“You and I know, however, that love does not stop to ask if this is the case, and I sometimes feel––impersonally, remember––that the business women earn the love of their employers and associates more than said employers’ and associates’ wives. Does it sound strange? Of course you need not agree––I hardly expect it. Yet the fact remains that we watch and save that you Gorgeous Girls may spend and play. In time the man, tense and non-understanding of it all, discovers that his trust and confidence may be placed in the business woman while romantic love is not enduring in his home. Not always, of course; but many times in these days of overnight prosperity and endless good times. So I have neither shame nor remorse––I have as much right to love your husband as you have––and because of that I shall be as fair to you as I would ask any woman to be toward me in similar circumstances.”
“I think I understand,” the Gorgeous Girl said, swiftly. “I see something of the light.” She laughed nervously. It was easier to laugh than to cry, and one or the other was necessary at this moment. “I wanted to tell you that my husband is 311 going away to take a rather mediocre position. I shall divorce him.”
“He’s won out,” Mary said, in spite of herself.
“Has he? So you have been the urge behind him and his poverty talk?”
“I’d like to claim the credit,” Mary retorted.
“Really?”
Beatrice found herself in another mental box, undecided how to cope with the situation. She had fancied she could make Mary cry and beg for silence, be afraid and unpoised. Instead she felt as ornate as a circus rider in her costume, and as stupid regarding the truth as the snapping Pom under her arm. Her head began to ache. She wondered why all these people delighted in accepting sacrifice and seeking self-denial––and she thought of Gay again and of what a consolation he was. And through it all ran a curious mental pain which informed her that she had not the power to hurt or to please either of these persons, and she was being politely labelled and put in her own groove by Mary Faithful. This stung her on to action, just as any poorly prepared enemy loses his head when he sees the tide is turning.
In desperation she said, coldly: “After all, I shall play square with you because you have played square with him. I’ll give you the best advice a retiring wife can give her advancing rival. Don’t copy me––no matter how Steve may prosper in years to come, do you understand? Oh, I’m not so terrible or abnormal as you people think. I’d have done quite well if my father had never earned more than three thousand a year and I had had to put my shoulder to the wheel. But don’t ever start to be a Gorgeous Girl––stay thrifty and be not too discerning of handmade 312 lace or lap dogs. You know, there’s no need to enumerate. Stay the woman who won my husband away from me––and you’ll keep him. What is more, I think you will make him a success––in time for your golden-wedding anniversary! There, that’s as fair as I can be.”
“Quite,” Mary said, softly.
“Once you admit to him there is a craving in your sensible heart to be as useless as I am––then someone else will come along to play Mary Faithful to your Gorgeous Girl.” There was a catch in the light, gay voice. “I don’t want him,” she added, vigorously. “Heavens, no, we never could patch it up! I shall always think of this last twelve months as l’année terrible! My Tawny Adonis was a far more soothing companion than Steve. Nor do I envy you and your future. I don’t really want Steve––and you deserve him. Besides, we women never feel so secure as novelists like to paint us as being in their last chapters! So I’m giving you the best hint concerning our mutual cave man that a defeated Gorgeous Girl ever gave a Mary Faithful. As far as I am concerned the thing is painless. I shall have a ripping time out West, and some day perhaps marry someone nice and mild, someone who will stand for my moods and not spend too much of my money in ways I don’t know about––a society coward out of a job! The thing that does hurt,” she finished, suddenly, “is the fact that I’d honestly like to feel broken-hearted––but I don’t know how. I’ve been brought up in such a gorgeous fashion that it would take a jewel robbery or an unbecoming hat to wring my soul.”