As Mame toyed with a cup of tea that was mere coloured water and took a chance with the last surviving piece of “spotted dog,” which had just one raisin beneath a meagre scrape of butter, her quick mind brought her right up against the facts of the case. Somehow she wasn’t in the picture. She must study how to fit herself into her surroundings. That was what she was there for; to see the world and to put herself right with it.
When in Rome you must do like the Romans, or you’ll bite granite. Paula Wyse Ling had sprung that. And Paula knew, for she had travelled. What she really meant was that Mame Durrance must unlearn most of what she had learned at Cowbarn, Iowa, if she was going to fire the East.
Cowbarn was the home of the roughneck. But in New York City and London, England, highbrows swarmed like bees. These places were the native haunts of that Culture in which Mame had omitted to take a course.
She was soon convinced this was the dullest party she had ever been at. But it didn’t prevent her mind from working. Never in her life had she been more cast down. These people made her feel like thirty cents. They spoke in hushed and solemn voices. If this was Europe it would have been wiser to stay on her native continent.
Presently the small maid bore away the teapot and the crockery. With massive dignity the mistress followed her out. The landlady’s withdrawal seemed, if it were possible, to add new chills to the gloom, and Mame having reached the point where she could stand it no longer, had just decided to make a diversion by going up to her bedroom and unpacking her trunk when a new interest was lent to the scene. A man entered the room. Mame’s first thought was that he must have a big streak of natural folly to venture alone and unprotected into this nest of sleeping cats.
Strange to say, the temerarious male was made welcome. The density of the atmosphere lessened as soon as he came in. One old tabby after another began to sit up and take notice; and Mame, while busily engaged in watching the newcomer, had a feeling of gratitude towards him for having cast by his mere presence a ray of light upon that inspissated gloom.
Certainly he was no common man. As well as Mame could tell he was as old as the tabbies to whom he made himself so agreeable. Yet he was old with a difference. His abundant hair, which was snow white, was brushed in a dandified way, and the note of gallantry was repeated in every detail of his personality. His clothes, though not strikingly smart, were worn with an air. There was style in the set of his necktie, and if his trousers might bag a little at the knees they somehow retained the cut of a good tailor. Also he wore a monocle in a way that seemed to add grace and charm to his manner and to cancel his curious pallor and his look of eld.
Mame was at once deeply interested in this new arrival. No doubt he was one of the blood-peers, of whom she had read. Down on his luck perhaps, and for all his pleasant touch of swank, he somehow suggested it. Besides it stood to reason that a real blood-peer, used to the best that was going, as this old beau plainly was, would not be spending his time in a dead-alive hole playing purry-purry puss-puss if he were not up against it.
All the same there was absolutely nothing in his manner to suggest a shortage of dough. It was so grand that it seemed to banish any vulgar question of ways and means. To judge by the way he dandled his eyeglass while he entertained the tabbies with his measured yet copious and genial talk, he might have been the King of England with his beard off.
When the clock on the chimneypiece struck seven the ladies rose in a body and withdrew to prepare for the evening meal. Their example was followed by Mame. She would have liked to stay and get into conversation with the intriguing stranger, but dinner was in half an hour and it would take some little time to unpack her trunk in which was a new one-piece dress she was going to wear. Besides there would be a chance later in the evening, no doubt, of making his acquaintance.