"Well—yes," smiling. "I've lived longest in London. And there's been Paris and Berlin, and, oh, ever so many German towns, where they're queer and slow, and wouldn't risk a dollar a month if they could make ten by it. Most of the Eastern cities, too, but I think this is the strangest, wildest, most bewildering place I ever was in; as if the whole town was seething and had no time to settle."
"I think that is it. You see, we are used to age in our New England towns; permanent habits, and all that. Yet, one would hardly believe so much could have been done towards a great city in a dozen years."
Mrs. Westbury raised her brows. "Is it as young as that?"
"And we have people from everywhere who will presently settle into a phase of Americanism, different from all other cities. Most places begin poor and accumulate slowly. San Francisco has begun rich."
"And the newly rich hardly know what to do with their money. You have some fine buildings, and queer old ones, that look as if they had stood hundreds of years."
There was something peculiar in the voice, and that had been born with the girl, and had needed very little training. It had an appealing quality; it indicated possibilities, that fixed it in one's memory. She might have suffered, had strange experiences, but one deeply versed in such matters would have said that she had come short of entire happiness, that hers was not the tone of rich content. She had a delicate enunciation that charmed you; she passed from one subject to another with a grace that never wearied the listener.
Mrs. Folsom came in to see if all was agreeable. She had taken a fancy to Mrs. Westbury, she had such an air of refinement and good-breeding. Mr. Westbury seemed a fine, hearty, wholesome man, prosperous yet no braggart. That was apt to be the fault out here. He had commended his wife to Mrs. Folsom's special care, and paid liberally in advance, besides depositing money at a banker's for his wife's needs.
They were having a pleasant, social time. When the dinner was through they retired to Mrs. Folsom's private parlor. In the large one there were card playing and piano drumming and flirtations going on.
Perhaps Mrs. Westbury did most of the talking, but she made sundry halts to give her listeners opportunity to answer, and she never seemed aggressive. Laverne listened, charmed over the delightful experiences.
She had learned that these were more attractive than one's troubles or perplexities, and she had set out to be a charming woman. There was only one terror to her life now—she was growing so much older every year. She had kept her youth uncommonly, but alas, no arts could bring the genuine article back.