But, Muetterchen, now comes the disgraceful part. I'm afraid of myself, even in spite of our affairs being so bad. Dad has doubtless told you something must be done very soon, and I seem to be the only one to do it. And yet I am shying at the gate. This trip has unsettled me, I tell you, letting me, among other things, see my old self. Before I always rather liked the idea of marriage, that is, after I'd been out a couple of years--not too well, but well enough--and now some way I rebel, not from scruples, but from pure selfishness. I'm beginning to find that I want to _enjoy myself_ and to find, further, that I'm not indisposed to _take chances_--as they say out here. Will you understand, I wonder? And do women who sell themselves ever find any real pleasure in the bargain? The most eloquent examples, the ones that sell themselves to _many men,_ lead wretched lives. But does the woman who sells herself to _but one_ enjoy life any more? She's surely as bad, from any standpoint of morals, and I imagine sometimes she is less happy. At any rate, she has less _freedom_ and more _obligations_ under her contract. You see I am philosophising pretty coldly. Now be _horrified_ if you will. I am selfish by good right, though. "Haven't we spent all our surplus in keeping you up for a good marriage?" says the mater, meaning by a good marriage that I shall bring enough money into the family to _"keep up its traditions."_ I am, in other words, an investment from which they expect large returns. I told her I hoped she could trace her selfishness to its source as clearly as I could mine, and as for the family traditions, Fred was preserving those in an excellent medium. Which was very ugly in me, and I cried afterwards and told her how sorry I was. Are you shocked by my cold calculations? Well, I am trying to let you understand me, and I-- "...have no time to waste In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth." I am cursed not only with consistent feminine longings and desires, but, in spite of my training and the examples around me, with a disinclination to be wholly vicious. Awhile ago marriage meant only more luxury and less worry about money. I never gave any thought to the husband, certainly never concerned myself with any notions of duty or obligation toward him. The girls I know are taught painstakingly how to get a husband, but nothing of how to be a wife. The husband in my case was to be an inconvenience, but doubtless an amusing one. For all his oppression, if there were that, and even for _the mere offence of his existence,_ I should wreak my spite merrily on his vulgar dollars.