“It is the intention of your aunt and myself,” he told her promptly, “to introduce you at once to what will be your social world, for it is well for everyone to have local attachment.”
As the matter progressed it appeared that social introduction, as Uncle Austen understood it, was largely a matter of expenditure. In all investment it is the expected thing to place where there is likeliest return. Therefore he scanned the invitation list earnestly.
“She can afford to do the thing as it should be done,” he remarked to Harriet.
“She? But Austen—” Harriet hesitated. “I supposed it was ours, this affair; it seems the least—”
Austen looked at her. At first he did not comprehend, then he replied with some asperity. “I have so far kept sentiment and business apart in managing Alexina’s affairs.”
Harriet was silenced. It was becoming less and less wise to oppose Austen. He had his own ideas about the matter. “The thing is to be done handsomely,” he set forth, “but,” as qualification, “judiciously.”
Therefore he stopped an acquaintance on the street a day or two before the affair. “Are we to have the pleasure of seeing you on Tuesday?” he asked, even a little ostentatiously, for the young man had neglected to accept or decline.
Austen reported the result to Harriet. “For there is no use ordering a supper for five hundred if but four hundred and ninety-nine are coming,” he told her.
“No?” said Harriet.
“Exactly,” said her brother.