Though it was merely to make a poor joke out of a not objectionable necessity, my plan, as it turned out, was far wiser than I realized.

First, I surreptitiously card-catalogued the notes and references for Carl’s “epoch-making book,” as one of the sweet, vague wives of the Faculty always called her husband’s volumes, which she never read.  Then I learned to take down his lectures, to look up data in the library, to verify quotations, and even lent a hand in the book reviewing.

Soon I began to feel more than a mere consumer’s interest—­a producer’s interest—­in Carl’s work.  And then a wonderful thing happened:  My husband began to see—­just in time, I believe—­that a wife could be more than a passive and more or less desirable appendage to a man’s life—­an active and intelligent partner in it.  And he looked at me with a new and wondering respect, which was rather amusing, but very dear.

He had made the astonishing discovery that his wife had a mind!

Years of piano practice had helped to make my fingers nimble for the typewriter, and for this advantage I was duly grateful to the family’s old-fashioned ideals, though I fear they did not appreciate my gratitude.  Once, when visiting them during the holidays, I was laughingly boasting, before some guests invited to meet me at luncheon, about my part in the writing of Carl’s History of Property, which had been dedicated to me and was now making a sensation in the economic world, though our guests in the social world had never heard of it.

Suddenly I saw a curious, uncomfortable look come over the faces of the family.  Then I stopped and remembered that nowadays wives—­nice wives, that is—­are not supposed to be helpmates to their husbands except in name; quite as spinsters no longer spin.  They can help him spend.  At that they are truly better halves, but to help him earn is not nice.  To our guests it could mean only one thing—­namely, that my husband could not afford a secretary.  Well, he could not.  What of it?

For a moment I had the disquieting sensation of having paraded my poverty—­a form of vulgarity that Carl and I detest as heartily as a display of wealth.

The family considerately informed me afterward, however, that they thought me brave to sacrifice myself so cheerfully.  Dear me!  I was not being brave.  I was not being cheerful.  I was being happy.  There is no sacrifice in working for the man you love.  And if you can do it with him—­why, I conceitedly thought it quite a distinction.  Few women have the ability or enterprise to attain it!

One of my sisters who, like me, had failed to “marry well” valeted for her husband; but somehow that seemed to be all right.  For my part I never could see why it is more womanly to do menial work for a man than intellectual work with him.  I have done both and ought to know....  Can it be merely because the one is done strictly in the home or because no one can see you do it?  Or is it merely because it is unskilled labor?