“So Miss Benson was expecting you!” said Mrs. Farquhar, who was walking with King. It is enough to mention Mrs. Farquhar's name to an habitue of the Springs. It is not so many years ago since she was a reigning belle, and as noted for her wit and sparkling raillery as for her beauty. She was still a very handsome woman, whose original cleverness had been cultivated by a considerable experience of social life in this country as well as in London and Paris.
“Was she? I'm sure I never told her I was coming here.”
“No, simple man. You were with her at Bar Harbor, and I suppose she never mentioned to you that she was coming here?”
“But why did you think she expected me?”
“You men are too aggravatingly stupid. I never saw astonishment better feigned. I dare say it imposed upon that other admirer of hers also. Well, I like her, and I'm going to be good to her.” This meant a good deal. Mrs. Farquhar was related to everybody in Virginia—that is, everybody who was anybody before the war—and she could count at that moment seventy-five cousins, some of them first and some of them double-first cousins, at the White Sulphur. Mrs. Farquhar's remark meant that all these cousins and all their friends the South over would stand by Miss Benson socially from that moment.
The morning german had just begun in the ballroom. The gallery was thronged with spectators, clustering like bees about the large windows, and the notes of the band came floating out over the lawn, bringing to the groups there the lulling impression that life is all a summer holiday.
