I found myself furiously angry. "I don't think he's at all bad-looking," I said, pretending to be judicial. "He's big and strong and sensible; and what more does a woman usually ask for? And I don't at all agree with you about his father and mother, either—especially his mother. No, Jessie, dear, my objections aren't yours at all. I'm sure you wouldn't understand them, so let's not talk about it."
February 3. Yesterday Mrs. Tevis sent for me. That was a good deal of an impertinence, but I'm getting very sensible about impertinences. She lives in grand style in a big, new house in K Street—it, like everything about her, is "regardless of expense." The Tevises have been making the most desperate efforts to "break in" last season and this, and as Washington is, up to a certain point, very easy for strangers with money, they've gone pretty far. I suppose Washington's like every other capital—the people are so used to all sorts of queer strangers and everything is so restless and changeful that no one minds adding to his list of acquaintances any person who offers entertainment and isn't too appalling. And the Tevises have been spending money like water.
It's queer how people can go everywhere that anybody goes and can seem to be "right in it," yet not be in it at all. That's the way it is with the Tevises. They are at every big affair in town—White House, embassies, private houses. But they're never invited to the smaller, more or less informal things. And when they do appear at a ball or anywhere they're treated with formal politeness. They know there's something wrong, but they can't for the life of them see what it is. And that's not strange, for who can see the line that's instinctively drawn between social sheep and social goats in the flock that's apparently all mixed up? Everybody knows the sheep on sight; everybody knows the goats. And all act accordingly without anything being said.
Well, Mr. and Mrs. Tevis are goats. Why? Anybody could see it after talking to either of them for five minutes; yet who could say why? It isn't because they're snobs—lots of sheep are nauseating snobs. It isn't because they're very badly self-made—I defy anybody to produce a goat that can touch Willie Catesby or Rennie Tucker, yet each of them has ancestors by the score. It isn't because they're new—the Burkes are new, yet Mrs. Burke has at least a dozen intimate acquaintances of the right sort. It isn't because they're ostentatious and boastful about wealth and prices—there are scores of sheep who make the same sort of absurd exhibition of vulgarity. I can't place it. They're just goats, and they know it, and they feel it; and when you go to their house they suggest a restaurant keeper welcoming his customers; and when they come to your house they suggest Cook's tourists roaming in the private apartments of a palace, smiling apologetically at every one and wondering whether they're not about to be told to "step lively."
Mrs. Tevis received me very grandly and graciously, though dreadfully nervous withal, lest I should be seeing that she was "throwing a bluff" and should put her in her place.
"I've requested you to come, my dear Miss Talltowers," she began, after she had bunglingly served tea from the newest and costliest and most elaborate tea-set I ever saw, "because I had a little matter of business to talk over with you and felt that we could talk more freely here."
"I must be back at half-past five," said I, by way of urging her on to the point.
"That will be quite time enough," said she. "We can have our little conversation quite nicely, and you will be in ample time for your duties."
I wonder what sort of dialect she thinks in. It certainly can't be more irritating than the one she translates her thoughts into before speaking them. The dialect she inflicts on people sounds as if it were from a Complete Conversationalist, got up by an old maid who had been teaching school for forty years.
"I have decided to take a secretary for next season," she went on. "Not that I need any such direction as the Burkes. Fortunately, Mr. Tevis and I have had a large social experience on both sides of the Atlantic and have always moved with the best people. But just a secretary—to attend to my onerous correspondence and arrangements for entertaining. The duties would be light, but we should be willing to pay a larger salary than the position would really justify—that is, we should be willing to pay it, you know, to a lady such as you are."