A Marrying Man by G.B. Stern — Read

Patricia O'Neill had grown up a victim to the excitement of big ideas. Thus she lived her life on something of an heroic scale. She could go through anything that was disagreeable to her, once she had fitted an "idea" to it; an idea that allowed of translation into tangible action, that is; she had no use for the abstract theory which dwelt aloof from its owner, and which could be kept comfortably enshrined in a crystal or high on an inaccessible shelf. But there was a tingling curiosity in seeing how existence worked out, adapted afresh to each big idea applied. Patricia discovered joyously that there were few thoughts or desires, brain-conceived, that could not immediately be put into execution -- provided, of course, that one were willing to accept the consequent damage. And here, she stood by a certain immortal discovery she had made when, as a child, she had been afflicted with toothache: "I can always pretend it's out and on the mantelpiece and aching over there without me; and when Mr. Wright tugs, I never _quite_ guess beforehand just how much it's going to hurt; so that it's all fun -- even if it's hateful fun...."

So she raced through the years in a fashion calculated to cause much anxiety to an adoring family not aware of the true inner significance that would provide a clue to most of her inexplicable doings. "Pat's terribly inconsistent," said Ann, her one step-sister. "Pat's an egoist," pronounced Hetty, the other step-sister. And: "I wish Patricia were more conventional! " sighed Mrs. O'Neill. But if these accusations were just -- if Pat did leap from idea to idea, she was always splendidly consistent to the one temporarily enthroned; only she was wise enough to lay herself open to Ann's accusation rather than cling to an idea that had lost its elasticity, that had gone slack to the pull. And if she were indeed unconventional, it was from no motive of cussedness or desire to shock, but merely that in the tearing progress of whatsoever wagon she drove, star-hitched, athwart space and along the rim of the skies, she would not stay for the impediments that little people had lain along their little pavements, to hinder the swift.