A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts

by Therese Anne Fowler

Status gave a woman more control over her existence, more protection from being battered about by others’ whims or life’s caprices.

Love was a frivolous emotion, certainly no basis for a marriage—every young lady knew this. You must always put sense over feeling, Madame Denis, Alva’s favorite teacher, had said.

Sense will feed you, clothe you, provide your homes and your horses and your bibelots. Feelings are like squalls at sea—mere nuisances if one is lucky, but many girls have lost their way in such storms, some of them never to return.

It’s as though someone made a new rulebook after the war and only certain women possess a copy.”

This life is the life of millionaires’ sons and wives and daughters. Who needs to love a man anyway, if you have his money?

Her mother had been so wrong. If God had not wanted a woman to be able to experience some pleasure this way, he would have made her arms shorter.

OMG.

Isn’t that a marvelous word for a drink, cock-tail? How far up the pole must someone have been to equate a cock’s tail—or perhaps a cocked tail—with mixed liquors?”