mountains. It's
{113} the lonesomest place you ever saw. Twenty miles from nowhere,
with just a little track running down to the rail road, and nothing
worth mentioning when you get there.

"'Jim was awfully gone on me. Put up a spiel that he could n't live
without me, and all that. That was two years ago, and I was young and
tender hearted. Father had just dropped a whole bunch of money, and I
thought, 'Well, if any man wants to pay my bills as bad as that, I
guess I'll let him.' It looked like easy meal-tickets to me. Say! There's
no such thing as a soft snap in married life. You got to work for
your living, whoever he is. And I got so bored up in the mountains I
did n't know what to do. Any man's a bore if you see too much of him.
Jim's awful soft--wants to be babied all the time. Thought I did n't
love {114} him unless I looked just so and talked just so. Jerusalem!
How can you love anybody when you're a hundred miles from a matinee?
People have got to have what they're used to, even if they are
married, and that's a cinch. I used to go down to the city by myself
once in a while to visit Jim's sister, but there was n't anything in
that. She and I did n't get on. She never took me to a show once all
the time I was there. These in-laws are always looking at you through
a microscope. Ain't it awful? I don't claim my complexion will stand
that scrutiny. Did you have any in-laws?'

"'A few,' I said, thinking how Madam Ackroyd would look if she could
hear this conversation.

"'Well, anybody can have mine!' she said. 'Gee! How I hate to be bored!
I guess I'd be up on that mountain yet {115} if it hadn't been for
that. Last spring the son of the man who owns the mine took to coming
up to see about the output. I had him going in forty winks. I was just
amusing myself, but Jim got frightfully jealous. "See here," I says,
"I ain't going to let no mining man dictate to me, see? I'll tell you
that right now!" I was sore. To think he could n't let me have a bit
of fun, after the stupid winter I'd put in, frying his bacon. It
seemed plain selfish. So things ran along, and I got huffier and
huffier. Finally, when Joe volunteered he'd like to put up for me to
take this trip to Reno, I packed my suit-case and came away. It served
Jim right for being such an old grouch. What'd you think?

"I just opened my mouth and gasped. I could n't help it. Such
callousness!

"The girl looked at me queerly when {116} I did n't answer. 'What