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"Milly would make a charming hostess in that big country place of Clive's. It would give her a free hand. What Milly has always wanted is a free hand she has the ability. And Clive is getting pudgy and set. He ought to marry he's too dreadfully selfish and self-centred," etc. Mrs. Montgomery Billman took the affair specially in charge.
"Well, I'm two and thirty, and have never been in the fray: a kind of nondescript, half scholar, and by nature half billman or bowman or musketeer; if I'm worth anything, London's the field for me. But that's what I have to try." "Papa will not like your serving with your pen in London: he will say you are worth too much for that." "Good men are at it; I should not care to be ranked above them."
Then, unexpectedly, the magazine became of first importance to the Bragdons. Milly, when she learned of the offer, was surprised that her husband did not show more elation. She had a woman's respect for any institution, and Mrs. Billman had made her feel that Bunker's was a very important institution. "What will they give?" she asked. "Six thousand."
"If you don't like the show you can get out." "All right, Mr. Billman, give me back my quarter." "Yes, give me my quarter and I'll go too," put in one of the shopkeepers of Oak Run. "And so will I go," added a woman. "Me, too," came in a voice from the rear of the crowd.
One evening in early June, just before her departure, he told her that Bunker's had changed hands: a "syndicate" had bought it, and he professed not to know whose money was in the syndicate. Hazel hinted that Grace Billman knew.... Bragdon seemed more than usually fagged this spring, after his annual attack of the grippe.
Their host arrived shortly in his car with Mrs. Montgomery Billman, who cast a scornful glance at the "shop party," nodded condescendingly at Milly, kissed Hazel on the tip of her nose, and retired to her room. The men came along later, in time for dinner, all except the popular novelist, who was motored over from another house party the next morning. Dinner was long and dull.
Montgomery Billman, of course, but she aspired to the Serious and the Distinguished, instead of the Rich or the merely Artistic. She went in for "movements" of all sorts and was a member of various leagues, and associations, and committees. Occasionally her name got into public print. Just at present she was in the "woman movement," about which she talked to Milly a good deal.
She felt that Hazel Fredericks never did things waywardly: she always had a well-calculated purpose hidden in her mind, just as she had a carefully conceived picture of herself that she desired to leave upon the minds of others. If Mrs. Billman had put her husband where he was in Bunker's by force, as her rival hinted, Mrs. Fredericks had also engineered "Stanny's" career with skilful strategy.
She had done something rather "queer" from the feminine point of view, however sensible a solution of her own problem it might be. She had confessed herself without ambition and "aim," as Hazel would put it; had no social sense or wish "to be Somebody," as Mrs. Billman would put it. She had become just plain Mrs. Nobody.
She's kind, if you don't put her to any trouble, and they have awfully good food.... It's a bore coming out to their place, but you have to, once in so often, you understand. You sit around and eat and look over the stables and the garden and all that sort of thing." She further explained that probably Grace Billman was motoring out with their host.
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