“I’m going to get him married.”
Floyd laughed.
“It takes two for that.”
Julie stood before her mirror; a pleasing picture flashed back. A smooth young face—not a trace of the physical agony she had been through, of the mental agony; her life was running now along smooth, conventional lines—a beautiful woman, bending forward, studying her expression. Is there a tell-tale line? No; the mask fits to the life.
“May I come in?”
It was Maud Ailsworth invited to dinner to meet Martin. Julie was going to see what she could do. Maud’s mother had been dead four years; she had known her only as an invalid propped up by pillows, with an ice bag on her head. Maud left school early to take the housekeeping, which was a sorry job, in her hands. Mrs. Ailsworth’s philosophy of living was that good things were cheapest in the end. The modest capital left by her husband melted, they sold the house, and lived on the money. When Mrs. Ailsworth died, Maud had five thousand dollars. She took a room on the top floor rear of a fashionable hotel, and spent her time looking for a husband. She wanted a nice man, she would wait another year; and then—there was always Tom Dillon. She didn’t have to act with him. He knew she was a beggar, she knew he was a rotter; but she wouldn’t do it until her last penny was gone. She still had hopes of someone better. She was pretty, quick with an answer, and much liked by men, but—they didn’t marry her.
“Why?”
She asked herself that question many a night, after a party, where the men went the limit. There she stopped; the other girls jumped the boundaries. She wondered if that was why she was single at twenty-five. Well, she couldn’t; it wasn’t her virtue, it was her misfortune.
She noticed at a first glance how much prettier Julie had become, but she didn’t compliment her. It wasn’t her way.
“You have had a hard time, haven’t you?”