The Salt Of The Earth by Fred M. White

Adela, however, could not snap the chain for the present. She would have to drag it along until the time came when the fetters could be struck off. The more she thought of it the more hopeless the prospect seemed. A month or two ago she would have thought it incredible that she could have desired any change at all. She had appeared to be born for the part which she filled so readily. She was trying to think how it had all begun. What was the first step she took towards the dazzling position she occupied to-day? She had always been told that she was rich. Even at school she had been courted and flattered. She had started life with an easy-going chaperone, who had allowed her to do exactly as she pleased. Her education in society affairs must have been a gradual process, and all along the way there had been nothing but lavish and criminal waste of money.

Adela had never met with anything in the shape of a rebuff. She had experienced no moral or physical tonic, none of the cold douches of adversity which give tone and vigor to the system. To carry the metaphor further, Adela's bath had always been a marble one, always warm and always scented. For as long as she could remember she had been wrapped in the choicest wool, and the softest and most yielding silks. Indeed, there had been something almost Oriental in the splendor of her course. With her means she could command the best of everything, could arrange the clock of time to suit her lightest convenience. Everything seemed to run on oiled wheels. She had only to express a wish, and it was accomplished. Whatever she took a fancy to she procured heedless of the Day of Reckoning.