abies in your life. It wouldn't
satisfy some women ten minutes. Elise wouldn't give up one of her babies
for a business paying thirty per cent."

"But Tom," I replied calmly. "We all can't marry. Some of us----"

"_You_ could have. This is not natural. 'Tisn't according to nature. No,
sir. Abnormal. Down here in New York living like a man. What do you want
to copy men for? Why don't you devote yourself to becoming an ideal
woman, Ruth? That's what I want to know. I don't approve of this sort of
thing at all."

I felt no anger. I felt no impulse to strike back. I had reached such an
elevation on my mountain of Self-discovery, as Esther would have put it,
that I commanded vision at last. Tom and his ideas did not obstruct my
progress, like the huge blow-down that he had once been in my way,
against which I had blindly beaten my fists raw. I had found my way
around Tom. I could look down now and see him in correct proportion to
other objects in the world about me. I saw from my height that such
obstructions as Tom could be circumvented--a path worn around him, as
more and more girls pursued the way I had chosen. I looked down and
perceived, already, girls trooping after me. There was no use hacking
away at Tom any more. Nature herself removes blow-downs on
mountain-trails in time, by a process of slow rot and disintegration.
When time accomplishes the same with the Toms of the world then we
shan't need even to walk around. We can walk over!

So, "I know you don't approve, Tom," I replied almost gently, "and
there's truth in what you say--that women are made to run homes and
families, instead of businesses, most of them. Of course Elise wouldn't
give up one of her babies! She's one of the 'most-of-them.' How are the
babies anyway?"

CHAPTER XXVIII

A CALL FROM BOB JENNINGS

One day, however, I realized that I hadn't walked around Tom. I really
hadn't circumvented, by persistence and determination, the obstacles
that lay in the way to triumph. Some one, like a fairy godmother from
Grimm's, had waved a wand and wished the obstacles away. Virginia told
me about it. I learned that except for Mrs. Sewall I might still be
delivering bandboxes. The searchlight following me about wherever I went
for the last six months, making my way bright and easy, came not from
heaven. It came instead from a lady in black who chose to conceal her
good offices beneath an unforgiving manner, as she hid the five hundred
dollars ins