“I am afraid you are frequently dull, my dear,” Mrs. Gaston said to her cousin one morning, as the latter sat beside her couch in the little dressing-room where the invalid was taking her breakfast. “It will be brighter for you when the season fairly opens; but I purposely begged you to come now, so that we might have time to make acquaintance while we are quiet. I wish Louis would come home, but there’s never any counting on him, he’s so frightfully busy all the time. I never saw a man work so hard in my life.”
Margaret looked a little puzzled: “I thought you told me——” she began,
“That he is well off? So he is. He has quite a nice little fortune and there’s no earthly reason why he should work so hard, except that he likes it; and from that point of view I don’t blame him. ‘Pleasure the way you like it,’ is an axiom for which I have a profound respect, and Louis undoubtedly finds his chief pleasure in application to his profession.”
“What is his profession?” Margaret asked; for, although it was evident that Mrs. Gaston was very fond of her brother-in-law, she had, for some reason, said very little about him to her cousin.
“He’s an architect—I thought you knew—Ames & Gaston. Have you never heard of them?”
“No,” said Margaret, shaking her head and smiling, “but that does not go for much. I am finding out that I have never heard of most things.”
“It’s really quite delightful that you never heard of Ames & Gaston,” said Cousin Eugenia, laughing. “I shall inform Louis promptly, though he won’t believe it, or if he does he’ll set it down to the obtuseness of Southern people—a foregone conclusion in his mind! I must tell you that I anticipate some pleasure in seeing you enlighten him on that score.”
“I am afraid I shall not be able to do much,” said Margaret. “I do feel myself extremely ignorant by the side of General Gaston and yourself, especially when you talk of modern literature and art and music.”
“You need not, I assure you. We are neither of us more than ‘cleverly smattered’ on these subjects. Edward knows more than I do, though every one, himself included, believes the contrary. It’s quite another thing with Louis, however; he’s a swell at that sort of thing, and is really thorough, and yet, do you know, I sometimes manage to impose on him immensely and make him think I’ve penetrated to the very root and fibre of a matter, when in reality I have only the most superficial knowledge of it? But all this is a digression. There was something I wanted to say to you. It was about Edward’s people. You know about the Gastons, I suppose?”
Margaret looked slightly puzzled. “What do you mean?” she said.