Amanthus stopped by one afternoon a week later, to see Selina. If Adele was entirely occupied in going to luncheons, dinners and cotillions, where she did not shine, so that Selina saw little of her, Amanthus was equally occupied in going to these same affairs, where she did shine, and Selina saw less of her.
She was returning from a luncheon now, lovely child, and a fawn-colored hat set off her hair and face, and a fawn-colored wrap enveloped her. She had come by with a message.
"But first I ought to say, Mr. Verily Blanke and Mr. Doe sent back polite messages. I haven't seen you since the day Mamma and I spent with them at my uncle's stock-farm. They're going out as far as California while they're in this country, stopping everywhere, and up into Canada. They don't go back to England before next summer. If Mamma and I go east to her cousin's summer place, we'll see them again at Bar Harbor. And, Selina, Mr. Doe says everybody in London, to the plainest and the ugliest, even the princesses royal, have bangs. He wasn't talking about horses as I thought at first, but about people. Mamma says bangs are copied from a doubtful person, an actress, and she's not sure she wants to see me have them. And that brings me to what I came for. And first, may I go out to the mirror in the hat-tree and fix my hat on better? It feels crooked and I'm going from here to pay a party call."
She went out to the glass and talked back from this point as she resettled her hat. "Mamma is trying this new thing, of serving tea in the afternoon, as perhaps you know, Selina. She thought my coming-out winter was a good time to begin it. It was while you were away we started it, and she wants you and Maud and Juliette and Adele to come for a cup to-morrow."
Selina very ardently adored Mrs. Harrison and an invitation from her was a privilege.
"There's sure to be some men drop by, too, now it's getting to be understood about it," explained Amanthus coming back into the parlor, "your Mr. Tate, for one," as though this person in kind were a creature entirely peculiar to Selina's world and unclassified in hers, "ever since we asked him to our dance in fact. Lately Mr. Welling and Mr. Cannon and Culpepper have been coming, too, as if they do it to plague him. He told them real testily, the last time, he wished they would not follow him around."
"That's why they do it," said Selina, even while she was adapting herself to this new and surprising viewpoint of Culpepper and his group, habitués at Mrs. Harrison's!
Amanthus rather unexpectedly resented this imputation on Mr. Tate. She replied almost sharply, "I like Mr. Tate myself, though I suppose he comes more to see Mamma. He talks to me about the Caesars and the Atlantic cable and Garfield. You think I don't know how the rest of you, Maud and every one of you, change the subject when I come and talk down to me, but I do."
True enough, every word of this indictment! And true also that Mr. Tate did talk to Amanthus and Amanthus was pleased that he should.
"Shall I tell Mamma you'll come, Selina?"