Page:The Cheat (1923).pdf/183

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You are young and beautiful and you don't want to postpone the good things in life. I don't blame you for being dissatisfied with what I had to offer. You were never meant for any other environment except the one you're in now.

"Some women are like some trees—they can't be transplanted. I once knew a very rich girl who eloped with her chauffeur at Newport. I was a good friend of hers and she told me with shining eyes about her romance and how happy she would be with him in a little house in the shabby part of town where he lived. In six months they were getting a divorce. I saw her afterward. She told me how during that six months she would walk blocks out of her way to avoid her former friends, how her mother smuggled money to her so she could have decent clothes. And the funny part of it was that the chauffeur wanted the divorce even more than she did. She couldn't cook potatoes any better than he could afford a yacht.

"Well, perhaps I'm a little like the chauffeur. I have my own wants. They're different than they used to be before we were married. I suppose it's selfish pride, but I want to feel a wife's dependence on me. I want to work for her, fight for her if need be, and when I come home at night I want to find her there