Her Husband's Purse

by Helen Reimensnyder Martin

Daniel looked at her speculatively. Would he have married her if he had known? Well, he was pretty certain that he would have; that at that time, incredible as it might seem, her charm for him outmeasured any dower a wife might have brought him. But now? Did he rue his "blind and headlong" (so he considered it) yielding to her fascination?

His eyes swept over her appraisingly, over her dark hair, her soft dark eyes, the curve of her red lips, her broad, boyish shoulders, her fine hands clasped on the top of the desk, and he knew that he adored her. Not even in the face of the shock he felt at learning of her pennilessness, and on the head of her audacious defiance of his wishes, could he regret for an instant that she was his—his very own. And it suddenly came to him, with a force that sent the blood to his face, that her being comparatively penniless (for of course he'd insist on getting something out of that Berkeley Hill estate), her present absolute dependence upon him made her all the more his own, his property, subject to his will. If she were penniless, he held her in his power. It was with the primitive instinct of a savage that he gloated over his possession, the most precious of all his possessions.

"I shall teach her this much about the value of money (of which she seems as ignorant as a child): that the price of her board and clothing is obedience to me!"

"Yes, Margaret," he at length replied, "I would have married you if I had known you were penniless. I married you because I loved you."

She did not tell him that there he had the advantage of her. She envied him his clear conscience in the matter. A shade of respect for him came into her countenance as she looked at him, a respect she could not feel for herself on the same score.

He took a small blank book from his desk and a crisp ten-dollar bill from his purse and laid them before her.

"This is the first of the month, I shall give you ten dollars a month for pocket money, and you will keep an account of your expenditures in this book and show it to me at the first of each month. Anything you need to buy which this allowance won't cover you can ask me about. You seem to know nothing of the value of money, and it's time you learned. I can't trust you with more than a small sum, since you at once go off and squander it on other people instead of spending it for yourself—or for what you were told to spend it for. No more of that, my dear! Your allowance is for your own needs. When you want to make gifts, you consult me."

She dropped the money into her bag, but she did not pick up the blank book.

Daniel took it up and held it out to her. She hesitated, but dreading further discussion with him if she informed him that she had no intention of accounting to him, like a school-girl, for her use of ten dollars a month, she tucked the book also into her bag.

"You must sign over to me the power of attorney to collect rent from your brother-in-law for your half of that estate. I shall look into the matter, and if I feel that the property justifies it, I'll expend some money on it, and then we can rent it at a high rate, too high, probably, for Walter's means. He'll have to move out and live elsewhere."