I find this entry:

"Roberta took me to dinner yesterday at the Lafayette with her friend
Mr. G----, a man of sixty, red-faced, fat and prosperous, the breezy
Westerner type. He is giving a grand party at Sherry's and wants me to
come. I said I was afraid I couldn't, my real reason being that I have
no dress that is nice enough. He said nothing at the time, but kept his
eyes on me, and this evening, when I got home, there was a perfectly
stunning dinner gown--it must have cost $250.--with a note from Mr.
G---- begging me to accept it as I would a flower, since it meant
absolutely nothing to him.

"How I longed to keep that gown! I think I should have kept it if
Seraphine had not happened in.

"'Isn't this lovely?' I said, holding it up. 'Do you think I can accept
it?' Then I told her what Mr. G---- had said.

"She looked at me out of her kind, wise eyes.

"'Do you like him?'

"'Well--rather.'

"'Is he married or unmarried?'

"'I think he's married.'

"'Is he the man who gave Roberta her sables?'

"'Y-yes,' I admitted.

"She looked at me again.

"'I can't decide for you, Pen; you must settle it with your own
conscience; but I am sure of one thing, that, if you accept this dress,
you will pay for it, and probably pay much more than it is worth.'

"It ended in my sending the gown back and missing the dinner party,
which made Mr. G---- furious, he blamed Roberta for my resistance, and a
little later he threw her over. Like most men of that type who promise
women wonderful things, he was hard, selfish and exacting--a
cold-blooded sensualist. And poor Roberta, indolent and luxurious, was
obliged to go back to work--up at seven and on her feet all day for
twenty dollars a week. She had been spending twenty dollars a day!

"What is a woman to conclude from all this?" I wrote despairingly. "I
know there are decent men in the world; there are employers who would
never think of becoming unduly interested in their good-looking women
assistants, who would never intimate that they had any claim upon the
evenings of pretty stenographers or secretaries; there are lawyers who
would never force odious attentions upon an attractive woman whose
divorce case they might be handling--'_Dear lady, how about a little
dinner and a cabaret show tonight?_'--There are old friends of the
family, serious middle-aged men who would never take advantage of a
young woman's weakness or distress; but, oh dear God! there are so many
other