Mrs Spring Fragrance

Even though Will had previously declared he would not come to Alice again unless she had requested his presence, he go to her home. At first, they avoid the real reason Will is there, and they instead discuss one of his upcoming trials. The gifts from other suitors, which grace the small sitting-room, troubles Will.

Will brings up how at one time Alice told Will she loved him. Alice tries to put Will off, but he kisses her. Finally, Alice moves away from him, saying, “I cannot marry you while your mother regards me as beneath you” (17). Will persists, but Alice insists that she will not be his wife until his mother welcomes her “with pride and with pleasure” (17). Dejected, Will leaves Alice’s home, unaware of how much she wants to accept his proposal. 

When Will passes the home of the Spring Fragrances without a greeting, Mr. Spring Fragrance correctly guesses that “Will Carman has failed to snare his bird” (17). Mrs. Spring Fragrance laments how she does not have the “divine right of learning” (18),which would allow her to write on these “mysterious, inscrutable, incomprehensible Americans” (18). This is a sore point for Mr. Spring Fragrance. The prior evening, he and several other merchants had hosted a dinner given in honor of young students who had come from China. The newspapers had heaped praise on the students but made no mention of the merchants who had made it possible for the students to come to the United States and continue their studies. Mr. Spring Fragrance had been young when he came to America and worked his way up in the business world. He uses his success to support his home city of Canton, but he still feels insecure about his lack of a formal education.

Mrs. Spring Fragrance puts her husband at ease by asking his advice on how to go about investigating the story of the “Inferior Woman.” Mr. Spring Fragrance suggests interviewing the “Superior Woman,” which causes his wife to state: “[N]o sage was ever so wise as my Great Man” (19).

Ethel Evebrook is the “Superior Woman” Mary Carman would like her son to marry. Ethel has no intention of marrying anyone before “ten years in which to love, live, suffer, see the world, and learn about men (not schoolboys)” (21). Ethel is also great friends with Alice and holds her friend in high regard even if her mother and Will’s mother do not.

Ethel’s mother reads her daughter a letter from Mary Carman disparaging Alice’s family history and her success as a private secretary in a law firm, which Mary attributes to Alice’s “friendship and influence of men far above her socially” (20). Mary feels that Alice’s position “by rights belongs only to a well-educated young woman of good family” (20). She ends her letter by asking:

Is it not disheartening to our woman’s cause to be compelled to realize that girls such as this one can win men over to be their friends and lovers, when there are so many splendid young women who have been carefully trained to be companions and comrades of educated men? (20).

Ethel pushes back against the assertion that Alice achieved her position in a dishonorable manner. She argues, “If any young man had accomplished for himself what Alice Winthrop has accomplished, Mrs. Carman could not have said enough in his praise” (21). Ethel feels women like Alice, who make their own way in the world, are superior to young woman born of “good family” who are “after all nothing but schoolgirls in comparison” (21).

Previously, Ethel had asked Alice to come speak to a group of suffragists about her negative experiences with men in pursuit of her career. Ethel reads Alice’s reply as further evidence of Alice’s sense of decency and gratitude. Alice wrote in response:

[T]he men for whom I have worked and amongst whom I have spent my life, whether they have been business or professional men, students or great lawyers and politicians, all alike have upheld me, inspired me, advised me, taught me, given me a broad outlook upon life for a woman; interested me in themselves and in their work (22).

Shortly after reading the letter to her mother, she notices a pink parasol on the veranda and finds Mrs. Spring Fragrance writing in a notebook. Mrs. Spring Fragrance confides that she wants to write a book about Americans and that she is writing down the bits of conversation she overheard between the mother and daughter. Ethel is delighted with the idea and promises to assist Mrs. Spring Fragrance.

Mary Carman, who regards Mrs. Spring Fragrance as a confidant, comes to the home of the Spring Fragrances to complain about her son’s infatuation for the “Inferior Woman.” In the past, Mrs. Carman had found her neighbor sympathetic, because “Chinese ideas of filial duty chimed in with her own” (24)ideas of what her son owed her. But this time Mrs. Spring Fragrance was not as quick to take Mrs. Carman’s side.

Mrs. Spring Fragrance then tells Mrs. Carman that she is writing a book about Americans. Mrs. Carman is very enthusiastic about the idea and agrees to listen to the conversation Mrs. Spring Fragrance transcribed of Ethel and her mother discussing Alice Winthrop. After learning more about the woman that her son loves, Mrs. Carman begins to reassess her opinion of the “Inferior Woman.”

Alice did not reject Will’s proposal because of wounded pride. She felt that she would be doing a disservice to Will and Mary if she served as a wedge to divide them. As she grieves for the loss of Will, there is a knock on the door. Mary Carman has come to bring Alice to her son. She explains to Alice that Will “met with a slight accident while out shooting, so could not come for you himself. He has told me that he loves you. And if you love him, I want to arrange for the prettiest wedding of the season” (27).

When Mrs. Spring Fragrance finds out that Will and Alice will be able to be together, she is happy for the couple. In speaking to her husband, she adds: “I love well the Inferior Woman; but, O Great Man, when we have a daughter, may Heaven ordain that she walk in the groove of the Superior Woman” (27).