Holt Dalrymple once may have been very interesting and
attractive for a friend, but as a prospective husband he was
impossible. The worst I hear of him is that he drinks and gambles. I
know you liked him and I don't want to be unjust. But he has kept
other and better young men away from you."

Margaret's hand clenched and her face sank against the window-pane.

"We need say no more about him," went on Mrs. Maynard. "Margaret,
you've been brought up in luxury. If your father happened to die
now--he's far from well--we'd be left penniless. We've lived up every
dollar.... We have our poor crippled Blair to care for. You know you
must marry well. I've brought you up with that end in view. And it's
imperative you marry soon."

"Why must a girl marry?" murmured Margaret, wistfulness in her voice.
"I'd rather go to work." "Margaret, you are a Maynard," replied her
mother, haughtily. "Pray spare me any of this new woman talk about
liberty--equal rights--careers and all that. Life hasn't changed for
the conservative families of blood.... Try to understand, Margaret,
that you must marry and marry well. You're nobody without money. In
society there are hundreds of girls like you, though few so
attractive. That's all the more reason you should take the best chance
you have, before it's lost. If you don't marry people will say you
can't. They'll say you're fading, growing old, even if you grow
prettier every day of your life, and in the end they'll make you a
miserable old maid. Then you'll be glad to marry anybody. If you marry
now you can help your father, who needs help badly enough. You can
help poor Blair.... You can be a leader in society; you can have a
house here, a cottage at the seashore and one in the mountains;
everything a girl's heart yearns for--servants, horses, autos, gowns,
diamonds----"

"Everything except love," interrupted Margaret, bitterly.

Mrs. Maynard actually flushed, but she kept her temper.

"It's desirable that you love your husband. Any sensible woman can
learn to care for a man. Love, as you dream about it is merely a--a
dream. If women waited for that they would never get married."

"Which would be preferable to living without love."

"But Margaret, what would become of the world? If there were fewer
marriages--Heaven knows they're few enough nowadays--there would be
fewer families--and in the end fewer children--less and less----"

"They'd be better children," said Margaret, calmly.

"E