“It is a great relief to me that George is a married man. Well, my dear, your allowance is ten thousand dollars a year. Do what you please with it, and come to me if your fads and whims demand more. God forbid that I should stand in the way of any woman’s happiness. By the by, what does your mother think of this business?”
“She is most unsympathetic.”
“So I should imagine,” said Mr. Forbes, drily. “Your mother is the cleverest woman I know.”
CHAPTER II.
After luncheon, Miss Forbes hied herself to a drawing-room meeting in behalf of Socialism. Despite the fact that she had elected the rôle of mental muscularity, she gave studious application to her attire: her position and all that pertained to it were her enduring religion; the interests of the flashing seasons were unconsciously patronised rather than assimilated. As she walked up the Avenue toward the house of her friend, Mrs. Latimer Burr, she looked like a well-grown lad masquerading in a very smart outfit of brown tweed, so erect and soldierly was her carriage, so independent her little stride. A bunch of violets was pinned to her muff, another at her throat, and she wore a severe little toque instead of the picture-hat she usually affected.
She smiled as she swung along, and one or two women looked back at her and sighed. She was quite happy. She had never known an ungratified wish; she was spoken of in the newspapers as one of the few intellectual young women in New York society; and now she had a really serious object in life. She felt little spasms of gratification that she had been born to set the world to rights—she and a few others: she felt that she was not selfish, for she grudged no one a share in the honours.
When she reached Mrs. Burr’s house, high on the Avenue, and overlooking the naked trees and the glittering white of the Park, she found that other toilettes had taken less time than hers: several of her friends complimented the occasion with a punctuality which she commended without envy.
The large drawing-room, which was to be the scene of operations, was a marvellous combination of every pale colour known to nature and art, and looked expectant of white-wigged dames, sparkling with satin and diamonds, tripping the mazes of the minuet with gentlemen as courtly as their dress was rich and colourous. But only a half-dozen extremely smart young women of the hoary Nineteenth Century sat in a group, talking as fast as seals on a rock; and the slim little hostess was compactly gowned in pearl-grey cloth, her sleek head dressed in the fashion of the moment.
She came forward, a lorgnette held close to her eyes. “How dear of you, Augusta, to be so prompt!” she said, kissing her lightly. “Dear me! I wish I could be as frightfully in earnest as the rest of you, but for the life of me I can’t help feeling that it’s all a jolly good lark—perhaps that’s the effect of my ex-sister-in-law, Patience Sparhawk, who says we are only playing at being alive. But we can’t all have seventeen different experiences before we are twenty-four, including a sojourn in Murders’ Row, and a frantic love affair with one’s own husband——”
“Tell me, Hal, what is a woman like who has been through all that?” interrupted Augusta, her ears pricking with girlish curiosity. “Is she eccentric? Does she look old—or something?”