“Mrs. Burgess is a woman now, through and through. Would you know her for the girl whom Keith brought here half a dozen years ago?”
“I could not find my little maiden Mary in that queenly creature!” exclaimed Everett.
“No; you were just in time with that mysterious disappearance of yours, bad luck to you that you made way with it, however you did!”
“It has taken her a good while to accept the world’s standards and fit herself to the world’s groove, but Madam Burgess has been patient and diligent, and I think she has succeeded at last,” said Everett gravely; “she will run along all right after this.”
“You think Mrs. Keith will live to sustain the family traditions hereafter, do you? And Keith, what is to become of him? He seems to have dropped off his missionary enthusiasm with singular facility.”
“Precisely. You will have to create a nice little chair for him in the university now, to keep him in the correct line of his descent. By and by, you know, he will have the estate to administer. That will be something of an occupation.”
“Then he probably will take to collecting things,” Ward added, “coins or autographs—”
“Oh, come, Ward, you’re too bad,” laughed Everett. “You don’t know Keith Burgess as well as I do.”
Later in the evening Anna was summoned from her guests to speak with some one who had called on an urgent matter which could not be put by until another time.
The fine hall, as she passed along it, was alive with lights, fragrance, music, and airy gayety; her own elastic step, her exquisite dress, her joyous excitement in the first taste of social triumph which the evening was bringing to her, accorded well with the environment. For the first time in her life, Anna had seen that she was beautiful; had felt the potent charm of her own personality; had found that she could draw to herself the homage and admiration of her social world. These perceptions had not excited her unduly, but they had given her a new sense of herself, a strong exhilaration which expressed itself in the lustre of her eyes, the brightness of every tone and tint of her face, in the way she held her head, in the clear, thrilling cadence of her voice.