At the beginning of Overtones, Harriet is preparing for the arrival of a former acquaintance, Mrs. Margaret Caldwell, whom she has invited to tea. She is also having a discussion with her primitive "inner self," Hetty. The two women establish that they are indeed very different parts of the same person. As Hetty notes, "I'm crude and real, you are my appearance in the world." Harriet concedes that they are one and the same, but refuses to admit that Hetty is also the wife of Charles Goodrich. Harriet asserts that she alone is Charles's wife because it is she who manipulates him and manages him through her social airs and artifice. Eventually the conversation turns to John Caldwell and to Hetty's despair over not having married him when she had the opportunity. Harriet reminds her that John's desire to be a painter made for too uncertain...