As ever, your devoted friend,
Marian Morrison.
Mr. Jeré Fairfax to Miss Grace Fairfax, Washington, D. C.
Baltimore, November 25th.
Dear Grace: I suppose I’ve got to keep my solemn promise to write to you all about the blow-out, though it’s an awful effort for me to write letters, and I’m so razzle-dazzled too! You simply weren’t in it! She’s stunning! The fellows all call her “La Belle Hélène.” Claghart started the name and it took like wildfire. The fair Eleanor is furious. She looked perfectly insignificant by the side of that magnificent creature. What the dickens did Margaret mean by her letter? Why, Helen Hammersley is a perfect beauty. It isn’t good to spring a surprise like that on a fellow. Bad for one’s nerves. Claghart is terribly shaken. Found out she had met ever so many celebrated artists, English and French, and they jawed for hours. Fact is Claghart’s got the cinch on the rest of us because she’s so awfully interested in art—I heard her tell him so. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you the joke! You see, Mrs. Morrison had put her up at her end of the table, with the rector of All Souls on one side of her—the old duffer!—and that fossil, Professor Radnor, on the other, and of all people in the world that ante-bellum specimen, Colonel Ralph Gray, opposite! Think of that, with Montrose and Claghart and myself at the other end, cut off from her by half a dozen married people! Think of the injustice, the tactlessness of such a proceeding! Well, I simply determined to shake things up a bit, so after the bird I said, as sweetly as only yours truly can say, “Mrs. Morrison, I was at the Dwights’ the other evening to a progressive dinner-party. Charming idea, don’t you think?” I knew all the men would back me up, and sure enough Reggie Montrose sang out, “Yes, indeed, Mrs. Morrison! Why not try it to-night?” and before the words were fairly out of his mouth, Claghart had jumped up with his wine-glass and his napkin in his hand, and was moving up one seat nearer “La Belle Hélène.” Of course there was an awful muss and Eleanor was furious, I could see, but she pulled herself together and smiled awfully sweetly at Claghart. Marie de Rochemont turned perfectly green—give you my word of honor. Margaret was the only one who seemed really not to mind. She’s a nice little thing, but she won’t have much show in society if Helen Hammersley is around.
I wish I could tell you about “La Belle Hélène,” but I’m not much for descriptions. She’s different from any girl I ever knew—not very tall, but awfully good figure—fixes her hair like those stunning girls of Gibson’s you know, and she’s got a way of looking at a fellow—earnest and yet half laughing—that’s enough to drive one out of one’s senses. She’s got that je ne sais quoi, you know—something awfully fetching and magnetic and all that sort of thing. (You’ll think me a drivelling idiot!) She wore a beauty of a gown, white satin—or gauze, I’m not sure which. Was going to ask Claghart—being an artist he’s up to such fine distinctions—but forgot it. I say, Grace, why don’t your gowns look like that? You’d better ask her who built hers. Tell you what, she’s just fascinating—not stiff or uppish a bit, but she’s got a certain sort of dignity you girls don’t seem to acquire, some way or other.
She simply hoodooed old Gray, not to mention Percy Beaufort, the Professor, and several dozen others, including your devoted brother. There was one solemn moment at the cotillion when every man in the room was around her. The other girls looked black, I promise you! What the deuce, Grace, makes you girls so jealous? I actually believe Eleanor didn’t like her cousin’s brilliant success at all, and yet you told me she was so anxious about it. Can’t make you girls out.
You say she’s been to college all her life and is awfully smart? Well, I suppose she is—she looks that way—but she didn’t come any of it on us. And yet she’s clever, that’s sure, for she knows all the points of difference between the Rugby and Association game, and I heard her talking golf with Claghart and telling Professor Radnor that dancing was a healthful amusement, and he was asking her, in the most idiotic way, if she’d teach him the two-step. Wasn’t that rich! And old Gray said to a lot of fellows in the smoking-room that, “By Jove, she was the handsomest girl he’d seen in a quarter of a century, and that if she was an example of a college-bred girl he wished they’d all go to college.”
Well, I must stop. I really believe, Grace, this is the longest letter I ever wrote, and I want you to put it to my credit—understand? and the next time I try to arrange a trip to Mount Vernon with certain people, you’ll please be more amenable to reason—See?
I think I’ve told you everything except that I’m going to stop here for a few days—they’re always asking me, you know, and I told Margaret last night that I’d accept this time. Eleanor looked as if she didn’t half like it. Why not, do you suppose? But I can’t tear myself away. I’m desperately in love with “La Belle Hélène,” besides I’m awfully interested in watching the running between Claghart and Montrose. It will be a close finish, I think, with Claghart in the lead, Montrose a good second, and a full field not far behind. Excuse sporting instincts and language.
As ever, your aff. brother,
Jerry.