"How we did long for an airship. It would have been such fun, for she

does so disapprove of all of us; thinks us a little flock of silly geese.

Well, we are, I guess, but wasn't she one herself once? She has a pretty

hard time even now making life interesting for herself--out here, anyhow.

"Yesterday we motored down to Menlo and dropped in at the Maynards. There

were a lot of the props of San Francisco society, all as rich as croesus,

sitting on the veranda crocheting socks or sacks for a crop of new babies

that are due. One or two were hemstitching lawn, or embroidering a

monogram, or something else equally useless or virtuous. They were

talking mild gossip, and didn't even have powder on. It was ghastly--"

"Helene," said Ruyler abruptly, "what do you think is the secret of

happiness--I mean, of course, the enduring sort--perhaps content would be

the better word. Happiness is too dependent upon love, and love was never

meant for daily food. You are not by nature frivolous, and you are

capable of thought. Have you ever given any to the secret of content?"

"Yes, work," she answered promptly. "Everybody should have his daily job,

prescribed either by the state or by necessity; but something he must do

if both he and society would continue to exist."

Ruyler elevated his eyebrows and looked at her curiously. "Socialism. I

didn't know you had ever heard of it."

"Aileen and I are not such fools as we look--as you were good enough to

intimate just now. We went to a series of lectures early last winter over

at the University, on Socialism--a lot of us formed a class, but all

except Aileen and I dropped out.

"We continued to read for a time after the lectures were over, but of

course that didn't last. One drops everything for want of stimulus, and

when one begins to flutter again one is lost.

"But I heard and read and thought enough to deduce that the only vital

interest in life after one's secret happiness--which one would not dare

spread out too thin if one could in this American life--is necessary work

well done. And that is quite different from those fussy interests and

fads we create or take up for the sake of thinking we are busy and

interested.

"Polly's mother once told me she never was so happy in her life as during

those weeks after the earthquake and fire when all the servants had run

away and she had to cook for the family out in the street on a stove they

bought down in a little shop in Polk Street and set up and surrounded on

three sides by 'inside blinds.' She happened to have a talent for

cooking, and without her the family would have starved. Polly tied a

towel round her head and did the housework, or stood in a line and got

the daily rations from the Government. She never thought once of--"




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