The Custom of the Country

by Edith Wharton

“Well, anyhow,” he broke out, “you were my wife once, and you were my wife first—and if you want to come back you’ve got to come that way: not slink through the back way when there’s no one watching, but walk in by the front door, with your head up, and your Main Street look.” Since the days when he had poured out to her his great fortune-building projects she had never heard him make so long a speech; and her heart, as she listened, beat with a new joy and terror. It seemed to her that the great moment of her life had come at last—the moment all her minor failures and successes had been building up with blind indefatigable hands.

There are things a man doesn’t do. I understand why your husband won’t sell those tapestries—till he’s got to. His ancestors are his business: Wall Street’s mine.”

laconic

Even now, however, she was not always happy. She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them. And there had been moments lately when she had had to confess to herself that Moffatt did not fit into the picture.

she had been dazzled by his success and subdued by his authority. He had given her all she

She had learned that there was something she could never get, something that neither beauty nor influence nor millions could ever buy for her. She could never be an Ambassador’s wife; and as she advanced to welcome her first guests she said to herself that it was the one part she was really made for.