No self-respecting American, etc.
But something must be done. She wished to live on in Ballinger House if
possible, not only because she loved it, or to avoid the commiserations
of the world; she had no desire to live in narrow quarters with her
husband....And she knew nothing, was fit for nothing, belonged to a silly
class that still looked upon women workers as de-classed, although to be
sure two or three whose husbands had left them penniless had gone into
business and were loyally tolerated, if deeply deplored.
The day after her return from Europe Alice Thorndyke had come into this
room and thrown herself down on the couch, her long, languorous body
looking as if set on steel springs, her angelic blonde beauty distorted
with fury and disgust, and poured out her hatred of men and all their ways,
her loathing for society and gambling and all the stupid vicious round of
the life both public and secret she had elected to lead....She had had
enough of it....After all, she had some brains and she wanted to use them.
She wanted to go into the decorating business. There was an opening. She
had a natural flair for that sort of thing. See what she had managed to do
with that old ark she had inherited, and on five cents a year....When she
had asked her sister to advance the money Sibyl had flown into one of her
worst rages and thrown a gold hair brush through a Venetian mirror.
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