It always pleased Selma to be called endearing names, and it suited her in her present frame of mind to be dubbed a democrat, for it did not suit her to be painfully realizing that she was unable, at one brilliant swoop, to take her place as a leader in social influence. Somehow she had expected to do this, despite her first difficulties at Benham, for she had thought of New York as a place where, as the wife of Littleton, the architect, she would at once be a figure of importance. She shook her head and said, “It’s hard to believe that these people are really in earnest; that they are serious in purpose and spirit.” Meanwhile she was being haunted by the irritating reflection that her clothes and her bearing were inferior to those of the women she was passing. Secretly she was making a resolve to imitate them, though she believed that she despised them. She put her hand through her husband’s arm and added, almost fiercely, as she pressed closer to him, “We needn’t trouble our heads about them, Wilbur. We can get along without being rich and fashionable, you and I. In spite of what you say, I don’t consider this sort of thing American.”
“Get along? Darling, I was merely trying to be just to them; to let you see that they are not so black as they’re painted. We will forget them forever. We have nothing in common with them. Get along? I feel that my life will be a paradise living with you and trying to make some impression on the life of this big, striving city. But as to its not being American to live like these people—well you know they are Americans and that New York is the Mecca of the hard-fisted sons of toil from all over the country who have made money. But you’re right, Selma. Those who go in for show and extravagance are not the best Americans—the Americans whom you and I believe in. Sometimes I get discouraged when I stop to think, and now I shall have you to keep me steadfast to our faith.”
“Yes, Wilbur. And how far from here are we to live?”
“Oh, a mile or more. On some side street where the land is cheap and the rent low. What do we care for that, Selma mia?”