If only her husband had enough money to enable her to live in New
York after the manner which would have suited her, she felt capable
of being a leading power in that great and dreadful city. Probably
she was right. The woman was in reality possessed of abnormal nerve
force. Had Wilbur Edes owned millions, and she been armed with the
power which they can convey, she might have worked miracles in her
subtle feminine fashion. She would always have worked subtly, and
never believed her feminine self. She understood its worth too well.
She would have conquered like a cat, because she understood her
weapons, her velvet charm, her purr, and her claws. She would not
have attempted a growling and bulky leap into success. She would have
slid and insinuated and made her gliding progress almost
imperceptible, but none the less remorseless.

But she was fated to live in Fairbridge. What else could she do?
Wilbur Edes was successful in his profession, but he was not an
accumulator, and neither was she. His income was large during some
years, but it was spent during those years for things which seemed
absolutely indispensable to both husband and wife. For instance,
to-night Wilbur would spend an extravagant sum upon this dinner,
which he was to give at an extravagant hotel to some people whom Mrs.
Edes had met last summer, and who, if not actually in the great swim,
were in the outer froth of it, and she had vague imaginings of future
gain through them. Wilbur had carried his dress suit in that morning.
He was to take a room in the hotel and change, and meet her at the
New York side of the ferry. As she thought of the ferry it was all
Mrs. Edes could do to keep her smooth brow from a frown. Somehow the
ferry always humiliated her; the necessity of going up or down that
common, democratic gang plank, clinging to the tail of her fine gown,
and seating herself in a row with people who glanced askance at her