Mrs.
Thurston insisted--and Ida was inclined to believe--that there
were genuine cases of this kind on the list.
"It's mighty hard for women with expensive tastes and small
means to keep straight in New York," said she to Susan. "It
costs so much to live, and there are so many ways to spend
money. And they always have rich lady friends who set an
extravagant pace. They've got to dress--and to kind of keep up
their end. So--" Ida laughed, went on: "Besides the city
women are getting so they like a little sporty novelty as much
as their brothers and husbands and fathers do. Oh, I'm not
ashamed of my business any more. We're as good as the others,
and we're not hypocrites. As my lawyer friend says,
everybody's got to make a _good_ living, and good livings can't
be made on the ways that used to be called on the
level--they're called damfool ways now."
Ida's third source of income was to her the most attractive
because it had such a large gambling element in it. This was
her flirtations as a respectable woman in search of lively
amusement and having to take care not to be caught. There are
women of all kinds who delight in deceiving men because it
gives them a sweet stealthy sense of superiority to the
condescending sex. In women of the Ida class this pleasure
becomes as much a passion as it is in the respectable woman
whom her husband tries to enslave.
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