Helen Reimensnyder Martin

“ As Margaret came to realize that she was drifting surely, fatally, into the arms of Daniel Leitzel, her conscience forced her to try to justify her selling herself for a home.
"To marry without love? But I might have married 'Reverend Hoops' for love! And he was so much worse—less possible," she amended her reflections, "than Daniel is. It was really love that I felt for that poor, bow-legged Hoops! Yes, the sort of love that would make marriage a madness of ecstasy! Too great, indeed, for a human soul to bear! ”

“ In spite of all Osmond Berkeley's precautions, however, Margaret did, of course, go through the intense and fiery ordeal of "falling in love"; for when a maiden's budding soul begins to unfold to the beauty of life, to throb and thrill before the wonder and mystery of the universe, no walled imprisonment can check the course of nature—she is bound to suffer the bitter-sweet experience of becoming enamoured of something, it doesn't much matter what; a cigar-shop Indian will suffice if nothing more lively comes her way. ”

“ That New Munich hospitality, instead of being a condition of daily life as with Southerners, was so specialized an occasion as to cause the upsetting of a household and the expenditure of the nervous energy of a whole family, Margaret had come to recognize. People did not "keep open house"; they "entertained." But how was she to spring such a thing upon Walter, who knew no other standard of hospitality than that of the open Southern home? How explain to him upon his arrival that her home and her husband's was not open to him, and that he must stop at a hotel? ”

“ Leitzel smiled, "in these days, a lawyer for a corporation has got to be Johnny-on-the-spot."
"I have always thought that a general practitioner must often find his work a terrible strain upon his sympathies," said Margaret.
"Oh, no; business is business, you know."
"And necessarily inhuman?"
"Unhuman, rather. A man must not have 'sympathies' in the practice of the law."
"He can't help it, can he?—unless he's a soulless monster."
Daniel looked at her narrowly. What a queer expression for a young lady to use: "a soulless monster." ”

“ Look at these women of New Munich who live only to kill time—how they lack the personal dignity, the character, that a life of service, of producing, gives to either man or woman! Of course mere work doesn't ennoble—beasts of burden can work—it's work that vitally interests us, as you say, and that we love for its own sake, that is the joy and health of any soul."
"Do you love being Mr. Leitzel's secretary like that?" ”

“ For he recognized, with fatal clearness, that though Harriet had the beautiful, clear-cut features and look of high breeding characteristic of the Berkeley race, her inexpressive countenance betrayed a commonplace mind and soul, while Margaret, lacking the Berkeley beauty, did have the family look and air of breeding, which gave her, with her countenance of intelligence and sensitiveness, a marked distinction; and Walter Eastman was a man not only of temperament, but of the poetic imagination that idealizes the woman with whom he is at the time in love. ”

“ Leitzel," Margaret replied.
"Well, she is a dear," said Mrs. Ocksreider heartily; "one of the sweetest little women I ever met. How prettily and cozily you have fixed up her house! She told me you had done it all!"
"I did enjoy getting her settled near me," Margaret smiled. "She's the greatest comfort and blessing to me—to any one who has the good fortune to come into contact with her. I have known few people in my life so guileless, so kindly disposed toward every one! ”

“ It was discouraging to Margaret that he always laughed when she was fatuous and never when she said a thing she considered rather good.
"And, my dear," he admonished her, "remember after this that we always put together to buy for Hiram's children. We can do better that way, not only for the children, but it comes lighter on each one of us."
Margaret did not reply. The incident, somehow, struck a chill to her heart.
"It must be," she concluded, "that Jennie and Sadie have some little income of their own and are not entirely dependent upon Daniel." ”

“ And if it has to be a marriage for money, I prefer to be the one who has the money, if you please, Uncle Osmond."
"Well, you won't get mine. I tell you you are worth too much to be turned into one of these parasitical women who are the blot on our modern civilization. In no other age of the world has there been such a race of feminine parasites as at the present. Let me tell you something, Margaret: there is just one source of pure and unadulterated happiness in life, and that I bequeath to you in withholding from you my fortune. Congenial work, my girl, is the only sure and permanent joy. ”

“ The fact that she had, because of the secluded life she had led, reached the age of twenty-five without ever having had a lover, must account for her feelings this morning toward Daniel Leitzel, her sense of gratitude (under the soreness of her heart at her sister's attitude to her) that any human being should like her and be kind, to the extent of such munificence as this which filled her room with fragrance and beauty. No wonder that for the time being she lost sight of the little man's grotesqueness in her keen consciousness of his kindness, and of the novelty of being admired—by a man. ”

“ When later in the evening Margaret was free to move about among her guests, Daniel's cold displeasure with her was greatly modified as he witnessed again to-night, as on many previous occasions, how attractive she undoubtedly was to the men of his world. His uncannily keen little eyes read in the faces of his male guests, as they approached and talked with Margaret, the covetousness they felt for this rare possession of his. No acquisition of all his acquisitive career had ever given him a more delectable joy than his realization of the worth, in other men's eyes, of his charming wife. ”

“ Margaret readily answered. "You know they don't go into society at all."
Jennie and Sadie felt cold as they heard these shameless admissions, their Danny's wife bragging of her intimacy with people whom she openly advertised as living in a rented house on a side street and as not going into society! Not to go into society was, in the Leitzels' eyes, to be so abjectly unimportant as to make you want to get off the earth. And Margaret flaunted it! ”

“ Margaret returned, "I shall educate all my daughters to professions, because, quite apart from the economic side of it, women become such drivelling fools when they live in aimless idleness, when they have no definite interest in life. And they are so discontented and restless. An occupation, an interest, surely makes for happiness and for a higher personal development."
"I believe," said Miss Hamilton, "that a mother wrongs a daughter, just as much as she would wrong a son, when she fails to educate her for a self-supporting occupation. ”

“ Margaret said
"She never stops the night with us, Margaret," Jennie coldly returned. "Come on, Mom, I'll put you on the street car."
"But isn't it nice," cried Margaret, holding her arm around Mrs. Leitzel to keep Jennie off, "that I've succeeded in coaxing her to stay to-night? Such a pleasant surprise for Daniel when he comes home, to find you here, dear! What is home without a grandmother? Good discipline for Daniel, too, to have to give up this armchair for one evening! Even I have to get out of it when he wants it. ”

“ It was only the doctor's powers of persuasion that induced the nurse, harassed beyond endurance by Jennie's interference with her methods, to remain with her patient until she was no longer needed.
"You poor thing, you certainly are up against it!" was her parting bit of sympathy to Margaret. "She'll kill off those precious twinlets for you, or she'll kill you. One of you has got to die! The woman's a holy terror, my dear! And the other one, that wears Mother Hubbards and Kate Greenaways and Peter Thompsons and Heaven knows what, she's nearly as bad as her sister about these babies. ”

“ Daniel Leitzel's confidential secretary, knew so very much more about him and his affairs than did his own wife.
"She actually does not know that she has married a multi-millionaire. And I don't believe it would impress her greatly to discover that she had. She is unique! For a woman like Margaret to find herself tied up with those Leitzels, oh!" Catherine laughed to herself at what seemed to her the extreme absurdity of the combination. "But it is so tragic, too! Why on earth did she marry him if not for his money? ”

“ Now give me a kiss, and promise me you will turn over a new leaf and not be so stubborn about the care of the babies and about Catherine Hamilton and about all the other little matters in which you tease me so that I've got indigestion!" he said fretfully.
"I act only as I must, Daniel," said Margaret sadly. "It gives me worse than indigestion!"
"Look at Hiram's Lizzie! She never antagonizes the girls the way you do!" ”

“ Margaret, looking white but resolute, went to a side window, raised it, and called into the Kaufmans' dining-room where the family was then breakfasting, while Jennie and Sadie, foiled, but horrified and incredulous of her audacity, fell back.
"Will you please be so very kind, Mrs. Kaufman," Margaret called across the space between the two windows, when Mrs. Kaufman had raised hers, "as to 'phone for a taxicab for me at once. I have to hurry down to Mr. Leitzel's office. I shall be so much obliged, and I'm very sorry to trouble you at breakfast." ”

“ I thought Daniel supported them."
Lizzie stared incredulously. "Danny supported them?" she repeated hoarsely. "Och, my souls! You thought that! As if he would!"
Lizzie looked so contemptuous of Margaret's intelligence that the latter realized their opinion of each other's brilliancy was mutual.
"But," Margaret argued, "Daniel would have to support them if they were penniless. They are too old to support themselves."
"They have their own good incomes this long time already," stated Lizzie. ”

“ It was a curious fact that the only person present at the Leitzels' notable party who was quite unimpressed by the expensiveness of the affair was Margaret herself.
What did impress her, as she chatted with her guests and ate her supper, was the subtlety with which one can be penetrated by the spiritual atmosphere of a given group; she felt so acutely that of this gathering to-night as compared with the fine aroma of any social collection of her Southern environment, with its old inherited simplicity and culture. ”

“ For every normal woman feels instinctively that the human relation which may make her a mother, if it is not a sacred and ennobling relation, must be a degrading one, and no experiences of life, however embittering, can ever wholly obliterate this profound intuition. Cynical as were Margaret's theories of love and marriage, she could never have given herself to Daniel Leitzel had she not felt goaded to it by her unfitness to earn her living, and by her sister's desire to have her away. ”

“ A servant would leave as soon as she discovered how lonesome it is out here, a half mile from the trolley line. It's well Henry and Chloe are too attached to the place to leave it."
"So the advantage of having me rather than a child's nurse is that I'd be a fixture?" Margaret asked, hiding with a smile her inclination to weep at this only reason Harriet had to urge for her remaining with her.
"Of course you'll be a fixture," Harriet answered affectionately. "Walter and I are only too glad to give you a home." ”

“ Her husband's joy and pride in the prospect of being a father consoled her somewhat, it was so human and normal of him; though even here the taint of greed entered in, he was so inordinately pleased that his money would not have to be left to Hiram's children.
Indeed, during the earlier weeks of her pregnancy, Margaret tried hard to keep her mind off the topics discussed in the bosom of the family, so fearful was she of the effect, upon her child, of her own recoil from the Leitzel view of life. ”

“ Margaret repeated in a tone so quiet that Daniel never suspected the volcano it covered.
"She has been told by Jennie every time she called that you wished to be excused. This unseemly intimacy is to cease! You will have to understand, Margaret, that I am not a man to be trifled with by a mere woman—a mere girl, I might say!" ”

“ Leitzel."
Catherine's tone of withdrawal, as though she feared to be questioned, piqued Margaret's interest.
"What was your impression of her?"
"Margaret, your husband's mother has an unforgettable face! There's a benediction in it, such sweetness, refinement, and simplicity shine in her countenance. When she had talked to me for a while, I felt as a good Catholic must who has been blessed by the Pope. Just the sort of person (with a heart too tender to hurt a fly) to be herself easily victimized by the human vultures that prey upon the too confiding." ”