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Updated: April 30, 2025
The very first time she had met Hilmer she had thought, "There's a man that Fred ought to know." She was perfectly willing to concede certain virtues to her husband, and she flattered herself that with the materials at her command she had managed to keep Fred pretty well up to the scratch. The only thing that had been lacking was plenty of money.
Fred took the proffered pasteboard and as he did so his fingers closed over Hilmer's mangled thumb. He could feel himself trembling from head to foot... He waited until Hilmer was gone. Then he crawled slowly in the direction of the street again. Midway he felt some force impelling him to a backward glance.
Had Hilmer climbed personally to upper circles or had the strata in which he found himself embedded been pushed up by the slow process of time? Had the term "middle class" become a misnomer? Was it really on the lowest level now? Perhaps it was ... perhaps it always had been... But so was the foundation of any structure. Foundation?... The thought intrigued him, but only momentarily.
Hilmer was the last woman in the world that Helen would have found bearable, much less attractive... He concluded that Helen was enjoying the novelty of watching Mrs. Hilmer nibble at a discreet feminine frivolity to which she was unaccustomed. After a while he looked for outward changes in Mrs. Hilmer's make-up.
That course didn't get either of them anywhere Hilmer remained at a level of torpid content, and naturally he looked down on his wife as a sort of sublimated servant girl who wasn't always preparing to leave and demanding higher wages... No, most men fell too easily in the trap of their personal comforts. Even Fred had become self-satisfied.
From this moment on everything was to be upon a frank and open basis. He went out at once to see Hilmer. His wife answered the door as she had done previously and he sat in the same seat he had occupied the night before. He had a sense of intrusion he felt that he was being tolerated.
It was inconceivable that they would pronounce the penalty of expulsion, although they might impose a fine. He was so glad to be rid of Brauer, though, that he counted the whole circumstance as little short of providential. He found a large mail at the office and quite a few remittances, but the Hilmer check was not in evidence. He remembered now, with chagrin, that Hilmer was away for the day.
And there came to him a realization of the terrible beauty of that moment which had released her spirit in white-heated transfiguration. A sudden pity for the living began to well up within him ... for Hilmer in the relentless grip of the harpy who would tear at his content with her scrawny fingers ... for Mrs.
"I really ought to be angry with you, Mr. Hilmer," she purred at him, archly. "It's very nice of you to attempt to be so gallant, but, after all, talk is pretty cheap, isn't it?... So far I don't seem to be making good as a solicitor. So what else is there left?" "How about being your husband's stenographer?" he asked, without a trace of banter. She forgot to be amazed.
We're not afraid to work a little bit more than we're paid for. We're thinking of something else besides money." Hilmer buttered a roll. "What, for instance?" "Why, the firm's interest ... our own advancement, of course ... the enlarged capacity that comes with greater skill and knowledge." He leaned back in his seat with a self-satisfied smile.
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