n Siddall. Anyhow, who was she, that had been the wife of Siddall,
to be so finicky?

"You don't believe me?" he said miserably. "You think I'll forget
myself sometime again?"

"I hope not," she said gently. "I believe not. I trust you, Stanley."

And she went into the house. He looked after her, in admiration of the
sweet and pure calm of this quiet rebuke. She tried to take the same
exalted view of it herself, but she could not fool herself just then
with the familiar "good woman" fake. She knew that she had struck the
flag of self-respect. She knew what she would really have done had he
been less delicate, less in love, and more "practical." And she found
a small and poor consolation in reflecting, "I wonder how many women
there are who take high ground because it costs nothing." We are prone
to suspect everybody of any weakness we find in ourselves--and perhaps
we are not so far wrong as are those who accept without question the
noisy protestations of a world of self-deceivers.

Thenceforth she and Stanley got on better than ever--apparently. But
though she ignored it, she knew the truth--knew her new and deep
content was due to her not having challenged his assertion that she
loved him. He, believing her honest and high minded, assumed that the
failure to challenge was a good woman's way of admitting. But with the
day of reckoning--not only with him but also with her own
self-respect--put off until that vague and remote time when she should
be a successful prima donna, she gave herself up to enjoyment. That
was a summer of rarely fine weather, particularly fine along the Jersey
coast. They--always in gay parties--motored up and down the coast and
inland. Several of the "musical" men--notably Richardson of
Elberon--had plenty of money; Stanley, stopping with his cousins, the
Frasers, on the Rumson Road, brought several of his friends, all rich
and more or less free. As every moment of Mildred's day was full and
as it was impossible not to sleep and sleep well in that ocean air,
with the surf soothing the nerves as the lullaby of a nurse soothes a
baby, she was able to put everything unpleasant out of mind. She was
resting her voice, was building up her health; therefore the career was
being steadily advanced and no time was being wasted. She felt sorry
for those who had to do unpleasant or disagreeable things in making
their careers. She told herself that she did not deserve her good
fortune