me in warning the bride that the agonies of
motherhood, and the long ensuing slavery, were avoidable, and Clara had
entirely agreed with her mother's ideas, and used to laughingly assure
the few old friends who touched upon this delicate topic, that she
herself "was baby enough for Will!" Robbed in this way of her natural
estate, and robbed by the size of her husband's income from the
exhilarating interest of making financial ends meet, Mrs. White, for
seventeen years, had led what she honestly considered an enviable and
carefree existence. She bought beautiful clothes for herself, and
beautiful things for her house, she gave her husband and her mother
very handsome gifts. She was a perfect hostess, although it must be
admitted that she never extended the hospitalities of her handsome home
to anyone who did not amuse her, who was not "worth while". She ruled
her servants well, made a fine president for the local Women's Club,
ran her own motor-car very skillfully, and played an exceptionally good
game of bridge. She was an authority upon table-linens, fancy
needlework, fashions in dress, new salads, new methods in serving the
table.

Willard White, as perfect a type in his own way as she was in hers, was
very proud of her, when he thought of her at all, which was really much
less often than their acquaintances supposed. He liked his house to be
nicely managed, spent his money freely upon it, wanted his friends
handsomely entertained, and his wine-cellar stocked with every
conceivable variety of liquid refreshment. If Clara wanted more
servants, let her have them, if she wanted corkscrews by the gross,
why, buy those, too. Only let a man feel that there was a maid around
to bring him a glass when he came in from golfing or motoring, and a
corkscrew with the glass!

As a matter of fact, his club and his office, and above all, his
motor-cars, absorbed him. His natural paternal instinct had been
diverted toward these latter, and, quite without his knowing it, his
cars were his nursery. Willard White had owned the first electric car
ever seen in Santa Paloma. Later, there had been half-a-dozen machines,
and he loved them all, and spoke of them as separate entities. He spoke
of the runs they had made, of the strains they had triumphantly
sustained, and he and his chauffeur held low-toned conferences over any
small breakage, with the same seriousness that he might have used had
Willard Junior--supposing there to have been su