But why should they disapprove of her?  She thought of her husband.  If circumstances had altered, was she to blame?  Could she always be thinking of what they would think at Brandon?  It was an intolerable bondage.  They had no right to set themselves up over her.  Suppose her aunt didn’t like Carmen.  She was not responsible for Carmen.  What would they have her do?  Be unhappy because Henderson was prosperous, and she could indulge her tastes and not have to drudge in school?  Suppose she did look at some things differently from what she used to.  She knew more of the world.  Must you shut yourself up because you found you couldn’t trust everybody?  What was Mr. Morgan always hitting at?  Had he any better opinion of men and women than her husband had?  Was he any more charitable than Uncle Jerry?  She smiled as she thought of Uncle Jerry and his remark—­“It’s a very decent world if you don’t huff it.”  No; she did like this life, and she was not going to pretend that she didn’t.  It would be dreadful to lose the love and esteem of her dear old friends, and she cried a little as this possibility came over her.  And then she hardened her heart a little at the thought that she could not help it if they chose to misunderstand her and change.

Carmen was calling from the stairs that it was time to dress for the drive.  She dashed off a note.  It contained messages of love for everybody, but it was the first one in her life written to her aunt not from her heart.

XVII

Shall we never have done with this carping at people who succeed?  Are those who start and don’t arrive any better than those who do arrive?  Did not men always make all the money they had an opportunity to make?  Must we always have the old slow-coach merchants and planters thrown up to us?  Talk of George Washington and the men of this day!  Were things any better because they were on a small scale?  Wasn’t the thrifty George Washington always adding to his plantations, and squeezing all he could out of his land and his slaves?  What are the negro traditions about it?  Were they all patriots in the Revolutionary War?  Were there no contractors who amassed fortunes then?  And how was it in the late war?  The public has a great spasm of virtue all of a sudden.  But we have got past the day of stage-coaches.

Something like this Henderson was flinging out to Carmen as he paced back and forth in her parlor.  It was very unlike him, this outburst, and Carmen knew that he would indulge in it to no one else, not even to Uncle Jerry.  She was coiled up in a corner of the sofa, her eyes sparkling with admiration of his indignation and force.  I confess that he had been irritated by the comments of the newspapers, and by the prodding of the lawyers in the suit then on trial over the Southwestern consolidation.

“Why, there was old Mansfield saying in his argument that he had had some little experience in life, but he never had known a man to get rich rapidly, barring some piece of luck, except by means that it would make him writhe to have made public.  I don’t know but that Uncle Jerry was right, that we made a mistake in not retaining him for the corporation.”