This woman I have never quite understood. After the death of her husband, she maintained their country place in almost profligate magnificence, but she has always seemed terribly disappointed in her son. He was a good, easy-going fellow, and his mother, an ambitious, restless woman, had great plans for his future. But, failing that, and being a person of shrewd instinct, she set about finding for him an ambitious wife, who would probably be able to succeed where she had failed. But while the mother was striving to select a suitable woman for her purpose, the son paid court to me,—and I married him.”
The young woman paused for a moment, and the lines of her mouth hardened. Then she went on:
“He was not quite the person with whom I had hoped to spend my life, but he had wealth, and we were so miserably poor,—and, I judge after all, one is never permitted to do just what one wishes in this weary world. This marriage was a bitter disappointment to Mrs. Van Bartan, but she was a woman with the resources of an empress. She came at once to me, and,
