here, but they were pale things, not charged
with power. She would suppose, had she known the story only through
hearing it, that she would have thought intensely and become wretched in
the thought of Mrs. Williams. Perhaps if Mrs. Williams had been a plain
little woman, or a sad looking one, that would have come home to her
harder. But one would not readily pity Marion Williams, or get the
feeling of wronging her. As Marion Averley she had been the reigning
girl of the town. Ruth, ten years younger, had not come far enough out
from her little girl's awe of Marion Averley, the young lady, to be
quick in getting the feeling of wronging Marion Williams, the wife.
Perhaps one would be more slow in getting a feeling of wronging the most
smartly dressed woman in the room than would be the case with the wife
dowdy or drab. Mrs. Williams, while not radiating happiness, seemed
somehow impervious to unhappiness, and certainly to any hurt another
woman could bring her. She had an atmosphere of high self-valuation.
While she never appeared to be having an especially good time she gave a
sense of being perfectly able to command a better one had it pleased her
to do so.

People had supposed that Marion Averley would make a brilliant marriage.
Her grandfather had made his money in lumber, in those early days of
lumber kings on the Mississippi. Locally they were looked upon as rich
people. Marion had gone to a fashionable school, to Europe. People of
the town said there was nothing "local" about her. Other girls had been
as much away and yet would return seeming just a part of the town. That
was why everyone was surprised when the Averleys announced Marion's
engagement to Stuart Williams. He was distinctly local and his people
were less important than hers. He had come home from college and gone
into business. His father had a small canning factory, an industry that
for years had not grown much, remaining one of the small concerns in a
town of rapidly growing manufactories. Stuart went into business with
his father and very soon there were expansions, new methods; he brought
imagination to bear upon it, and a big fund of young man's energy, until
it rapidly came up from a "nice little business" to one of the things
that counted in the town. He had a talent for business; his imagination
worked that way and he was what they called a hustler. He soon became a
part of a number of things, both personal affairs and matters of public
concern