CHAPTER XXVI. — KATIE'S FIRST BALL
In spite of Mrs. Val's oft-repeated assurance that they would have none but nice people, she had done her best to fill her rooms, and not unsuccessfully. She had, it is true, eschewed the Golightly party, who resided some north of Oxford Street, in the purlieus of Fitzroy Square, and some even to the east of Tottenham Court Road. She had eschewed the Golightlys, and confined herself to the Scott connexion; but so great had been her success in life, that, even under these circumstances, she had found herself able to fill her rooms respectably. If, indeed, there was no absolute crowding, if some space was left in the front drawing-room sufficient for the operations of dancers, she could still attribute this apparent want of fashionable popularity to the selections of the few nice people whom she had asked. The Hon. Mrs. Val was no ordinary woman, and understood well how to make the most of the goods with which the gods provided her.
The Miss Neverbends were to dine with the Tudors, and go with them to the dance in the evening, and their brother Fidus was to meet them there. Charley was, of course, one of the party at dinner; and as there was no other gentleman there, Alaric had an excellent opportunity, when the ladies went up to their toilets, to impress on his cousin the expediency of his losing no time in securing to himself Miss Golightly's twenty thousand pounds. The conversation, as will be seen, at last became rather animated.
'Well, Charley, what do you think of the beautiful Clementina?' said Alaric, pushing over the bottle to his cousin, as soon as they found themselves alone. 'A 'doosed' fine girl, as Captain Val says, isn't she?'
'A 'doosed' fine girl, of course,' said Charley, laughing. 'She has too much go in her for me, I'm afraid.'
'Marriage and children will soon pull that down. She'd make an excellent wife for such a man as you; and to tell you the truth, Charley, if you'll take my advice, you'll lose no time in making up to her. She has got that d—— French fellow at her heels, and though I don't suppose she cares one straw about him, it may be well to make sure.'
'But you don't mean in earnest that you think that Miss Golightly would have me?'
'Indeed I do—you are just the man to get on with girls; and, as far as I can see, you are just the man that will never get on in any other way under the sun.'
Charley sighed as he thought of his many debts, his poor prospects, and his passionate love. There seemed, indeed, to be little chance that he ever would get on at all in the ordinary sense of the word. 'I'm sure she'd refuse me,' said he, still wishing to back out of the difficulty. 'I'm sure she would—I've not got a penny in the world, you know.'
'That's just the reason—she has got lots of money, and you have got none.'