"But later? Most of your friends have spent a good deal of time in
Europe. I doubt if any state in the Union goes to Europe as often as
California! They are all the more discontented when they come back here
to vegetate--as Mrs. Thornton would express it.
"It would be a blessed interval, but no more."
"We should have time to think out a new and different life....
"You know--in the class I come from--in France--the women are the
partners of their husbands. Even in the higher bourgeoisie, that is,
where they still are in business, not living on great inherited
fortunes-"My uncle had a small silk house in Rouen, and my aunt kept the books
and attended to all the correspondence. He always said she was the
cleverer business man of the two; but French women have a real genius
for business. Some of our great ladies help their husbands manage
their estates.
"It is only the few that live for pleasure and glitter in the most
glittering city in the world that have furnished the novelists the
material to give the world a false impression of France.
"The majority live such sober, useful, busy lives that only the highest
genius could make people read about them.
"Of course, young girls dream of something far more brilliant, and wait
eagerly for the husband who shall deliver them from their narrow
restricted little spheres... perhaps take them to the great world of
Paris; but they settle down, even in Paris, and devote themselves to
their husbands' interests, which are their own, and to their children....
"That is it! They are indispensable--not as women, but as partners. I
barely know what your business is about--only that you are in some
tremendous wholesale commission thing with tentacles that reach half
round the world.
"Only the wives of politicians are any real help to their husbands in
this country. Isabel Gwynne! What a help she will be--has been--to Mr.
Gwynne. But then she was always busy. When her uncle died he left her
that little ranch and scarcely anything else, she took to raising
chickens--not to fuss about and fill in her time, but to keep a roof over
her head and have enough to eat and wear. I doubt if she ever was bored
in her life."
"I can't take you into the business, sweetheart," said Ruyler slowly.
"For that would violate the traditions of a very old conservative house.
But I can quite see that something must be done....
"I married you to make you happy and to be happy myself. I do not intend
that our marriage shall be a failure. It is possible that Harold would
consent to come out here and take my place. The business no longer
requires any great amount of initiative, but the most unremitting
vigilance. I have thought--it has merely passed through my mind--but you
might hate it--how would you like it if I bought a large fruit ranch,
several thousand acres, and put up a canning factory besides? I would
make you a full partner and you would have to give to your share of the
work considerably more than six hours of the day-"We could build a large, plain, comfortable house, take all our books and
pictures, subscribe to all the newspapers, magazines and reviews, keep up
with everything that is going on in the world, have house parties once in
a while, come to town for a few weeks in summer for the plays.