Short Stories / Рассказы

Don’t you think that red silk lining is just a little bit too bright for that coat, Lou?”

Lou looked at the plain, dull olive jacket of her friend.

“Well, no I don’t – but it may seem so beside that faded-looking thing you’ve got on.”

“This jacket,” said Nancy, complacently, “has exactly the cut and fit of one that Mrs Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing the other day. The material cost me $3.98. I suppose hers cost about $100 more.”

“Oh, well,” said Lou lightly, “it don’t strike me as millionaire bait.

Truly it would have taken a philosopher to decide upon the values of the theories held by the two friends. Lou, lacking that certain pride and fastidiousness that keeps stores and desks filled with girls working for the barest living, thumped away gaily with her iron in the noisy and stifling laundry. Her wages supported her even beyond the point of comfort; so that her dress profited until sometimes she cast a sidelong glance of impatience at the neat but inelegant apparel of Dan – Dan the constant, the immutable, the undeviating.

As for Nancy, her case was one of tens of thousands. Silk and jewels and laces and ornaments and the perfume and music of the fine world of good-breeding and taste – these were made for woman; they are her equitable portion. Let her keep near them if they are a part of life to her, and if she will. She is no traitor to herself, as Esau was; for she keeps he birthright and the pottage she earns is often very scant.

In this atmosphere Nancy belonged; and she throve in it and ate her frugal meals and schemed over her cheap dresses with a determined and contented mind. She already knew woman; and she was studying man, the animal, both as to his habits and eligibility. Some day she would bring down the game that she wanted; but she promised herself it would be what seemed to her the biggest and the best, and nothing smaller.

Thus she kept her lamp trimmed and burning to receive the bridegroom when he should come.

But, another lesson she learned, perhaps unconsciously. Her standard of values began to shift and change. Sometimes the dollar-mark grew blurred in her mind’s eye, and shaped itself into letters that spelled such words as “truth” and “honor” and now and then just “kindness.” Let us make a likeness of one who hunts the moose or elk in some mighty wood.