Of course she couldn’t do anything, now that he was committed to this new business venture.  It was all very well for him to snarl:  “Don’t worry...  I sha’n’t ask you to do without any more than you’ve done without so far.”

That was the lofty way most men theorized when their vanity was wounded.  But she knew enough to realize that if he failed she would have to share that failure.  Of course, if Fred could interest Hilmer...  Perhaps she could help things along in some way ... with a chance remark to Mrs. Hilmer.  Would it be better to cast the seed more directly?...  If she could only manage to run across Hilmer—­she wouldn’t want to seem to be putting in her oar...  Would it be very dreadful if she were to think up some excuse and go beard the lion in his den?

She was still interested in her orphan asylum.  Why not go ask him for a subscription?  She wondered if he would be very brusque; insulting, even.  The possibilities fascinated her.  She felt that she would like a passage at arms with him.  He was a man worth worsting.  Under such circumstances Fred Starratt would be either liberal beyond his means or profusely apologetic.  Not by any chance would he give a prompt and emphatic refusal...  The more she thought about it the more enticing the prospect became.  She felt sure that if Hilmer didn’t approve of her charity he would say so frankly, perhaps disagreeably.  And if he didn’t think much of her husband’s venture he would be equally direct.  She rather wanted to know what he did think about Fred Starratt.  She ended by coming to an emphatic decision.  She would not only go, but she would go that very afternoon.  If there were any chance for her to prepare an easy road for Fred’s advance it lay in speedy action.

When she finished dressing for the encounter and stood surveying herself in the long mirror set into the closet door of her bedroom she had to admit that she had missed none of her points.  Most women at her age would have been sagging a bit, the cords of youth slackened by the weight of maternity or the continual pull against ill health and genteel poverty.  Or they would have been smothered in the plump content of Mrs. Hilmer.  Helen Starratt’s slenderness had still a virginal quality and she knew every artifice that heightened this effect.  To-day she was a trifle startled at quite the lengths she had gone to strike a note of sophisticated youth.  She had long since ceased dressing consciously for her husband, and dressing for other women was more a matter of perfect detail than attempted beguilement.  She was curious, she told herself, to see whether a man like Hilmer would be impressed by feminine artifice...  Did a black silk gown, with spotless lace at wrist and throat, spell the acme of Hilmer’s ideal of womanhood?  Was woman to him something durable and utilitarian or did his fancy sometimes carry him to more decorative ideals?