“I don’t know whether they are Southern ideas or not,” said Margaret; “I never knew they were ideas at all. Certainly, I have never heard them formulated before, and I don’t quite know how to express myself. They simply seem to me instincts.”
“That’s because of the associations you have had,” said Mrs. Gaston. “I have seen very little of your parents of late years, but they have lived in my mind as people of thorough refinement. Your father is a model of a gentleman—the most high-bred man I ever knew, I think.”
A radiant light came into Margaret’s face.
“My darling, dear old father!” she said, fondly. “There is surely no one like him, and yet if I were to repeat your compliment to him, how amazed he would be! He has not an idea how fine he is, and has never once paused to consider whether he is high-bred or not. He would not hurt the feelings of the lowest wretch on earth—there is no one too mean for his kindly consideration. May I tell you an idea that has occurred to me, when I’ve been in society here, surrounded by such well-dressed, elegant looking, accomplished men, and have compared them to him? It is that they are all trying to be what he is.”
Mrs. Gaston did not reply at once, but her silence proceeded from no feeling of intolerance of this sentiment. She was not at all given to resenting things, partly because of a natural indolence, and partly because she did not feel enough on any subject to be biassed by impulse.
“I can understand your having that feeling about your father,” she said, presently, “and it’s quite possible it may be true. We will submit the point when we find any one wise enough to decide it for us. But the world is large, and there are many men and many minds, and manners vary in different places. That line of tactics would not do in Washington.”
At this point in their conversation they found themselves at home, and the subject was consequently dropped.
It happened about this time that some of Mrs. Gaston’s wide circle of Southern connections, who were always cropping up in Washington, came to the city, and Cousin Eugenia took Margaret and went to call upon—or, as she did not hesitate to put it, to inspect them. They were a General and Mrs. Reardon, the former an ex-Confederate officer, who had been previously in the United States army, and who was distantly related to both Mrs. Gaston and Margaret, though neither of them had anything more than a slight acquaintance with him.
Margaret soon perceived that Cousin Eugenia did not consider them up to the mark socially—a fact which was further evidenced by their being invited to lunch, and not to dinner, next day. No one was asked to meet them, and Mrs. Gaston excused the gentlemen on the score of business hours. Margaret noted the whole proceeding, and saw through it and beyond it. Cousin Eugenia was perfectly polite and pleasant—extremely sweet, in fact—and yet there was something in her manner toward these simple Southern people, of a type so familiar to Margaret Trevennon, that the girl involuntarily resented. She showed none of this feeling to Mrs. Gaston, however, for she was beginning to understand that, although that clever lady in matters of abstract theory appeared to be most reasonable and open to conviction, she was adamant itself in carrying out her peculiar designs and purposes, and quite unused to interference from any one.
The Reardons came next day, according to appointment, and the little luncheon-party passed off very pleasantly, greatly owing to Margaret’s efforts to make it do so.