Mimi luxuriated in the unaccustomed idleness, in the realization that she had to do nothing she did not want to do. For the first time she realized how long and how hard she had been working. She saw now how steady had been the grind of the past eight years at Francine’s—she had loved it, but now that she saw it in perspective, it made her shudder to see how much of a machine she had become. It had needed the revivifying touch of love to make of her a human being again instead of a coldly inanimate object but little more human than one of the sewing-machines she so often had manipulated. So for months she did little but live the life of the affluent idle, sewing a bit or reading a bit more. She did nothing that could be called work other than supervising the work of her two maids or deciding with the cook what items of food should make up the evening dinner.
In the mornings, negligee-clad, she poured Jimmie’s coffee and commented with more or less interest on the things he read to her, between mouthfuls, from the morning paper. She rather wished he wouldn’t read to her, for it spoiled in a measure her own reading of the paper after he had gone. He liked to tell her what had happened, usually prefaced by the exclamation, “Oh, look here! Here’s a pretty how-to-do! Listen!” And dutifully she would hear him read how Harry Thaw was about to gain his freedom at last or how Babe Ruth had hit another home run, or learned that another woman had shot a man who had betrayed her. Such items together with the market pages ended Jimmie’s interest in the sheet, for he shunned all news from Washington or Europe as he would have dodged the plague—“I leave such heavy stuff to the spectacled birds who like it!”
Jimmie dutifully kissed and sent to the office, Mimi did what household duties she wanted to do, went shopping or to a matinée, and then waited for Jimmie’s homecoming and dinner. In the evening they went to the theatre or to a supper club or cabaret or, occasionally, they dined at the Crosbys’ or with other friends or in turn entertained at dinner. Her placid existence was so restful, so different from the stormy life which had been hers that Mimi wished it could be forever the same simple one. When Jimmie had swept aside her attempts to tell him why she could not marry him, Mimi had resolutely set her will towards securing some of that happiness which had eluded her. Grimly she resolved that she would be happy, she would forget all that had gone before and by devoting her every energy towards making Jimmie content, she would achieve contentment for herself too. There were two or three times during the first year they were married that she fancied she saw a quizzical, indecisive look in Jimmie’s eyes, but some jovial remark had always followed, proving he had not been thinking, as she had suspected and feared, of the things she had wanted to tell him which he had stopped. He loved her with a devotion that made her the centre of all his thoughts, and he was never happier than when she showed her pleasure in some little way in which he had sought to please her. “Not only are you the most beautiful but you’re the most appreciative and most wonderful wife a man ever had,” he would tell her, and his voice would always indicate beyond any doubt the sincerity that lay beneath his not very subtle compliments. …
They had been married a little more than a year. Mimi glanced idly through the mail beside her plate at breakfast as Jimmie performed his usual rite of picking juicy morsels from the World.
“ ‘New Prohibition Shakeup Threatened’—humph! the bootleggers must have started that—they’ll shoot prices way up to the sky for liquor now—reminds me, Mimi, how’s my stock? The gin must be getting kinda low—I’ll telephone McCarthy today. … Say, here’s a rich bit—about a Jew selling robes to the Ku Klux Klan. By the way, Mimi, have you seen my Shriner’s pin laying around anywhere? I must’ve left it in my grey suit when I sent it to the cleaners last week. Telephone them and see if I did, won’t you? … Here’s one from Georgia. Man asks native how much corn he expects to raise this year and the native answers: ‘Oh, ’bout a hundred gallons.’ Say, that’s rich, don’t you think so? … They’re talking about passing a law out in Iowa to keep schools from using textbooks that mention fermentation—say it’s against the prohibition laws. … And here’s a story where a crowd of women down in Louisiana tarred and feathered another woman and run her out of town. Kinda rough on the gal but she must’ve been pretty rotten. And over in Texas they lynched another nigger. They’re really cleaning things up. This Klan’s stirring up things all over-little rough, maybe—but these kikes and Catholics and niggers got to be kept under control. …”
Mimi listened only half-heartedly to Jimmie’s selection of the news which interested him—in fact, did not hear him. She interrupted him as he paused.
“Here’s a note from Mrs. Crosby—wants us to come to dinner Friday night—they’re having a few people in to meet some Chinaman—Wu Hseh-Chuan.”
“That’s the bird Horace met when he was in China—official or something Horace had to deal with to get some concession he wanted. Guess we’ll have to go.”
“You go along, Jimmie, and let me stay at home, won’t you?” Mimi asked, “I’m fed
