Eveley fairly glared upon him. "What do you mean by that? Why a simp? Why shouldn't I be left a couple of millions as well as anybody else? Maybe you think I haven't sense enough to spend a couple of millions."

"And why did you require advice?" Eileen queried.

"Oh, yes." Eveley smiled again. "Yes, of course. Now you must all think desperately for a while--I hate to ask so much of you, Nolan--but perhaps this once you won't mind--I want you to tell me what to do with the money."

This was indeed a serious responsibility. What to do with twenty-five hundred dollars?

"You do not feel it is your duty to spend the twenty-five hundred pounding Americanism into your Irish-American Wops?" asked Nolan facetiously.

Eveley took this good-naturedly. "Oh, I got off from work at four-thirty and went down to their field, and we had a celebration. We had ice-cream and candy and chewing gum, and I spent twenty-five dollars equipping them with b.a.l.l.s and bats and since I was with them an hour and a quarter, I feel that I am ent.i.tled to the rest of the fortune myself."

"Well, dearie," said Eileen, "it is really very simple. Put it in a savings account, of course. Keep it for a rainy day. You may be ill. You may get married--"

"Can't she get married without twenty-five hundred dollars?" asked Nolan, with great indignation. "She doesn't expect to buy her own groceries when she gets married, does she?"

"She may have to, Nolan," said Eileen gently. "One never knows what may happen after marriage. Getting married is no laughing matter, and Eveley should be prepared for any exigency."

"But, Eileen, she won't need her twenty-five hundred to get married. No decent fellow would marry a girl unless he could support her, and do it well, even luxuriously. You don't suppose I would let my wife spend her twenty-five hundred--"

"If you mean me, I shall do whatever I like with my own money when I get married," said Eveley quickly. "My husband will have nothing to say about it. You needn't think for one minute--"

"I am not your husband, am I? I haven't exactly proposed to you yet, have I?"

Eveley swallowed hard. "Certainly not. And probably never will. By the time you get around to it, getting married will be out of date, and none of the best people doing it any more."

"You may not have asked her, Nolan," said Eileen evenly. "And that is your business, of course. She will probably turn you down when you do ask her, just as she does everybody else. But--"

"Who has been asking her now?" he cried, with jealous interest.

"But while we are on the subject, I hope you will permit me to say that I think your principles are all wrong, and even dangerous. You think a man should wait a thousand years until he can keep a wife like a pet dog, on a cushion with a pink ribbon around her neck--"

"The dog's neck, or the wife's?"

"The dog's--no, the wife's--both of them," she decided at last, with never a ruffle. "You want to wait until she is tired of loving, and too old to have a good time, and worn out with work. It isn't right. It is not fair. It is unjust both to yourself, and to Eve--to the girl."

"But, my dear child," he said. Eileen was three years older than Nolan; but being a lawyer he called all women "child." "My dear child, do you realize that my salary is eighteen hundred a year, and I get only a few hundred dollars in fees. Think of the cost of food these days, and of clothes, and amus.e.m.e.nts, to say nothing of rent! Do you think I would allow Eve--my wife, to go without the sweet things of--"

"You needn't bring me in," said Eveley loftily. "I have never accepted you, have I?"

"No, not exactly, I suppose, but--"

"Eveley," said Miriam, suddenly sitting erect on the couch. "I have it."

"Sounds like the measles," said Kitty.

"I mean I know what to do with the money. Listen, dear. You do not want to go on slaving in an office until you are old and ugly. And Nolan is quite right, you certainly can not marry a grubby clerk in a law office."

Nolan laughed at that, but Eveley sat up very straight indeed and fairly glowered at her unconscious friend on the couch.

"You must have the soft and lovely things of life, and the way to get them is to marry them. Now, sweet, you take your twenty-five hundred, be manicured and ma.s.saged and shampooed until you are glowing with beauty, buy a lot of lovely clothes, trip around like a lady, dance and play, and meet men--men with money--and there you are. You can look like a million dollars on your twenty-five hundred--and your looks will get you the million by marriage."

"Miriam Landis, that is shameful," said Nolan in a voice of horror. "It is disgraceful. I never thought to hear a woman, a married woman, a nice woman, utter such low and grimy thoughts. Could any such marriage be happy?"

"Well, Nolan," said Miriam sadly, "I am not sure that any marriage can be happy, or was ever supposed to be. But women are such that they have to try it once. Eveley will be like all the rest. And if she has to try it, she had better try it with a million, than with eighteen hundred a year."

"There is something in that, Miriam, certainly," said Eveley thoughtfully. "What do you think, Eileen?"

"I think it is absurd. The notion that woman was born for marriage died long ago. Ridiculous! Woman is born for life, for service, for action, just as man is. Look at the married people you know. How many of them are happy? I do not wish to be personal, but I know very few married people, either men or women, who would not be glad to undo the marriage knot if it could be done easily and quietly without notoriety. They are not happy. But we are happy. Why? Because we work, we think, we feel, we live. We are not slaves to the contentment of man. Go on working, my dear. Keep your independence. But play safe. Put your money in the bank, or in some good investment, and let it safeguard your future. Then you can go your way serene."

"That is certainly sound. Marriage isn't the most successful thing in the world."

"I should say not," chimed Kitty. "Husbands are always tired of wives, their own, I mean, inside of five years."

"Well, if it comes to that," said Eveley honestly, "I suppose wives are tired of their own husbands, too. But they are so stubborn they won't admit it. In their hearts I suppose they are quite as sick of their husbands as their husbands are of them."

"Eve," said Nolan anxiously, "where are you getting all these wicked notions? Marriage is the most sacred--"

"Inst.i.tution. I know it. Every one says marriage is a sacred inst.i.tution, and so is a church. But n.o.body wants to live with one permanently."

"But, Eveley, the sanct.i.ty of the--"

"Home. Sure, we know it is sanctified. But monotonous. Deadly monotonous."

"Eve," and his voice was quite tragic, "don't you feel that the divine sphere of--"

"Woman. You needn't finish it, Nolan; we know it as well as you do. The divine sphere of woman is in the sanctified home keeping up the sacred inst.i.tution of marriage while her husband--oh, tralalalalalala."

"Yes, sir, I'll go you," cried Kitty suddenly, leaping up from the floor, and waving her hand. "Europe! You and I together."

"She has come to," said Eileen resignedly. "There's an end of sensible talk for this evening."

"Yes, Kit, what is it? I knew you would think of something good."

"We'll go to Europe, you and I. I think I can work dad to let me go. I can pretend to fall in love with the plumber, or somebody, and he'll be glad to trot me off for a while. And he likes you, Eveley. He thinks you are so sensible."

"Why, he hardly knows me," cried Eveley, astonished.

"Yes, that is why. I tell him how sensible you are when you are not there, and when he gets home I hustle you out of his sight in a hurry. He likes me to have sensible friends."

"And what shall we do with the money?"

"Travel, travel, travel, and have a gay good time," said Kitty blithely.

"All over Europe. We'll get some handsome clothes, and have the time of our lives as long as the money lasts, and then marry dukes or princes or something like that."

"Two of you," shouted Nolan furiously. "Well, Eve, it is a good thing you have one friend to give you really decent advice. Of all idiotic ideas.

Buy fine clothes and marry a millionaire. Save it to pay for potatoes when you get a husband that can't support you. Travel to Europe and marry some purple prince."

"Why purple?" asked Eveley curiously.