Adjustments

Snooty cougar

Fiction ~ short story
(First?) Published in Munsey's Magazine (US), April 1923?
4,210 words
(First read 25/03/2014)


EFB once again returns to the subject of what a lady should do when the man she's in love with is much much younger than her.  This lady's name is Isabel Avesham and, like Edith in Sheaves (1907), she's the recent widow of a man who was a perfect brute to her throughout their marriage, and who, despite all the unspeakable ~ and unnamed ~ treatment she received, has emerged on the other side with a 19-year-old son, her looks intact, and raring to go.  Her ten-years-older sister Florence is worried that if Isabel goes ahead and marries the 25-year-old gent who loves her ~ and whom she loves ~ only disaster can come of it.  At first reluctant to heed her big sis' warnings, Isabel eventually decides to do the honorable thing and prevent the proposal from happening at all.  The poor chap's sent away with a flea in his ear and all ends happily.  Except for him.  And for Isabel.
Not as bad as it might sound: it's mostly dialogue and internal monologue, and is decidedly on the Ladies Home Journal side, but it manages not to outstay its welcome.   Available online here