"Yes. To those who were both called and chosen. But how about the repulsed candidates for admission?"
"They would deserve their defeat," said Mrs. Dares, with thoughtful deliberation. "Morals and manners properly combined would be their sole passport."
"And ability," amended Pauline.
"Ability? Oh, they all have ability who care to mingle night after night where that qualification is the dominating necessity for mutual enjoyment. Remember, an organized literary and intellectual society would not demand what that other society, of which you have seen so much, imperatively demands. I mean wealth, position, modishness, ton. All these would go for nothing with an aristocracy of talent, of high and true culture, of progress, of fine and wise achievement in all domains where human thought held rule. There, gross egotism, priggishness, raw eccentricity, false assumption of leadership, facile jealousy, dogmatic intolerance—these, and a hundred other faults, would justly exert a debarring influence."
Pauline did not know how her cheeks were glowing and her eyes were sparkling as she now quickly said, after having swept her gaze along the groups of guests not far away.
"And this is what you call making order out of chaos? Ah, yes, I understand. It is very delightful to contemplate. It quite stirs one with ambition. It is like having the merciless and senseless snobbery of mere fashionable life given a reasonable, animating motive. I should like to take upon myself such a task." Here she suddenly frowned in a moderate but rather distressed way. "Not long ago," she went on, "Mr. Kindelon told me that I would find no literary society in New York. But I contested this point. I'm inclined to contest it still, though you have shaken my faith, I admit."
"The word 'literary' is very specializing," said Mrs. Dares. She had drooped her large, musing eyes.
"Do you mean that for an evasion?" asked Pauline with a tart pungency that she at once regretted as almost discourteous. "Allow," she went on, promptly softening her tone, "that the word does cover a multitude of definitions as I use it—that it is used faute de mieux, and that no society has ever existed anywhere which one could call strictly literary. Come, then, my dear Mrs. Dares, allowing all this, do you consider that Mr. Kindelon was right? Is it all chaos to-day in New York? Is there no gleam of order?" And here Pauline broke into a furtive tremor of laughter. "Must I begin my good work at the very earliest possible beginning if I am to commence at all?"
Mrs. Dares's dark eyes seemed to smile now, if her lips did not. "Yes," she said. "Mr. Kindelon was right. You are to begin at the very beginning.—In London it is so different," she went on, lapsing into the meditative seriousness from which nothing could permanently distract her. "I spent a happy and memorable month there not many years ago. It was a delicious holiday, taken because of overwork here at home, and a blessed medicine I found it. I had brought with me a few lucky letters. They opened doors to me, and beyond those doors I met faces and voices full of a precious welcome. You would know the names of not a few of those who were gracious to me; they are names that are household words. And there, in London, I saw, strongly established, a dignified, important and influential society. Rarely, once in a while, I met some man or woman with a title, but he or she had always either done something to win the title, or something—if it was inherited—to outshine it. I did not stay long enough to pick flaws, to cavil; I enjoyed and appreciated—and I have never forgotten!"
Just at this point, and somewhat to Pauline's secret annoyance, Kindelon returned with a lady at his side. Pauline was soon told the lady's name, and as she heard it her annoyance was swiftly dissipated by a new curiosity. She at once concluded that Miss Cora Dares bore very slight resemblance to her mother. She was taller, and her figure was of a full if not generous moulding. Her rippled chestnut hair grew low over the forehead; almost too low for beauty, though her calm, straight-featured face, lit by a pair of singularly luminous blue eyes, and ending in a deep-dimpled chin of exquisite symmetry, needed but a glance to make good its attractive claim. Miss Cora Dares was quite profuse in her smiles; she gave Pauline, while taking the latter's hand, a very bright and charming one, which made her look still less like her mother.