“You don’t tell me so! Is it possible?”
“Which?” “Where is she?” “How in the world did she get here?” were the whispered remarks that followed her wherever she moved; and Mrs. Follingsbee, looking after her, could hardly suppress an exulting Te Deum. It was done, and couldn’t be undone.
Mrs. Van Astrachan might not appear again at a salon of hers for a year; but that could not do away the patent fact, witnessed by so many eyes, that she had been there once. Just as a modern newspaper or magazine wants only one article of a celebrated author to announce him as among their stated contributors for all time, and to flavor every subsequent issue of the journal with expectancy, so Mrs. Follingsbee exulted in the idea that this one evening would flavor all her receptions for the winter, whether the good lady’s diamonds ever appeared there again or not. In her secret heart, she always had the perception, when striving to climb up on this kind of ladder, that the time might come when she should be found out; and she well knew the absolute and uncomprehending horror with which that good lady would regard the French principles and French practice of which Charlie Ferrola and Co. were the expositors and exemplars.
This was what Charlie Ferrola meant when he said that the Van Astrachans were obtuse. They never could be brought to the niceties of moral perspective which show one exactly where to find the vanishing point for every duty.
Be that as it may, there, at any rate, she was, safe and sound; surrounded by people whom she had never met before, and receiving introductions to the right and left with the utmost graciousness. The arrangements for the evening had been made at the tea-table of the Van Astrachans with an innocent and trustful simplicity.
“You know, dear,” said Mrs. Van Astrachan to Rose, “that I never like to stay long away from papa” (so the worthy lady called her husband); “and so, if it’s just the same to you, you shall let me have the carriage come for me early, and then you and Harry shall be left free to see it out. I know young folks must be young,” she said, with a comfortable laugh. “There was a time, dear, when my waist was not bigger than yours, that I used to dance all night with the best of them; but I’ve got bravely over that now.”
The Van Astrachans.
“Yes, Rose,” said Mr. Van Astrachan, “you mayn’t believe it, but ma there was the spryest dancer of any of the girls. You are pretty nice to look at, but you don’t quite come up to what she was in those days. I tell you, I wish you could have seen her,” said the good man, warming to his subject. “Why, I’ve seen the time when every fellow on the floor was after her.”
“Papa,” says Mrs. Van Astrachan, reprovingly, “I wouldn’t say such things if I were you.”