modesty having failed to enlighten her on this subject, her feelings were
those of outraged astonishment, and she was quite determined not to
repeat the experience a third time. Knowledge thus belatedly acquired,
for a while she abandoned herself to the satisfaction afforded by the
ability to take a commanding position in Hampton society, gradually to
become aware of the need of a more commodious residence. In a certain
kind of intuition she was rich. Her husband had meanwhile become Agent of
the Chippering Mill, and she strongly suspected that his prudent
reticence on the state of his finances was the best indication of an
increasing prosperity. He had indeed made money, been given many
opportunities for profitable investments; but the argument for social
pre-eminence did not appeal to him: tears and reproaches, recriminations,
when frequently applied, succeeded better; like many married men, what he
most desired was to be let alone; but in some unaccountable way she had
come to suspect that his preference for blondes was of a more liberal
nature than at first, in her innocence, she had realized. She was
jealous, too, of his cronies, in spite of the fact that these gentlemen,
when they met her, treated her with an elaborate politeness; and she
accused him with entire justice of being more intimate with them than
with her, with whom he was united in holy bonds. The inevitable result of
these tactics was the modern mansion in the upper part of Warren Street,
known as the "residential" district. Built on a wide lot, with a garage
on one side to the rear, with a cement driveway divided into squares, and
a wall of democratic height separating its lawn from the sidewalk, the
house may for the present be better imagined than described.

A pious chronicler of a more orthodox age would doubtless have deemed it
a judgment that Cora Ditmar survived but two years to enjoy the glories
of the Warren Street house. For a while her husband indulged in a foolish
optimism, only to learn that the habit of matrimonial blackmail, once