Theirs was a very stately and admirable home—viewed from within. But it was practically all that the family possessed, and the neighborhood—well, the neighborhood had wholly lost eligibility as a place for residences long ago.
All their friends, who had formerly been their neighbors, had moved away, one after another, when commerce had descended upon the street, with its grime and smoke, and only the Barons remained. Certainly cities grow without any regard at all for the dignity of old mansions or old families.
And while the ground on which the mansion stood had increased in value until it was worth a considerable fortune, it was a carefully guarded family secret that the actual supply of funds in the family treasury had dwindled down to next to nothing.
One permanent investment brought Mrs. Baron a few hundreds annually, and Mr. Baron drew a modest salary from a position with the city, which he had held many years without complaint or lapses. But the fortune that used to be theirs had vanished mysteriously in trips to Europe and in the keeping up of those social obligations which they could not disregard. The formal social activities of the mansion had become wholly things of the past, and within the past year or two the visits of old friends, now living out in commodious new residential districts, had become few and far between. Really it seemed that the Barons had been forgotten.
Flora, looking suddenly into her mother’s brooding, fine old eyes, and quite accurately reading the thought that was beyond them, sighed and arose.
“It’s the neighborhood,” she said—quite ambiguously, it would have seemed, since not a word had passed between them for nearly half an hour.
But Mrs. Baron responded: “Do you think so?” And her face stiffened with new resolve not to repine, even if the currents of life had drawn away from them and left them desolate.
Then an automobile drew up in front of the mansion and Flora’s face brightened. “They’ve come!” she said. “I won’t be gone long, mother,” and she hurried away to her room.
A moment later Mrs. Baron heard her going down the stairs and closing the front door.
She stood at the window and watched Flora get into the shining electric coupé of the McKelvey girls. She caught a glimpse of the McKelvey girls’ animated faces, and then the elegant little vehicle moved away.