"—and besides," she proceeded, "who would recognize their names if they saw them in print?"
George stood like a looker-on at a transformation-scene, before whose eyes the gauze veils are lifted one by one in slow succession.
"Oh, then," he said, and less in jest than in earnest, "there is no use in enjoying ourselves unless we put it in the papers, and no use of putting it in the papers unless we can give a list of names, and no—"
"Now, George!" She flushed with vexation.
"—and no use of putting in a list of names unless they are names that will be generally recognized. Well, that does cut out the Fairchilds, and your poor mother, too. And mine." He looked at her narrowly.
"Now, George," she cried again, "how can you be so disagreeable? You know papa and mamma wouldn't care anything for this; nor your mother, either. And it isn't the only thing I'm ever going to have. I can ask her yet, though, if you want me to."
"Oh, fiddlesticks! Only don't lose your head. Here; give me that precious notice. Perhaps, before long, people who are after names will be just as anxious to get yours."
"You silly boy!" she cried, striking him lightly across the shoulder. But she was pleased and gratified by this, and she was not able to conceal it.
Following Lent there was the usual social aftermath. For Mrs. George Milward Ogden the major stress of the season was over, but she gave a few luncheons, and she went to a good many others. These little functions sent dozens of ladies tripping through the raw winds and the slushy streets of spring. The lake, weltering under the gray skies of March, dashed its vicious sprays high over the sea-wall, and sent its cruel blasts gashingly through the streets that ended on its confines. And at such signals asthma and bronchitis and pneumonia dug their clutching fingers into the throats and lungs of thousands of tender sufferers.
Jessie's supplementary doings were of too informal a nature to demand the entrance of outside help, but at the same time they were of a kind to lay the maximum strain upon the small and simply organized household which was all that her husband was as yet able to maintain. About every so often the domestic tension overtook the breaking-point. An interregnum would follow, and then a change of dynasty. The blame for these economic hitches George was obliged to distribute with an even hand. He acknowledged frankly the mere muddishness of most of the peasant material that oozed in and out of his kitchen; but he was also obliged to recognize the utter tactlessness of his wife and the folly of her unguarded exhibitions of conscious superiority. She had never before been able to issue directions to two servants, and she had never acquired the practical experience necessary for the control of even one. She referred to her servants in their own hearing as servants; and this did not seem to her as inconsiderate from the point of humanity or unwise as a mere matter of policy.