When I asked myself how this was to be done I found one obvious answer—I must become the sort of woman my husband admired and liked; in short I must imitate Alma.
I resolved to do this, and after all that has happened since I feel a little ashamed to tell of the efforts I made to play a part for which I was so ill-fitted by nature and education.
Some of them were silly enough perhaps, but some were almost pathetic, and I am not afraid that any good woman will laugh at the futile shifts I was put to, in my girlish ignorance, to make my husband love me.
"I must do it," I thought. "I must, I must!"
FORTY-SIXTH CHAPTER
Hitherto I had attended to myself, but now I determined to have a maid. I found one without much difficulty. Her name was Price. She was a very plain woman of thirty, with piercing black eyes; and when I engaged her she seemed anxious above all else to make me understand that she "never saw anything."
I soon discovered that she saw everything, especially the relations between myself and my husband, and that she put her own interpretation (not a very flattering one) on our separated apartments. She also saw the position of Alma, and putting her own interpretation upon that also, she tortured me with many pin-pricks.
Under the guidance of my maid I began to haunt the shops of the dressmakers, the milliners and the jewellers. It did not require the memory of my father's letter to make me spend his money—I spent it like water. Feeling ashamed of my quaker-cut costumes (Alma had a costume for every day of the week, and wore a large gold snake on her arm), I bought the most costly toilettes, and loaded myself with bracelets, rings and necklaces.
I was dressing for my husband, and for him I did many things I had never dreamt of doing before. For him I filed my nails, put cream on my skin, perfume on my handkerchief, and even rouge on my lips. Although I did not allow myself to think of it so, I was running a race with Alma.