"
"Goin' back to California?"
"If I knew I would tell you. But I don't. You see....Well, I shall not live
with Mr. Dwight again. We had been really separated a long while before I
left--and then he has done nothing for the war. That is only one reason.
What should I do there? I had thought of going into business before I left.
But I shall have a good income, and what right have I to go into business
and use my large connection to get customers away from those that need the
money for their actual bread?"
"Not the ghost of an excuse. Farce, I call it. As long as the present
system lasts women of your class better be ornamental and satisfied with
that than take the bread out of mouths that need it."
"I could not settle down to the old life. It isn't that I'm in love with
work. For that matter I'm only too grateful to be able to rest. But I must
fill in, some way. Possibly I could do that better in France or England,
where vita! subjects are always being discussed--and happening!--where I
would not only be interested but possibly useful in many ways. I should
feel rather a brute, knowing the conditions of Europe as I do, to go back
and settle down on the smiling abundance of California. And bored to
death."
"Then you think you'll stay?...You'd be wasted there--at present--sure
enough."
"Sometimes I think I'll buy this house. I could for a song. Heavens! _How_
I have longed for solitude in the last four years! I could have it here
with my books, and go to Paris as often as I wished.
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