§ 8
That afternoon Sylvia was invited to one of the club teas. These were very exclusive affairs, and Jackson, who asked her, mentioned that among those who poured tea would be Mrs. Isabel Winthrop; also that Mrs. Winthrop had expressed a particular desire to meet her.
This would mark a new stage in Sylvia’s campaign for her cousin; but quite apart from that, she was curious to meet this belle ideal of Auburn Street. Sylvia had listened attentively to what the denizens of the “Gold Coast” had to say about “Queen Isabella,” and had found herself rather awe-stricken. When one spoke of a favorite hostess in the South, one gave her credit for tact, for charm, perhaps even for brilliance. But apparently Mrs. Winthrop was the possessor of a much more difficult and perplexing attribute—a rare and lofty soul. She was a woman of real intellect, they said—she had written a book upon theories of æsthetics, and had taken a degree in philosophy at the older Cambridge across the seas. Such things were quite unknown in Southern society, where a girl was rather taught to hide her superfluous education, for fear of scaring the men away.
So Sylvia found herself in a state of considerable apprehension. If it had been a man, she would have taken her chances; when she had attended Commencement at her State University, there were professors who would call and talk about Assyrian bricks, and the relation between ions and corpuscles—yet by listening closely, and putting in a deft touch now and then to make them talk about themselves, Sylvia had managed to impress them as an intellectual young lady. But now she had to deal with that natural enemy of a woman—another woman. How was the ordeal to be faced?
Lady Dee had handed down the formula: “When in difficulty, look the person in the eyes, and remember who you are.” This was the counsel which came to Sylvia’s rescue at the moment of the dread encounter. She knew Mrs. Winthrop as soon as she caught sight of her; she looked a woman of thirty-five—instead of forty-five, which she really was—tall and slender, undoubtedly beautiful, undoubtedly proud, and yet with a kind of naïve sincerity. They met in the dressing-room by accident, and the lady, recognizing Sylvia, took her hand and gazed into her face; and Sylvia gazed back, with those wide, clear eyes of hers, steadily, unflinching, without a motion or a sound. At last Mrs. Winthrop, putting her other hand upon the girl’s, clasped it and whispered intensely, “We met a thousand years ago!”
Sylvia had no information as to any such event, and she had not expected at all that kind of welcome. So she continued to gaze—steadily, steadily. And the spell communicated itself to Mrs. Winthrop. “I heard that you were lovely,” she murmured, in a strange, low voice, “but I really had no idea! Sylvia Castleman, you are like a snow-storm of pear blossoms! You are a Corot symphony of spring time!”
Now Sylvia had seen some of Corot’s paintings, but she had not learned to mix the metaphors of the arts, and so she had no idea what Mrs. Winthrop meant. She contented herself with saying something about the pleasure she felt at this meeting.
But the other was not to be brought down to mundane speech. “Dryad!” she murmured. She had a manner and voice all her own, sybilline, oracular; you felt that she was speaking, not to you, but to some disembodied spirit. It was very disconcerting at first.
“You bring back lost youth to the world,” she said. “I want to talk to you, Sylvia—to find out more about you. You aren’t vain, I know. You are proud!”
“Why—I’m not sure,” said Sylvia, at a loss for a moment.
“Oh, don’t be vain!” said the lady. “Remember—I was like you once.”
Which gave Sylvia an opportunity of the sort she understood. “I will look forward,” she said, “to the prospect of being like you.”
The radiant lady pressed her hand. “Very pretty, my child,” she said. “Quite Southern, too! But I must take you in and give the others some of this joy.”
Such was the beginning of the acquaintance so utterly different from all possible beginnings, as Sylvia had imagined them. She found in Edith Winthrop, whom she met a few minutes later, a person much nearer to what she had expected in the mother. Miss Edith had her mother’s beauty and her mother’s pride, but no trace of her mother’s sybilline qualities. A badly spoiled young lady, was Sylvia’s first verdict upon this New England belle; a verdict which she delivered promptly to her infatuated cousin, and which she never found occasion to revise.
The friendship thus begun progressed rapidly. Mrs. Winthrop asked if she might call, and coming the next day, discovered in Aunt Varina the perfect type of the Southern gentlewoman. So the three were soon absorbed in talking genealogy. At Miss Abercrombie’s Sylvia had been surprised to learn that it was bad form to talk about one’s ancestors; but apparently it was still permissible in Boston—as it assuredly was in the South.
Mrs. Winthrop invited Sylvia to a party she was giving; and when Sylvia spoke of having to leave Boston, “Oh, stay,” said the great lady. “Come and stay with me—always!” Finally Sylvia said that she would come to the party.
“I’ll invite your cousin for the extra man,” said the other. “It is to be a new kind of party—you know how desperately one has to struggle to keep one’s guests from being bored. I got this idea from a Southern man, so perhaps it’s an old story to you—a ‘Progressive Love’ party?”
“Oh, yes, we often have them,” replied Sylvia. She had not supposed that these intellectual people would condescend to such play—having pictured Boston society as occupied in translating Meredith and Henry James.
“People have to be amused the world over,” said Mrs. Winthrop. And when Sylvia looked surprised to have her thought read, the other gave her a long look, and smiled a deep smile. “Sylvia,” she propounded, “you and I understand each other. We are made of exactly the same material.”