She looked back upon her years of elaborate preparation;
she looked forward upon--nothing. That is, nothing but
marriage--dropping her name, dropping her personality,
disappearing in the personality of another. She had never seen a
man for whom she would make such a sacrifice; she did not believe
that such a man existed.
She meditated bitterly upon that cruel arrangement of Nature's
whereby the father transmits his vigorous qualities in twofold
measure to the daughter, not in order that she may be a somebody,
but solely in order that she may transmit them to sons. ``I
don't believe it,'' she decided. ``There's something for ME to
do.'' But what? She gazed down at Remsen City, connected by
factories and pierced from east, west and south by railways. She
gazed out over the fields and woods. Yes, there must be
something for her besides merely marrying and breeding--just as
much for her as for a man. But what? If she should marry a man
who would let her rule him, she would despise him. If she should
marry a man she could respect--a man who was of the master class
like her father--how she would hate him for ignoring her and
putting her in her ordained inferior feminine place. She glanced
down at her skirts with an angry sense of enforced masquerade.
And then she laughed --for she had a keen sense of humor that
always came to her rescue when she was in danger of taking
herself too seriously.
Through the foliage between her and the last of the stretches of
highroad winding up from Remsen City she spied a man climbing in
her direction--a long, slim figure in cap, Norfolk jacket and
knickerbockers.
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