“I don’t know what I could do.  It’s what I want to find out.  Half of my life has been spent in school and college, and during these years I was taught little that would be of practical service in case of need.  I’d like to use part of my time trying to make educators understand they don’t educate.  For cultural purposes, for acquiring knowledge of facts, their system may be admirable, but for the pursuit of a happy livelihood—­”

I stopped.  Aunt Matilda was looking at me as if I were suffering from an attack of some kind.  Marriage to her was the divinely arranged destiny for a woman, and she had neither patience nor sympathy with my refusal to accept the opportunity that was mine to fulfil the destiny of my sex and at the same time become the wife of the man she had long wished me to marry.  The power of money was dear to her.  She understood it well, and my failure to appreciate it properly was peculiarly exasperating to her.  Discussion was useless.  It never got farther than where it started.  If I said that which I wanted much to say, it would merely mean hearing again what I did not want to hear.  Concerning the pursuit of a happy livelihood we were not apt to agree.

For a half-minute longer I hesitated.  Should I make the issue now or wait until there had been time for her to realize I meant what I said?  Before I could speak she did that which I had never seen her do before.  She burst into tears.

“You must never mention such a thing as this again.”  Her words came stumblingly and her usually firm and strong hands trembled badly.  “With my health in its present condition I couldn’t get on without you.  You are all I have to really love, and I need you.  Don’t you see what you have done?  You have made me ill.  Ill!”

She was strangely upset and in her eyes was a confused and frightened look that was new to them, and quickly I went toward her, but she motioned me away.

“Give me my medicine, and don’t ever speak of such a thing again—­such a thing as you have just spoken of!  You have always been beyond my comprehension.”

She swallowed the medicine I brought her in nervous gulps, the tears running down her face as they might have done down a child’s, but she would not let me do anything for her, insisting only that she wanted to be quiet.  Seeing it was best to leave her, I went to my room and locked the door, and for hours I fought the hardest fight of my life.

The one weapon she knew she could use effectively, she had used.  If she needed me I could not leave her, but her complete self-reliance made it difficult to feel that any one was necessary to her.  I was indignant at the way she had treated me.  I was not a child to be disposed of, and yet of my future she was disposing as though it were a thing that could be tied to a string, and untied at will.  Were she well and strong, I would take matters in my own hands and make the break.  Surely I could do something!  I had no earning capacity, but other women had made their way, and I could make mine.  If she were perfectly well—­