sell the paper.  It couldn’t be done all of a sudden, of course—­he made me see that—­for he had put all his money in it, and he had no special aptitude for any other kind of work.  He was a born journalist—­like Alan.  It was a great sacrifice for him to give up the paper, but he promised to do it—­in time—­when a good opportunity offered.  Meanwhile, of course, he wanted to build it up, to increase the circulation—­and to do that he had to keep on in the same way—­he made that clear to me.  I saw that we were in a vicious circle.  The paper, to sell well, had to be made more and more detestable and disgraceful.  At first I rebelled—­but somehow—­I can’t tell you how it was—­after that first concession the ground seemed to give under me:  with every struggle I sank deeper.  And then—­then Alan was born.  He was such a delicate baby that there was very little hope of saving him.  But money did it—­the money from the paper.  I took him abroad to see the best physicians—­I took him to a warm climate every winter.  In hot weather the doctors recommended sea air, and we had a yacht and cruised every summer.  I owed his life to the Radiator.  And when he began to grow stronger the habit was formed—­the habit of luxury.  He could not get on without the things he had always been used to.  He pined in bad air; he drooped under monotony and discomfort; he throve on variety, amusement, travel, every kind of novelty and excitement.  And all I wanted for him his inexhaustible foster-mother was there to give!

“My husband said nothing, but he must have seen how things were going.  There was no more talk of giving up the Radiator.  He never reproached me with my inconsistency, but I thought he must despise me, and the thought made me reckless.  I determined to ignore the paper altogether—­to take what it gave as though I didn’t know where it came from.  And to excuse this I invented the theory that one may, so to speak, purify money by putting it to good uses.  I gave away a great deal in charity—­I indulged myself very little at first.  All the money that was not spent on Alan I tried to do good with.  But gradually, as my boy grew up, the problem became more complicated.  How was I to protect Alan from the contamination I had let him live in?  I couldn’t preach by example—­couldn’t hold up his father as a warning, or denounce the money we were living on.  All I could do was to disguise the inner ugliness of life by making it beautiful outside—­to build a wall of beauty between him and the facts of life, turn his tastes and interests another way, hide the Radiator from him as a smiling woman at a ball may hide a cancer in her breast!  Just as Alan was entering college his father died.  Then I saw my way clear.  I had loved my husband—­and yet I drew my first free breath in years.  For the Radiator had been left to Alan outright—­there was nothing on earth to prevent his selling it when he came of age.  And there was no excuse for his