Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/350

 above them, of St. Paul's, Westminster, the Roman remains at Bath. What a world removed her mother lived in, how far from Mrs. Russell's flat on Clearedge Street and from Cragero's; and yet, how closely were those worlds connected to-day, opposite though they were, when for her father to resort to one was an outcome of her mother inhabiting the other.

Church bells were ringing—so many bells in Evanston—and booming with no wondering appeal; for people were going to church and as they passed, suddenly it was not Marjorie Hale but Marjorie Conway, roommate of Clara Seeley, who watched them from the window. There they passed, men and women, young and older; and just now Marjorie was thinking particularly of certain of the women, good and respectable by any ordinary reckoning. That was, they maintained honesty, verbal and financial integrity, agreeable manners, and professed faith, hope and charity, and practiced giving to the poor. But what gave they for what they gave away? What gave they for the far greater sums they lavished directly, or indirectly, upon themselves?

They had given, or they meant to give sometime, under conditions which would cost them as little as possible, the pain and inconvenience of motherhood; some of them once and that once for all; some of them twice. Then afterwards these had lived, or they meant to live, by what?

Marjorie imagined Clara Seeley beside her and knowing what she did about some of these people; and she seemed to hear Clara say: "Kept wives!"

And to possess a mansion, to build for yourself the housing for a family with many rooms and with wide lawn and to fill it with servants enough to minister to many, to buy with your husband's money the display