David Graham Phillips
THE PRICE SHE PAID





I


HENRY GOWER was dead at sixty-one--the end of
a lifelong fraud which never had been suspected, and
never would be. With the world, with his acquaintances
and neighbors, with his wife and son and
daughter, he passed as a generous, warm-hearted,
good-natured man, ready at all times to do anything
to help anybody, incapable of envy or hatred or
meanness. In fact, not once in all his days had he ever
thought or done a single thing except for his own
comfort. Like all intensely selfish people who are wise,
he was cheerful and amiable, because that was the
way to be healthy and happy and to have those around
one agreeable and in the mood to do what one wished
them to do. He told people, not the truth, not the
unpleasant thing that might help them, but what they
wished to hear. His family lived in luxurious comfort
only because he himself was fond of luxurious comfort.
His wife and his daughter dressed fashionably and
went about and entertained in the fashionable,
expensive way only because that was the sort of life