ELLEN TERHUNE
523
nodded and smiled in concurrence. "Well, I'd like to put my problem
before you-if you don't mind being plunged into family problems the
very minute "you arrive. I know it's not a very cheerful welcome, but I
think that
if
I'm going to talk about
i~,
I'd better do it before Papa gets
back. You know that he doesn't give people much chance to express
opinions different from his own.-Well, here is my problem quite baldly.
A young man has asked me to marry him-" "And your father doesn't
approve of him," I put in, a little more at ease in the new situation than
I had been in the role of physician. "-And Papa doesn't approve of him
at all. In fact, he's violently opposed to my marrying him-and you
know how he is when he's opposed to anything. He's even making it
difficult now for Fred to come to the house." The young man, then-I
half-felt I had known it already-was Ellen's father, Fred Terhune, and
this was Ellen's mother, younger than when I had seen her before and
not yet decided about marrying him.
"Why does he object to this young man?" I asked. "It's simply
that he's in Wall- Street," she answered. "I think that his attitude is very
unreasonable. The financiers have done so much for this country and it's
ridiculous to pretend that they're not as good as our best-Mr. Morgan,
for example, who has just as much taste as Papa and is making such a
wonderful collection.
It
isn't as if he were in business! Fred's family
are Terhune Brothers, the bankers, and his position is perfectly unexcep·
tionable. I am sure that his character is soWJd. He was a little wild in his
younger days, but now he wants a home and an ordered life. That's hard
for Papa to understand, because Papa has always been occupied with
intellectual things, and he can't understand that a man whom he regards
as a mere man of fashion can be a proper person to marry. I really think
he'd rather I married a musician-someone preferably who played the
cello, so that we could have a family trio." I was aware of the prejudice
against "business" on the part of the professional classes that had lasted in
the United States till long after our national life had been actually dom–
inated by business men; but this prejudice was not generally extended to
bankers, and I put down the doctor's opposition to distrust of the particu·
Jar young man or to some special and personal crankiness. But she went
on to indicate another cause which I guessed to be fundamental. "Of
course, I understand, too, that Papa has been lonely since Mama's death,
and that he doesn't want to have me leave. But, after all, Papa has so many
resources-his work and his music and his collections and his chess-and
I can't go on like this forever. He doesn't understan.d that if I don't get
married now, I may be left alone myself. And Fred needs me, too-he's
told ine so with all the feeling of which anyone is capable--and I can see
that his bachelor life is beginning to do him harm.-Now please tell me
frankly and sincerely what you think I ought to do. Shall I just go ahead
and marry Fred in spite of Papa's opposition? I feel that he's perfectly
capable of refusing to give me anything and never having anything to do
