“What whole thing?”
“Living. All mixed up. The more kinds of people you see, and the more things you do, and the more things that happen to you, the richer you are. Even if they’re not pleasant things. That’s living. Remember, no matter what happens, good or bad, it’s just so much”—he used the gambler’s term, unconsciously—“just so much velvet.”
But Selina, somehow, understood. “You mean that anything’s better than being Aunt Sarah and Aunt Abbie.”
“Well—yes. There are only two kinds of people in the world that really count. One kind’s wheat and the other kind’s emeralds.”
“Fanny Davenport’s an emerald,” said Selina, quickly, and rather surprised to find herself saying it.
“Yes. That’s it.”
“And—and Julie Hempel’s father—he’s wheat.”
“By golly, Sele!” shouted Simeon Peake. “You’re a shrewd little tyke!”
It was after reading “Pride and Prejudice” that she decided to be the Jane Austen of her time. She became very mysterious and enjoyed a brief period of unpopularity at Miss Fister’s owing to her veiled allusions to her “work”; and an annoying way of smiling to herself and tapping a ruminative toe as though engaged in visions far too exquisite for the common eye. Her chum Julie Hempel, properly enough, became enraged at this and gave Selina to understand that she must make her choice between revealing her secret or being cast out of the Hempel heart. Selina swore her to secrecy.
“Very well, then. Now I’ll tell you. I’m going to be a novelist.” Julie was palpably disappointed, though she said, “Selina!” as though properly impressed, but followed it up with: “Still, I don’t see why you had to be so mysterious about it.”