That night I did so many exercises that at last I sank exhausted in a chair in front of my mirror and put my head down on my arms and cried the real tears you cry when nobody is looking.  I felt terribly old and ugly and dowdy and—­widowed.  It couldn’t have been jealousy, for I just love that girl.  I want most awfully to hug her very slimness and it was more what she might think of poor dumpy me than what any man in Hillsboro, Tennessee, or Paris, France, could possibly feel on the subject that hurt so hard.  But then, looking back on it, I am afraid that jealousy sheds feathers every night so you won’t know him in the morning, for something made me sit up suddenly with a spark in my eyes and reach out to the desk for my pencil and check-book.  It took me more than an hour to figure it all up, but I went to bed a happier, though in prospects a poorer woman.

It is strange how spending a man’s money makes you feel more congenial with him and as I sat in the cars on my way to the city early the next morning I felt nearer to Mr. Carter than I almost ever did, alive or dead.  After this I shall always appreciate and admire him for the way he made money, since, for the first time in my life, I fully realized what it could buy.  And I bought things!

First I went to see Madam Courtier for corsets.  I had heard about her and I knew it meant a fortune.  But that didn’t matter!  She came in and looked at me for about five minutes without saying a word and then she ran her hands down and down over me until I could feel the flesh just crawling off of me.  It was delicious!

Then she and two girls in puffs and rats came in and did things to a corset they laced on me that I can’t even write down, for I didn’t understand the process, but when I looked in that long glass I almost dropped on the floor.  I wasn’t tight and I wasn’t stiff and I looked—­I’m too modest to write how lovely I really looked to myself.  I was spellbound with delight.

[Illustration:  I was spellbound with delight]

Next I signed the check for three of those wonders with my head so in the clouds I didn’t know what I was doing, but I came to with a jolt when the prettiest girl began to get me into that black taffeta bag I had worn down to the city.  I must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds I had felt obliged to lose for Alfred and Ruth Chester from the horror I felt when I looked at myself.  The girl was really sympathetic and said with a smile that was true kindness:  “Shall I call a taxi for madam and have it take her to Klein’s?  They have wonderful gowns by Rene all ready to be fitted at short notice.  Really, madam’s figure is such that it commands a perfect costume now.”  Men do business well, but when women enter the field they are geniuses at money extracting.  I felt myself already clothed perfectly when that girl said my figure “commanded” a proper dress.  Of course, Klein pays Madam Courtier a commission for the customers she passes right on to him.  The one for me must have looked to her like a real estate transaction.