It was curious, this double
mania of the men and the women--the mania to get
money, no matter how; the instantly succeeding mania
to get rid of it, no matter how. Looking about her,
Mildred felt that she was peculiar and apart from nearly
all the women she knew. SHE got her money honorably.
SHE did not degrade herself, did not sell herself, did not
wheedle or cajole or pretend in the least degree. She
had grown more liberal as her outlook on life had
widened with contact with the New York mind--no,
with the mind of the whole easy-going, luxury-mad,
morality-scorning modern world. She still kept her
standard for herself high, and believed in a purity for
herself which she did not exact or expect in her friends.
In this respect she and Cyrilla Brindley were sympathetically
alike. No, Mildred was confident that in no
circumstances, in NO circumstances, would she relax her
ideas of what she personally could do and could not do.
Not that she blamed, or judged at all, women who did
as she would not; but she could not, simply could not,
however hard she might be driven, do those things--
though she could easily understand how other women
did them in preference to sinking down into the working
class or eking out a frowsy existence in some poor
boarding-house.
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