"I know nothing about those things. I speak of what comes under my personal observation. I see that women, and even men, are tabooed about whom there is any open scandal. It is not so with us. Nothing short of divorce shuts the door against a woman of position who sins; and as to a man, nothing except cheating at cards seems to do so."
He rose, without reply, and went to the window. At the same moment, Mordaunt entered.
"Good-morning, Ferrars. Grace, I have a note from that good-natured chap, Gunning, enclosing a box for the circus, this afternoon. Will you come?"
"Is the box our very own, or is Mr. Gunning coming with friends?"
"He says he may drop in—but the box is ours, to fill as we like, only it's rather late to get any one."
"Will you come, Mr. Ferrars? And I will telephone to ask Mrs. Caldwell and her daughter."
Ferrars accepted; and so, a few minutes later, did the ladies. Soon after two o'clock the whole party, except Gunning, was established in the great arena, to witness Barnum's show of "Nero." The vast building was crowded. Grace, who now met the Caldwell ladies for the first time, was charmed with them. The mother's sweet, frank face, and the young girl's freshness and intelligence—an intelligence very different from "the needle-like sharpness which pricked and startled one," as Grace described it, in May Clayton—she was equally delighted with both. Doreen Caldwell was not yet seventeen. She gave the promise of being a very pretty woman; at present she was too thin, her face too narrow, and her eyes unduly large for the rest of the features. She was strangely quiet for an American, almost shy; but then her bringing up had been different from that of most of her countrywomen, without the constant excitement and restlessness which seem inseparable from a home education in most city households. She had an abundance of the national humor, quick perceptions, and a keen capacity for enjoyment; but she had not as yet—if she ever would acquire—that particular attraction in the eyes of most Englishmen, the spontaneous up-bubbling garrulity, which most Englishwomen call "a feverish desire to be prominent."
Mordaunt talked chiefly to the mother. Grace saw at once that the daughter did not particularly attract him—it was not this that he had come out into the wilderness to see. Beatrice Hurlstone's undisguised encouragement and capacity for flirtation treated as a fine art, or May Clayton's audacious drollery was much more to his taste. But Ferrars and Grace together drew Doreen out, and were entertained with the remarks of this child of nature, as yet unblasée by the glitter of such shows. A young man came in to visit Mrs. Caldwell, whose box he believed it to be. She introduced him to Grace as Mr. Alan Brown. He was evidently intimate with the family. The girl greeted him with a frank smile, and said,
"I am sure you have never seen anything better than this in Europe. Say, have you, now?"
"No," he answered. "Barnum takes the cake for shows. It isn't a very grand thing to take the cake for—but it's the best we have in the dramatic line."