tell you how it was--after that first
concession the ground seemed to give under me: with every struggle I
sank deeper. And then--then Alan was born. He was such a delicate baby
that there was very little hope of saving him. But money did it--the
money from the paper. I took him abroad to see the best physicians--I
took him to a warm climate every winter. In hot weather the doctors
recommended sea air, and we had a yacht and cruised every summer. I
owed his life to the _Radiator_. And when he began to grow stronger the
habit was formed--the habit of luxury. He could not get on without the
things he had always been used to. He pined in bad air; he drooped
under monotony and discomfort; he throve on variety, amusement, travel,
every kind of novelty and excitement. And all I wanted for him his
inexhaustible foster-mother was there to give!

"My husband said nothing, but he must have seen how things were going.
There was no more talk of giving up the _Radiator_. He never reproached
me with my inconsistency, but I thought he must despise me, and the
thought made me reckless. I determined to ignore the paper
altogether--to take what it gave as though I didn't know where it came
from. And to excuse this I invented the theory that one may, so to
speak, purify money by putting it to good uses. I gave away a great
deal in charity--I indulged myself very little at first. All the money
that was not spent on Alan I tried to do good with. But gradually, as
my boy grew up, the problem became more complicated. How was I to
protect Alan from the contamination I had let him live in? I couldn't
preach by example--couldn't hold up his father as a warning, or
denounce the money we were living on. All I could do was to disguise
the inner ugliness of life by making it beautiful outside--to build a
wall of beauty between him and the facts of life, turn his tastes and
interests another way, hide the _Radiator_ from him as a smiling woman
at a ball may hide a cancer in her breast! Just as Alan was entering
college his father died. Then I saw my way clear. I had loved my
husband--and yet I drew my first free breath in years. For the
_Radiator_ had been left to Alan outright--there was nothing on earth
to prevent his selling it when he came of age. And there was no excuse
for his not selling it. I had brought him up to depend on money, but
the paper had given us enough money to gratify all his tastes. At last
we could turn on the monster that had