"People ought to be restrained," grumbled Sallie, loosening her opera cloak, "when they want to throw away their positions like that."
"Oh, Pauline can't throw hers away so easily," affirmed Mrs. Poughkeepsie with sapient composure. "No, not with her name and her big income. She will merely get herself laughed at, you know—encanailler herself most ludicrously; that is all. We must let her have her head, as one says of a horse. Her father was always full of caprices; he wouldn't have died a poor man if he had not been. She merely has a caprice now. Of course she will come to terms again with society sooner or later, and repent having made such a goose of herself. That is, unless"—And here Mrs. Poughkeepsie paused, while a slight but distinct shudder ended her sentence.
Sallie gave a faint, harsh laugh. "Oh, I understand you thoroughly, mamma," she exclaimed. "You mean unless some common man like that Mr. Kindelon should induce her to marry him. How awful such a thing would be! I declare, the very thought of it is sickening! With that superb fortune, too! I shouldn't be surprised if he had proposed already! Perhaps she has only been preparing us gradually for the frightful news that she has accepted him!"
But no such frightful news reached the Poughkeepsies, as day succeeded day. Pauline went little into the fashionable throngs, which were at the height of their winter gayeties. She soon quitted her Bond Street residence for good, and secured a small basement-house on a side street near Fifth Avenue, furnishing it with that speed in the way of luxurious appointment which a plethoric purse so readily commands.
"I am quite prepared now," she said to Kindelon one morning, after having received him in her new and lovely sitting-room, where everything was unique and choice, from the charming chandelier of twisted silver to the silken Japanese screen, rich with bird and flower in gold and crimson. "Of course you understand what I mean."
He affected not to do so. "Prepared?" he repeated, with the gay gleam slipping into his eyes. "For what?"
"My salon, of course."
"Oh," he said. "I confess that I suspected what you meant, though I was not quite sure. I almost feared lest your resolution might have undergone a change of late."
"And pray, why?" asked Pauline, raising her brows, with a little imperious smile.
"You have not mentioned the project for surely a good fortnight," he returned. "I had wondered whether or no it had weakened with you."