A cloud came on her face as she looked in the glass.
"But that's just the trouble. A few years more and I'll be too late. You've got to get there while you're young. And there's so little time. You lose your looks. It's all very well for some women to talk about ideas and things--and travel and--and children. I did, too, I talked a lot--oh, how I wanted everything! But one has to narrow 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.