--I hate every page of it!" he said.

Well, I have been wondering these twenty years if perhaps they'll talk
about it--the whole thing--some day. At the time, we all acted as if
it were the most natural thing in the world for Margarita to settle
down as a _haus frau_--perhaps when _Nora_ got done with her studies
of life (for I read Sue's Ibsen, you see) that is what she did, after
all!

At any rate, I frankly hope so. For if all the wisdom and experience
and training that the wonderful sex is to gain by its exodus from the
home does not get back into it ultimately, I can't (in my masculine
stupidity) quite see how it's going to get back into the race at all!
And then what good has it done? I hope Mr. Ibsen knows!

CHAPTER XXXI

FATE EMPTIES HER CREEL

[FROM SUE PAYNTER]

PARIS, Feb. 10th., 189--

JERRY DEAR:

What must you think of me for delaying so long to write,
after the few curt words I found for you that night? I hope
you know that something must have kept me and have forgiven
me already. Poor little Susy was taken very sick the night
you sailed, with violent pains and a high fever. Fortunately
there is a good American doctor here--a Doctor Collier--and
we pulled her through, though it seemed a doubtful thing at
one time. The doctor decided that she had appendicitis (I
never heard of it before) and operated immediately on her,
which undoubtedly saved her life. It seems that Mother
Nature is not quite so clever as we have always thought her
and has left a very dangerous little _cul-de-sac_ somewhere,
that ought not to be there, so modern science takes it out.
Isn't that strange? The doctor has just come over to operate
for this in Germany somewhere; he was an assistant of Dr.
McGee, whom you sent to the South, and can't say enough of
the magnificent work he is doing there. He was much
interested to find I knew all about it and that Uncle Morris
stocked the dispensary. Isn't the world small?

I hope you're not feeling too badly about Margarita--don't.
Of course I understand what the stage has lost, and you will
confess that I was as anxious for her career as anybody,
even when I was sorriest for Roger. I wanted her to have her
rights as an artist. But if _she_ doesn't want them--ah,
that's a different pai