at we settled down among
them without stopping to consider the discrepancies between their
ways and our income. We were put up at a small country club--a
simple affair enough, comparatively speaking--that demanded six
weeks' salary in initial dues and much more in actual subsequent
expense. "Everybody" went out for Saturday golf and stayed for
dinner and dancing.

By fall there was in working operation a dinner club of the "younger
married set," as our local column in the city papers called us; an
afternoon bridge club; and a small theater club that went into town
every fortnight for dinner and a show. Costly little amusements, but
hardly more than were due charming young people of our opportunities
and tastes. I think that was our attitude, although we did not admit
it. In September we rented a "smart" little apartment. We had
planned to furnish it by means of several generous checks which were
family contributions to our array of wedding gifts. What we did was
to buy the furniture on the instalment plan, agreeing to pay twenty
dollars a month till the bill was settled, and we put the furniture
money into running expenses.

It was the beginning of a custom. They gave most generously, that
older generation. Visiting us, Max's mother would slip a bill into
my always empty purse when we went shopping; or mine would drop a
gold piece into my top bureau drawer for me to find after she had
gone. And there were always checks for birthdays.

Everything went into running expenses; yet, in spite of it, our
expenses ran quite away. Max said I was "too valuable a woman to put
into the kitchen," so we hired a maid, good-humoredly giving her
_carte blanche_ on the grocery and meat market. Our bills, for all
our dining out, were enormous. There were clothes, too. Max
delighted in silk socks and tailored shirts, and he ordered his
monogramed cigarettes by the thousand. My own taste ran to expensive
little hats.

It is hardly necessary to recount the details. We had our first
tremendous quarrel at the end of six months, when, in spite of our
furniture money and our birthday checks, we found ourselves two
hundred and fifty dollars in debt. But as we cooled we decided that
there was nothing we could do without; we could only be "more
careful."

Every month we reached that same concl