And at that moment a servant came to tell him that his carriage was waiting.
IV
NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS.
Romeo and Juliet; ii.——4.
When Mr. and Mrs. Fenton were in the carriage, driving from Mrs. Gore's to Mrs. Frostwinch's, Arthur broke into a pleasant little laugh, as if a sudden thought had amused him.
"Why in the world, Edith," he asked, "couldn't you let that moon-calf Candish fight his own battle to-night? He would have tied himself all up in two moments, with a little judicious help I should have been glad to give him."
"I knew it," was her answer, "and that is precisely why I wanted to stop things. What possible amusement it can be to you to get the better of a man who is so little a match for you in argument, I don't understand."
"I never begin," Fenton responded. "Of course if he starts it I have to defend myself."
The stopping of the carriage prevented further discussion, and the pair were soon involved in the crowd of people struggling toward the hostess across Mrs. Denton Frostwinch's handsome drawing-room. Mrs. Frostwinch belonged, beyond the possibility of any cavilling doubt, to the most exclusive circle of fashionable Boston society. Boston society is a complex and enigmatical thing, full of anomalies, bounded by wavering and uncertain lines, governed by no fixed standards, whether of wealth, birth, or culture, but at times apparently leaning a little toward each of these three great factors of American social standing.
It is seldom wise to be sure that at any given Boston house whatever, one will not find a more or less strong dash of democratic flavor in general company, and there are those who discover in this fact evidences of an agreeable and lofty republicanism. At Mrs. Frostwinch's one was less likely than in most houses to encounter socially doubtful characters, a fact which Arthur Fenton, who was secretly flattered to be invited here, had once remarked to his wife was an explanation of the dulness of these entertainments.
For Mrs. Frostwinch's parties were apt to be anything but lively. One was morally elevated by being able to look on the comely and high-bred face of Mrs. Bodewin Ranger, but that fine old lady had a sort of religious scruple against saying anything in particular in company, a relic of the days of her girlhood, when cleverness was not the fashion in her sex and when she had been obliged to suppress herself lest she outshine the high-minded and courtly but dreadfully dull gentleman she married.