The more probable fork would resolve itself, a few years hence, into a trim suburban bungalow with a neat roadster to whisk her into business and whisk 26 her away from it. The frilly, cry-on-a-shoulder-when-the-biscuits-burn part of Mary would have long ago vanished, leaving the business woman quite serene and satisfied. She would find her happiness in mere things––in owning her home; in facing old age single-handed and knowing it would not bring the gray wolf; in helping Luke through college while her mother was in a comfy orthodox heaven with plenty of plates of hot cakes and dozens of starched window curtains; in rejoicing at some new possession for her living room, at her immaculate business costumes, new books, tickets for the opera season; in vacationing wherever she wished, sometimes with other commercial nuns and sometimes alone; in having that selfish, tempting freedom of time and lack of personal demands which permit a woman to be always well groomed and physically rested, and to take refuge in a sanitarium whenever business worries pressed too hard. To sum it up: it meant to sit on the curbstone––a nice, steam-heated, artistically furnished curbstone, to be sure, and have to watch the procession pass by.
The other fork in the road led to a shadowy rainbow since Mary knew so little concerning it. It comprised the exacting, unselfish role of having baby fingers tagging at her skirts and shutting her away from easy routines and lack of responsibility; of having a house to suit her family first and herself last; of growing old and tired with the younger things growing up and away from her, and the strong-shouldered man demanding to be mothered, after the fashion of all really strong-shouldered and successful men––requiring more of her patience and love than all the young things combined; of subordinating her 27 personality, perhaps her ideas, and most certainly her surface interests. To be that almost mystical relation, a wife; which includes far more than having Mrs. Stephen O’Valley––just for example––on a calling card.
To her lot would fall the task of always being there to welcome the strong man with tender joy when he has succeeded or to comfort him with equal tenderness when he has failed, and at all times spurring him to live up to the ideal his wife has set for him. To stay aloof from his work inasmuch as it would annoy him, yet to be adviser emeritus, whether the matter involved hiring a new sweeper-out or moving the whole plant to the end of the world. Someone who ministered to the needs of the strong man’s very soul in unsuspected, often unconscious and unthanked fashion; such a trifle as a rose-shaded lamp for tired eyes; a funny bundle of domestic happenings told cleverly to offset the jarring problems of commerce; a song played by sympathetic fingers; a little poem tucked in the blotter of the strong man’s desk, an artful praising of the strong man’s self!
Mary realized this latter fork was not probable––nor was she unhappy because of it. She sometimes retired to her study to vow eternal wrath upon Trudy Burrows for having attached herself to the household; or to pray that her mother be enlightened to the extent of moving; but beyond an occasional “mad on,” as Luke said, Mary viewed life from the angle of the doughnut and not that of the hole.
“I wish someone else would try baking these greasy things,” she said, coming in with another plateful.
“Why don’t you slip on a kimono instead of a 28 starched house dress, Mary? Whoever is spick-and-span on Sunday morning?”
“Don’t get Mary to lecturing,” Mrs. Faithful warned between bites. “She’ll make us all go to church if we’re not careful. Are you going out with Gay to-day, Trudy?”
“Yes. And I’m awfully mad at him, too. It’s fierce the way he gambles.”
“Don’t be too harsh; it’s a mistake to nag too much beforehand. He’s a lovely young man and I wish Luke could have one of those green paddock coats. I always like a gentleman’s coat with a sealskin collar, don’t you?”
“If it’s paid for.” Trudy’s eyes darkened. “Just because Gay comes of a wonderful family he thinks he has the keys to the city.”