She went upstairs to the room that had been her mother's, and took off her

hat. She wanted to be alone, to realize what had happened to her. She did

not belong to herself any more. It gave her an odd, lost feeling. She was

going to be married--not very soon, but ultimately. A year ago her half

promise to Joe had gratified her sense of romance. She was loved, and she

had thrilled to it.

But this was different. Marriage, that had been but a vision then, loomed

large, almost menacing. She had learned the law of compensation: that for

every joy one pays in suffering. Women who married went down into the

valley of death for their children. One must love and be loved very

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tenderly to pay for that. The scale must balance.

And there were other things. Women grew old, and age was not always

lovely. This very maternity--was it not fatal to beauty? Visions of

child-bearing women in the hospitals, with sagging breasts and relaxed

bodies, came to her. That was a part of the price.

Harriet was stirring, across the hall. Sidney could hear her moving about

with flat, inelastic steps.

That was the alternative. One married, happily or not as the case might

be, and took the risk. Or one stayed single, like Harriet, growing a

little hard, exchanging slimness for leanness and austerity of figure,

flat-chested, thin-voiced. One blossomed and withered, then, or one

shriveled up without having flowered. All at once it seemed very terrible

to her. She felt as if she had been caught in an inexorable hand that had

closed about her.

Harriet found her a little later, face down on her mother's bed, crying as

if her heart would break. She scolded her roundly.

"You've been overworking," she said. "You've been getting thinner. Your

measurements for that suit showed it. I have never approved of this

hospital training, and after last January--"

She could hardly credit her senses when Sidney, still swollen with weeping,

told her of her engagement.

"But I don't understand. If you care for him and he has asked you to marry

him, why on earth are you crying your eyes out?"

"I do care. I don't know why I cried. It just came over me, all at once,

that I--It was just foolishness. I am very happy, Aunt Harriet."

Harriet thought she understood. The girl needed her mother, and she,

Harriet, was a hard, middle-aged woman and a poor substitute. She patted

Sidney's moist hand.

"I guess I understand," she said. "I'll attend to your wedding things,

Sidney. We'll show this street that even Christine Lorenz can be outdone."

And, as an afterthought: "I hope Max Wilson will settle down now. He's

been none too steady."




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