"Yes, it is only I," he answered. "Shall I ring to have the lights turned out?"
"O, I suppose so," she sighed.
A servant came to secure the house for the night. When he appeared, Marion slowly followed her husband upstairs, and as they passed Florence's room, she saw a light burning. Usually Marion would have gone in to talk, but this time she went on to her own apartment.
Long after Marion had passed that light continued to burn. With her dress loosened and her soft brown hair falling over her white shoulders Florence sat before the fire thinking. Between her hands was a picture. It was Harold's, and as she gazed at the face she seemed to hear the words: "Florence, I love you; if you were not my dearest friend, you might love me too." "Why did he say it; why did he say it," she murmured. Then moments from her childhood came softly back to her mind, and she saw Harold, her old-time playmate, grow to manhood. "Playmate, friend," she thought. "Why not more? Why not?" she repeated.
CHAPTER VII.
THE PATRICIANS.
Perhaps the only city of considerable proportions in which the rigorous proprieties of a New England village exist side by side with the gorgeous trappings of metropolitanism is Chicago. Its growth has been so marvelous that in a single generation the simple garb of provincialism has been exchanged for the more imposing mantle of a great city. Streets and boulevards have spread forth like the countless antennæ of some mighty monster; gigantic structures have arisen almost as at the touch of magic, and ten thousand lanky chimneys have begun to belch forth black and sooty smoke, all within the memory even of the middle-aged inhabitant. Fifty years ago Chicago was a frontier town; twenty years ago a fearful scourge laid her in ruins; to-day she stands among the first ten of the world's great cities. Countless forces have in a score of years heaped up a mighty metropolis, and, perhaps, it is not surprising to find almost buried beneath this gigantic pile the simple and pure society of the early days.
During all these rapid changes the older families have altered little. They have built more pretentious homes, they drive more modern equipages, they eat more elaborate dinners, but even these innovations have been reluctantly received, and the hearts of the old residents have remained untouched by fin de siécle looseness and cynicism. In no older city are the social lines more strictly drawn, and year after year the same faces appear at the select gatherings, unconscious of the rapid change about them. Of millionaires there are many, but the foundations of their fortunes were laid in the early days of pioneering, and if occasionally a Crœsus of recent growth creeps partly in, the shoulders turned toward him are cold, and his golden key never quite unlocks the inner doors. Chicago has perhaps suffered unduly at the hands of cursory and captious critics, but its society should not be judged by a hastily written paragraph or the clanking chains of the parvenu's carriage. Whatever be its faults, and they are doubtless many, it is thoroughly American, and slow to accept the lax scepticism and hollow manners of the older world. It is still too young to be the home of art and letters, and still too sensible to breed idlers. Happy city, if its society could continue as it is, unaffected, progressive, and moral; but the naturalness of Chicago cannot endure forever; already Puritan simplicity has fought the first skirmish with bare-necked folly and been worsted. French dresses and English drags have come to stay; insincerity and disbelief will follow.
The best society is hard to define,—especially in America,—but by some indescribable process people are shaken up, and so sifted into cliques and circles that they become mysteriously classified and labeled without the scrutinizing care of a satin-coated Lord Chamberlain. When the inhabitants of Chicago were passed through the social sieve, the finest particles formed a little heap labeled "The Patricians." This was the set that gave the most exclusive subscription dances, and, though there were other organizations which might feel strong enough to compete with this select assembly, it was noticed that the name of no Patrician was ever found upon another list, and no outsider ever declined to become a Patrician subscriber. There is a classic story which says that when, after their victory at Salamis, the generals of the various Greek states voted the prizes for distinguished merit, each assigned the first place of excellence to himself, but they all concurred in giving their second votes to Themistocles. Were the Chicagoans called upon to vote for the most exclusive organization of their city, each would probably cast his first vote for the one of which he is a member, but the second votes would all be given to the "Patricians." It was an ancient organization, dating from before the fire, and its membership list had been sacredly guarded ever since. Simple and informal at first, it had gradually assumed pretentious proportions, until it had passed from a North Side hall, cold suppers, lemonade and nine o'clock, to the Hotel Mazarin, terrapin, brut champagne, and eleven o'clock. In the early days there had been three fiddlers and a man to call off, but now there was an orchestra, a Hungarian band and a cotillon: "O tempora, O mores!" "Imitatores, servum pecus."