Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“ Frances had planned a future for them with care; and little by little she fancied she was improving the man himself, making him more responsible, more sedate, more what a woman demands of a husband. She was too intelligent to understand him. She couldn’t manage him and comprehend him as an ignorant, emotional woman would have done. With every new idea, every book read, she had retreated from the position that was her birthright.
She thought over Lionel with a passionate desire to do right ”

“ It was all very well to tell herself Lionel was no good; whether he was or not, she wanted him back. Worst of all was her worry about him. She was convinced that without her he was lost, was helpless—what all women think about their men. She had the loftiest views about women anyway, and their influence. They were ordained the spiritual monitors of men, as well as the natural guardians of their healths and pocketbooks. Woman was the practical one, the conserver, the frequenter of savings banks ”

“ Lionel! Darling! I want you back so!”
She got up then and there and wrote to him, addressing it in care of Horace.
V He came the next evening. Quite in accordance with his extreme character he had in ten days’ time become unnecessarily wretched and shabby in looks and manners. He was even thinner.
He had looked and looked for a job, he said, but no one would have an inexperienced man of his age. He was in despair. So that Frances could not for an instant maintain her injured majesty, but had to comfort and fortify him, even to cry over him a little. ”

“ Only it’s rather hopeless. I’ve a hundred and five pounds a year income from my mother, and that’s all. No prospects. Not a relative who could leave me a sou. And eighty dollars in the bank. Rather dismal, isn’t it?”
“Not a bit! Fancy having an income, and calling the outlook dismal! And you’re young, you’ve got everything before you. You’re sure to find a good job before very long——”
“Yes, but my dear girl, that eighty dollars is all I’ve got to live on for three months and a half, until my next remittance comes. Unless I stop on in Horace’s office——”
“No, no! You mustn’t stay there! ”

“ And a faint realisation of the truth not fully seen or known till much later came upon her, of the pitiful folly of waiting, of patience and of prudence in this poor life so short and so hazardous.
“I will! I will!” she said to herself. “He shan’t struggle on alone. I won’t lose my happiness—our happiness. ”

“ But the trouble is, he’s perfectly inexperienced. He can’t seem to find a job. We’ve—he has answered advertisements and registered at agencies, and nothing’s any good. I’m so afraid of his getting completely discouraged and going back to his brother again. It’s so wretched for him. There’s no chance of our being married for years——”
“Why?”
“We couldn’t both live on a hundred pounds a year—about five hundred dollars!”
“Why should you try? You’re earning something, and under no expense. Why don’t you get married anyway, and go on as you are?”
Frankie was amazed. ”