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Hughes, Rupert, 1872-1956

"We Can't Have Everything"

Where was he
and with whom? She sat by the window and looked up and down the
street, but she could find none among the pedestrians who looked
like her possessor. She forgot him in the beauty of the town--all
black velvet and diamonds.
Once more she sat with her window open toward her Jerusalem and
worshiped the holy city of her desire. That night at the Biltmore
she was an ignorant country-town girl who had never had anything.
Now she had had a good deal, including a husband. But, strangely,
there was just as much to long for as before--more, indeed, for
she knew more things to want.
As the scientist finds in every new discovery a new dark continent,
in each atom a universe, so Kedzie found from each acquired desire
infinite new desires radiating fanwise to the horizon and beyond.
At first she had wanted to know the town--now she wanted to be known
by the town. Then her father stood in her way; now, her husband. She
had eloped from her parents with ease and they had never found her
again. She had succeeded in being lost.
She did not want to be lost any more; but she was lost, utterly
nobody to anybody that mattered. Now was her chance, but she could
not run away from her husband and get famous without his finding her.
If he found her he would spoil her fun and her fame. She did not
know how many public favorites are married, how many matinee idols
are managed by their wives. She had never heard of the prima donna's
husband.


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