“Not yet. I thought it would be well to get acclimated, as it were, before I ventured away from New York.”
“You will have it to do over again,” said Mrs. Staunton. “We are very different. Here money is king and god, and——” Mrs. Staunton cast a supercilious glance round the brilliant and beautiful, and even dazzling, grand tier. “You see the result. Really, New York is becoming intolerably vulgar. I come here rarely, and leave as soon as I decently can. But one can’t stay here even for a few days without being corrupted. The very language is corrupt here, and among those who call themselves the best people.”
“Really! Really, now!” said Frothingham.
“Indeed, yes. In Boston even the lower classes speak English.”
“You don’t say.” Frothingham’s drawl was calm; he put upon his eyeglass the burden of looking astonished interest.
“It must fret your nerves to listen to the speech here,” continued Mrs. Staunton. “It’s a dialect as harsh and vulgar—as most of the voices.”
“It will be a great pleasure to hear the language spoken as it is at home—though I can’t say that I mind it here. Yes—I shall be glad to see Boston.”
Mrs. Staunton lifted her eyebrows and looked politely amused. “But we don’t speak as you speak in England. I didn’t say that.”
“Oh—I thought you were by way of saying they spoke English at Boston.”
“So I did. I meant that we speak correctly. You English speak very incorrectly. Your upper class is even more slovenly in that respect than your middle class.”