The Friend of Women and Other Stories Read Free

first-person narrator? I may not be writing fiction, yet to some extent all writing is fiction. I can certainly use the art of the novel for part of what I shall write about Cora and Letty, for I think I have some “in” as to what they might say in my absence, but Alfreda is more of a mystery, and I can set down only my speculations.
    Anyway, I shall start with Alfreda, for she is the only one of the trio whom I knew before I had her in a class. Her parents summered, as they put it, in Bar Harbor, Maine, where I too used to spend July and August in a rented room at the DeGregoire Hotel. As a bachelor who knew members of the summer colony who had daughters at my school, I received frequent invitations to dinner parties, some of which I found tedious but, as the representative of an academy at least partially dependent on their bounty, I hesitated to decline. I know it was something of a joke among the more liberal visitors to that enchanted island that my “kill off” dinner, given at the end of the season at the Pot and Kettle Club, was the best fun of the summer, as at the last minute I found I could not bear to invite all the bores who had wined and dined me and instead confined myself to the much more amusing folk who hadn’t.
    Mrs. Belknap, Alfreda’s mother, was a very sensible woman, not at all one of the summer bores, though a bit on the dry side, and I went with considerable pleasure to her shingled villa on the Shore Path where I met her then sixteen-year-old daughter. Alfreda was small, dark eyed and dark haired, reserved, and pretty, and dressed with a fashionable neatness that seemed more of her own taste and choosing than that of her rather plain and sober parent. Her conversation was advanced for her age, precise and a bit formal. She was very much the young lady. When I called one afternoon and found her mother out, Alfreda invited me to stay for tea and presided over the table like a practiced hostess. But she was intelligent and, unlike so many of her contemporaries, already had a clear concept of the woman she wanted to be.
    â€œI know it sounds odd,” she replied in answer to my question, “but I think what I’d like would be to find myself in a position in life where I’d be among the people who make the world go round.”
    â€œAnd would you be giving it a push of your own?”
    â€œIn a way. But the great thing would be to be there.”
    â€œYou mean, as the wife of some great man?”
    â€œWell, that would help, of course. But what I really mean is that I’d like to be able to shed some degree of influence. And not just on one man, but on more than one, and women, too. There’s much talk these days of women’s rights, and that’s well and good, but I’m still old-fashioned enough to think that the greatest effect that women can have on things is through their effect on men.”
    â€œYou mean romantically?”
    â€œWell, that’s one way. But not the one I’m thinking of. I was thinking more of women as a necessary supplement to men. As stimulating ideas and projects that men might not realize without them.”
    â€œIn what way?”
    â€œWell, one way might be to create an attractive milieu for the exchange of ideas.”
    â€œLike a salon?”
    â€œSomething like that. I believe uptown should be just as important as downtown. And a dinner party as productive as a conference room. I want to prepare myself for some such role. That’s why I’m so glad to be an eleventh grader this fall. I’ll be able to take your English course. Everyone says you have a wider vision of culture than any other teacher.”
    â€œHeavens! Well, you’ll be very welcome.”
    She proved almost at once to be one of my star pupils, and soon joined Cora and Letty at our weekend gatherings.
    When the question arose, after Alfreda’s debutante year, as to where she would best find the right matrimonial