But the dull way of thrift was not Milly's; it was not American. Improvements there are financed by mortgage, not by savings. They must borrow to make the next step.... Milly had lofty ideals of helping her husband in his work. She was to be his inspiration in Art, of course: that was to go on all the time. More practically she hoped to serve as model from which his creations would issue to capture fame. She had heard of artists who had painted themselves into fame through their wives' figures, and she longed to emulate the wives. But this illusion was shattered during the first year of their married life. When Bragdon essayed a picture in the slack summer season, it was discovered that Milly, for all her vivacious good looks, was not paintable in the full figure. (They had tried her on the sands behind the flat, where they rigged up an impromptu studio out of old sails.) Her legs were too short between the thigh and the knee, and when the artist tried to correct this defect of his model, the result was disastrous.... However, what was of more practical purpose, her head answered very well, and Milly's pretty face adorned the covers of various minor magazines, done in all possible color schemes at twenty dollars per head. "I earn something," she said, by way of self-consolation. She had another disappointment. She had imagined that her husband would do most of his work at home, immediately under her fostering eye, and that in this way she should have a finger, so to speak, in the creative process; but for the present the sort of "art" they lived on was best done in an office, with the thud of steam presses beneath and the eager eye of the copy-reader at the door. So Milly was left to herself for long hours in her new little home, and Milly was lonely. The trouble obviously was that Milly had not enough to do to occupy her abundant energy and interest in life. They were not to have children if possible: in the modern way they had settled beforehand that _that_ was impossible. And modern life had also so skilfully contrived the plebeian machinery of living that there was little or nothing left for the woman to do, if she were above the necessity of cooking and washing for her man. Deliberately to set herself to find an interesting and inexpensive occupation for her idle hours was not in Milly's nature,--few women of her class did in those days. It was supposed to be enough for a married woman to be "the head of her house"--even of a four-room modern apartment--and to be a gracious and desirable companion to her lord in his free hours of relaxation. Anything else was altogether "advanced" and "queer."