And here last night, the fourth since her return, he came to call. Papa opened the door to him, and in consequence his card had to go hastily into his pocket; but after all if you're poor, and she, Selina, and Papa and Mamma and Auntie were incontestably poor, the thing is to be frankly what you are and undisturbed about it! She was glad that she had arrived at this point. It made for self-respect!
And she could feel that on this occasion she had been pleasingly and successfully undisturbed. It was Sunday evening and nine o'clock when Mr. Jones came. She heard afterward from Amanthus and Adele, that as to day and hour, this was quite the thing of the moment to do, the en règle thing, as Maudie put it. Algy Biggs was already there, calling, too, and apparently wanting to talk about Juliette; and why Juliette? But not being so given to the thing of the moment, he had come earlier.
"Papa is an admirable Crichton when it comes to opening doors," Selina said as she shook hands with Mr. Jones, and as she could feel, with complete success; "but I am an admirable Miss Crichton when it comes to other matters." And she took him and Algy, to whom the matter just had been proposed, on out to the pantry which was shabby but big and orderly, trust Auntie for that. And here from cold turkey and other choice bits left from Sunday dinner, they concocted a feast with hilarity and satisfaction.
But there was a second and disparaging self which alternated with this more confident and successful one. At the mere call to mind of certain people, Adele's mother and grandmother, for example, or of occasions connected with such people, the Carter reception about to be, as an instance, or of attitudes characteristic of such people, the Carter stress laid upon prominence and prosperity as a further example, at such recall Selina's second self came into its deplorable own, and the self of happier, buoyant mood went down.
And presto! assurance was gone, and she was Selina Wistar, unenviable person, limited and obscure, living in the small shabby house of the block, with a father always harrassed and poor; Selina Wistar unworthily ashamed of first one thing and another, as, at this particular moment, not so much Auntie's antiquated velvet as of her veneration for it, nor Mamma's grenadine with the tails cut off, as at her respect for it; and thus ashamed, the more ashamed that she was ashamed, she on whose account Papa and Mamma right now were the poorer, she who was in debt to Cousin Anna!
And in this fashion as she finished the changing of her older plaid dress for her newer cashmere and went into her mother's room to rejoin Adele, she found herself at the lowest bump of the see-saw of her personality upon the ground of self-abasement.
"The dress looks very well, Selina," said her mother. "I was always sorry we didn't see you in it before you went. It's a nice shade of blue, not too deep and not too washed out, and a good piece of cashmere. It was a bargain though I must say I'm always doubtful of bargains myself. The lace goes with it nicely. I was afraid it was too much of a bargain, too."
"I'm glad we left the waist a little open at the throat," said Auntie. "Lavinia, I do believe it's a trifle too long in the skirt. Still we did very well with it; it hasn't that impressed, homemade look I deplore, one bit."
A moment later and Selina and Adele were crossing the street through the dusk, with a wave of their hands back to Mamma and Auntie at their windows.