Jaqueline smiled. She was rather proud that he asked her friendship.
There were belles who were eager to gain his attention. Jaqueline resolved to keep the best of her friend to herself, and smiled a little at the curiously obedient manner in which he returned to her when she had sent him to dance with someone. She liked the pretty ordering about of her admirers, the sense of power at once fascinating and dangerous.
"I shall try to get off for a few days and pay you a visit," Ralston said. "Louis will be going back to college, and next year we shall have him in Washington. And you will be up often this winter? Mrs. Jettson seems deserted by both of her sisters. She is so fond of young people."
"Oh, yes; I shall be up a good deal."
"And the visit?" tentatively.
"We shall be delighted to see you. You will have an admiring audience from father down."
"Thank you. You can never know what a comfort you have been to me. And these few days have quite restored me to myself. Have I been a very foolish, love-stricken swain?"
"Oh, I do not think you have been foolish at all! I was afraid you would grow hard and cynical, and I don't like people who are classing everybody in the same category and looking on the worst side."
She was very young, but she had a charm that touched his heart. Did he half envy Roger Carrington? But, then, he would be madly jealous of anyone who lavished her smiles in that fashion. One or two choice friends might be admissible. He was safe, for he would never be so easily caught again by any woman. Friendship was all he desired, and in the years to come she would resemble Mrs. Jettson, no doubt, who was very proud of her husband, and fond of him too. He liked women who were proud of their husbands. For wifely devotion had not gone out of fashion.
There was a gay and busy autumn for Jaqueline. Betty Fairfax had a great wedding that befitted the old mansion where she had reigned a queen for more years than usually fell to the lot of a handsome Virginian girl. She had seen two younger sisters married and made much merriment over it, and now she was going to be the wife of the newly elected Governor of one of the more southern States. Consequently there was a grand time all through the county, and there were six bridesmaids to wait upon my lady, one of them being Jaqueline.