"That's because we judged her by woman's standards, sentimental ones,—old-fashioned ones. But she is New."
"How new?" asked Isabelle, who felt that she had been dwelling in a dark place the past three years.
"Why, she made up her mind just what she wanted out of life,—a certain kind of husband, a certain kind of married life, a certain set of associates,—and she's got just what she planned. She isn't an opportunist like most of us, who take the husbands we marry because they are there, we don't know why, and take the children they give us because they come, and live and do what turns up in the circumstances chosen for us by the Male. No, Conny is very clever!"
"But how?"
"Eugene Woodyard is not a rich man,—Conny was not after money,—but he is a clever lawyer, well connected,—in with a lot of interesting people, and has possibilities. Conny saw those and has developed them,—that has been her success. You see she combines the old and the new. She makes the mould of their life, but she works through him. As a result she has just what she wants, and her husband adores her,—he is the outward and visible symbol of Conny's inward and material strength!"
Isabelle laughed, and Margaret continued in her pleasant drawl, painting the Woodyard firmament.
"She understood her man better than he did himself. She knew that he would never be a great money-getter, hadn't the mental or the physical qualifications for it. So she turns him deftly into a reformer, a kind of gentlemanly politician. She'll make him Congressman or better,—much better! Meantime she has given him a delightful home, one of the nicest I know,—on a street down town near a little park, where the herd does not know enough to live. And there Conny receives the best picked set of people I ever see. It is all quite wonderful!"
"And we thought her coarse," mused Isabelle.
"Perhaps she is,—I don't think she is fine. But a strong hand is rarely fine. I don't think she would hesitate to use any means to arrive,—and that is Power, my dear little girl!"
Margaret Pole rose, the enigmatic smile on her lips.