Anyhow, Nathan received no stock and he continued in the large capacity of General Superintendent. The most he could screw from the business was thirty dollars a week, and Johnathan constantly reminded him that this was far more than any boy of twenty-two had any title or right to expect. At twenty-two, he, Johnathan, had drawn only eight dollars a week; why on earth should Nathan receive more? Because he was married, with an establishment of his own? What a reason! Johnathan had wasted the best years of his life thwarting Nathan’s propensity toward just that dilemma. Why recognize and regard incorrigibility by turning over profits to a young upstart, even in the form of salary? Beside, he was committed to a policy of vigorous “retrenchment.”
This situation at the shop was something Mildred could never understand. She and her family had assumed that marrying Nathan meant marrying Millions. Both had believed that with the Monday following the nuptials, it was to be Milly’s delirious destiny to dip her red, paste-bedaubed fingers into the Forges’ golden pile and exist forever after in castles in Spain. The realization that she must keep her domestic budget inside of thirty weekly dollars came as a blunt shock. “Why, that’s only ten dollars more than father makes; it’s just like Ma’s had to do all her life!” cried the angry, astounded girl. Nevertheless, it was the truth, the brutal truth. And early she made Nathan feel that he had buncoed her.
Nathan’s subsequent estimate of Milly was no more satisfying. He had met her at the hotel that first night, convinced Pat Whitney they were properly married and been given one of the lower front rooms. It was Milly’s first contact with a real bathroom, and “a regular tub” as she expressed it. In fact, the whole experience for a time was not unlike a glorious entrance into marble halls of which all heroines daydreamed in the Elsie books. The two features of their apartment which most interested and impressed her were the globular receptacle on the washstand which, being inverted, spilled liquid soap, and the hemp rope with handles on it coiled on a hook beside a window for use in case of fire. She rather hoped there would be a fire. It might be interesting, going down that rope. Milly had heard that vaguely mystic phrase, “Hotel life.” She decided she liked “hotel life.” Everything was so convenient and “classy” and modern.
Nathan’s first disillusion came when the girl started boldly to disrobe and toss her clothing about on the chairs and the status of her undergarments was disclosed. There were many disillusions that night and the day and week ensuing. Milly had never before seen pyjamas at close range. “Gawd, Ma,” she confided awesomely next day, “he goes to sleep in white pants! You oughta see ’em!”
Nathan awoke first, the following morning,—that cold, much celebrated dawn commencing the “day afterward.” He looked upon the features of his still-sleeping wife as a man coming from metempsychosis. She wore a heavy flannel nightgown which had once been pink, buttoned to her throat with Chinese chastity. Her marcelled pompadour was shoved over one ear. Her mouth was open and several teeth needed immediate dental attention. A shudder ran through the boy. He was in bed with an utter stranger, with whom he had nothing in common,—a female of whom he knew little excepting that she had always lived on the edge of the “flats” with multitudinous brothers and sisters, and that her father skinned cows. And he had promised to love, honor and cherish her until death! He suddenly wanted to flee Milly, his parents, the business, Paris, everything,—in a panic.
Yet he could have forgiven his new wife many deficiencies, perhaps, if she had supplied that thing he had most expected: Sanctuary in her arms.
Milly had supplied no sanctuary in her arms. If Milly had arms, they were far from the purpose of solacing distraught masculinity. Milly’s arms were very necessary connections between her paste-bedaubed hands and her ample shoulders. Nothing more. What else did he expect them to be?
Nathan was shocked. She was a Woman, wasn’t she? He had made her his wife. She had said that she loved him and asked him if there were anything she could do to make him happy. What, then, was wrong?
A small-town Pygmalion waited for the conjugal Galatea he had created to be struck with divine fire and return his embrace gloriously. But divine fires, alas, rarely impregnate dough pans.
Nathan had made the sickening mistake that millions of poor youngsters make piteously every day,—that keeps divorce mills grinding to the horror of sanctimonious religionists: He had mistaken Sex for Ladyhood.