"Pity she didn't marry Parker," Kemp said brusquely. "He'll be a very rich man one of these days."
"You see she couldn't, Walter," his wife explained eagerly. "She didn't love him enough."
"Well," this raw male rejoined, "she'd better hurry up and find some one she does love who can support her."
"Yes," Mrs. Kemp admitted, "she ought to marry."
For in those days there didn't seem to be any other way of providing for the Milly Ridges.
Milly realized her inadequacy, but naturally did not ascribe it wholly to incompetency. She wanted to give up her irregular job: it could not be concealed from her friends, and it marked her as a dependent. But the stern fact remained that she needed the money, even the paltry fifty dollars a month, as she had never needed anything in life. If she refrained from spending a dollar for several years, she could hardly clear herself of the accumulated bills from her halcyon days of hope.
And the household needed money, too. After that regrettable interview with Snowden, the catastrophe in the tea and coffee business came with the swiftness of long-delayed fate. One morning Horatio did not rise from the breakfast table, as had been his wont for so many years, and throwing out his chest with the sensual satisfaction of the well-fed male shout boisterously:—
"Good-by, folks, I must be off to the office!"
For there was no longer any office to go to.