“Ah, little sly-boots!” piped Mrs. Gannette, shaking a finger at Carmen. “I saw you with Reginald just now. I’m awfully wise about such things. Tell me, dear, when shall we be able to call you the Duchess of Altern? You lucky girl!”
Carmen’s spirits sank, as, without reply, she submitted to the banal boredom of this blustering dame’s society gabble. Mrs. Gannette hooked her arm into the girl’s and led her to a divan. “It’s a great affair, isn’t it?” she panted, settling her round, unshapely form out over the seat. “Dear me! I did intend to come in costume. Was coming as a tomato. Ha! ha! Thought that was better adapted to my shape. But when I got the cloth form around me, do you know, I couldn’t get through the door! And my unlovely pig of a husband said if I came looking like that he’d get a divorce.” The corpulent dame shook and wheezed with the expression of her abundant merriment.
“Well,” she continued, “it wasn’t his threat that hindered me, goodness knows! A divorce would be a relief, after living forty years with him! Say, there goes young Doctor Worley. Speaking of divorce, he’s just got one. It all came round through a joke. Billy Patterson dared him to exchange wives with him one evening when they were having a little too much gaiety at the Worley home, and the doctor took the dare. Ha! ha! The men swapped wives for two days. What do you think of that! And this divorce was the result. But Billy took his wife back. He thought it was just a good joke. Kate Worley 151 gets an alimony of fifty thousand per. But the doctor can stand it. Why, he has a practice of not less than two hundred and fifty thousand a year!”
“I supposed,” murmured Carmen, “that amount of money is a measure of his ability, a proof of his great usefulness.”
“Nothing of the kind,” replied Mrs. Gannette. “He’s simply in with the wealthy, that’s all. Dear! dear! Do look at that fright over there! It’s Lizzie Wall. Now isn’t she simply hideous! Those diamonds are nothing but paste! The hussy!”
Carmen glanced at the pale, slender woman across the hall, seated alone, and wearing a look of utter weariness.
“I’d like to meet her,” she said, suddenly drawn by the woman’s mute appeal for sympathy.
“Don’t do it!” hastily interposed Mrs. Gannette. “She’s going to be dropped. Name’s already on the black list. I don’t know what Mrs. Hawley-Crowles was thinking of to invite her to-night! Her estate is being handled by Ames and Company, and J. Wilton says there won’t be much left when it’s settled––
“My goodness!” she exclaimed, abruptly flitting to another topic. “There goes Miss Tottle. Look at her skirt––flounced at the knees, and full in the back so’s to give a bustle effect. My! I wish I could wear togs cut that way––
“They say, my dear,” the garrulous old worldling prattled on, “that next season’s styles will be very ultra. Butterfly idea, I hear. Hats small and round, like the heads of butterflies. Waists and jackets very full and quite loose in the back and shoulders, so’s to give the appearance of wings. Belts, but no drawing in at the waist. Skirts plaited, plaits opening wide at the knees and coming close together again at the ankle, so’s to look like the body of a butterfly. Then butterfly bows sprinkled all over.”