Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
always be feeling: “It’s a frock for her or a suit of clothes for me.” A very humiliating position for any man. . . I know it’s the modern fashion to pretend that it doesn’t matter; Phyllida says in so many words that the advantage of money to a girl is that she can marry where her heart leads her. A snare and a delusion, unless you mean that a woman with money and nothing else can occasionally buy herself position. . . I’m sure she picked that up from her poor mother. But, if Brackenbury married on his debts, he did bring something; I know we all had to work very hard for Ruth—“doing propaganda,” as my boy Will says—to shew people that the marriage was all right. . . And it will be the same with Will, if he ever marries. . . Whoever he marries. . . He does bring something. . .
Colonel Butler asked if people would think Phyllida had thrown herself away on him. What could I say? . . . But for the war, he told me, he would be earning his own living; and, do you know?, that was the only time the cloven hoof appeared.
“We’ve all of us had to make sacrifices,” I answered, “and the war ought not to be made either an excuse or—an opportunity.”
Goodness me, you don’t suppose my boy Will enjoyed the fatigues, the dangers. . . The
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