down.  Thank heaven, Ethel, you’ve years ahead.  I’ve only got a few more left—­I’m already thirty-one.  And my type ages fast in this town, if you do the things you’re expected to do.  But you—­oh, Ethel, I want you to marry well!  Not a millionaire—­that’s rather hard, and besides he’d probably be too fat—­but the kind who will be a millionaire, who has it written all over his face and makes you feel it in his voice!  Don’t sell yourself too cheap, my dear!  Don’t go running about with men who’ll keep you poor for the rest of your days.  They talk so well—­some of them do; and it sounds so fine—­ideas and books and pictures and—­I knew one who was an architect.  And it’s all very well for later on, but what you’ve got to do right at the start—­while you have the looks and youth—­is to find the man who can give you a house where all those other people will be tumbling to get in—­because you’ll have the money—­you’ll be able to entertain—­and give them what they really want—­in spite of all their talking.”

Once more, with a weary sigh, she dropped the religious intensity, and smiled as she wistfully added: 

“That’s where some man can put you.  They do, you know, they do it.  Some man does it every day.  You can see his name in the papers.  Dozens of wives get to Newport each year.  And what do they do it on?  Money!

“That’s romance enough for me, my dear.  And if you want work and a career, the most fascinating kind I know is to study the man you’ve married—­find what’s holding him back and take it away—­what’s pushing him on and help it grow!  You’ve got to narrow, narrow down!  You may want a lot of children.  They’re loves, of course, to have around.  But you run a big risk in that.  I could give you so many cases—­mothers who have just dropped out.  If you want to really get on in this town, you’ve got to stick to your husband and make your husband stick to you!  There are things about that you will learn soon enough.  It comes so naturally, once you are in it—­married, I mean.  And that’s your hold.

“And if you love him as I love Joe,” she added almost in a whisper, “you find it so easy that often you forget what it is you’re trying to do, what you’re really doing it for.  You’re just happy and you shut your eyes.  But then you wake up and use it all—­everything—­to drive him on.  You can do that while you are still young and have what he wants—­the looks, I mean—­and can make him see that any number of other men would be glad to step into his shoes.  But you give them only just enough to keep your husband from feeling too safe.  You hold them off, you make him feel that he’s everything to you if he’ll work and give you what you ought to have!  And unless you’re a fool you don’t listen to this talk of women’s rights and women doing the work of men.  You keep on your own ground and play the game.  And you keep making him get what you need—­before it’s too late!” All at once she gave a sharp little laugh.  “It’s a kind of a race, you see,” she said.