I shan’t linger upon this part of my story. I am tempted to linger, but, after all, it is the commonplace of American life, familiar to all, though understood apparently by only a few. Why do more than ninety per cent of our small business men fail? Why are the savings banks accounts of our working classes a mere fraction of those of the working classes of other countries? And so on, and so on. But I see your impatience, gentle reader, with these matters so “inartistic.” We sank deeper and deeper in debt. Edna’s health did not improve. The girl we hired had lived with better class people; she despised us, shirked her work, and Edna did not know how to manage her. If the head of the household is incompetent and indifferent, a servant only aggravates the mess, and the more servants the greater the mess. All Edna’s interest was for her music, her novels, her social advancement, and her dreams of being a grand lady. These dreams had returned with increased power; they took complete possession of her. They soured her disposition, made her irritable, usually blue or cross, only at long intervals loving and sweet. No, perhaps the dreams were not responsible. Perhaps--probably--the real cause was the upset state of her health through the absurd idle life she led. Idle and lonely. For she would not go with whom she could, she could not go with whom she would. “I’m sick of sitting alone,” said she. “No wonder I can’t get well.” “Let’s go back near the old folks,” suggested I. “Our friends won’t come to see us in this part of the town. They feel uncomfortable.” “I should think they would!” cried she. “And if they came I’d see to it that they were so uncomfortable that they would never come again.” I worked hard. My salary went up to fifteen hundred, to two thousand, to twenty-five hundred. “Now,” said Edna, “perhaps you’ll get hands that won’t look like a laboring man’s. How can I hope to make nice friends when I’ve a husband with broken finger nails?” Our expenses continued to outrun my salary, but I was not especially worried, for I began to realize that I had the money-making talent. Three children were born; only the first--Margot--lived. Looking back upon those six years of our married life, I see after the first year only a confused repellent mess of illness, nurses, death, doctors, quarrels with servants, untidy rooms and clothes, slovenly, peevish wife, with myself watching it all in a dazed, helpless way, thinking it must be the normal, natural order of domestic life--which, indeed, it is in America--and wondering where and how it was to end. I recall going home one afternoon late, to find Edna yawning listlessly over some book in a magazine culture series. Her hair hung every which way, her wrapper was torn and stained. Her skin had the musty look that suggests unpleasant conditions both without and within. Margot, dirty, pimply from too much candy, sat on the floor squalling.