And after that, when the chain-stores started going they asked me back to
New York--a big offer too--but it wasn't the kind I wanted and I threw it
down. I knew just how I wanted to come back to New York and that's the way
I came.
"I don't suppose my morals were too edifying those years. But they were as
good as the men I went with and I kept myself in hand. I saw men go to
pieces with drink--and I didn't drink. I saw men go to pieces over women--
and I kept away from that kind of woman. A man has to have women in his
life no matter how much you talk about it--but I took the kind with the
price-tag because when you paid them you were through. I could have
married a dozen times if I'd wanted but I didn't want--that old hocus-
pocus of tradition was still with me, stronger than death--I thought I
knew the kind of wife I wanted and she was in the East.
"Then the partnership with Jessup came and I took it. And after a year I
was made. I wasn't the last of one of the penniless old families that give
each other dinners once a month and pretend they're the real society
because they haven't money enough to trail in the present society game--
even by then I was--what did that last newspaper story say? 'a figure of
nation-wide importance.
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