world except as an ornament! Women of limited incomes and a family of growing children have enough, to do, of course—too much—they never can feel superfluous and demoralized—except by envy—but as for us! Why, I can tell you, it is a marvel we don't all go straight to the devil."
They were alone with the coffee, and she was pounding the table with her little fist. Her cheeks were deeply flushed and her black somber eyes were opening and closing rapidly, as if alternately magnetized by some ugly vision and sweeping it aside.
Price watched her with deep interest and deeper anxiety. "A good many women go to the devil," he said. "But you are not that sort."
"Oh, I don't know. I never could get up enough interest in another man to solve the problem in the usual way—but there are other resources—I—well—"
"What?" Price sat up very straight.
"Oh, dance ourselves into tuberculosis," she said lightly, and dropping her eyelashes. "And tuberculosis of the mind, certainly. On the whole, I think I prefer physical to spiritual death….
"However—I found out one thing to-day. The dancing is to be out of doors. There will be an immense arbor or something of the sort erected on the lawn above the sunken garden. My gown is a dream and I shall wear the ruby."
"Yes," he said smiling. "You shall wear the ruby. But you must expect me to keep very close to you—"
"The closer the better." She smiled charmingly. "Have you tried on your costume?"