The other two young women and Judith's mother, whose dark, low-browed Madonna beauty was gracious and fresh to-night, set off by her clear-blue gown, with a gardenia caught in her sheer, white scarf, deserved the Honourable Joseph Grant's flowery name for them, the Three Graces.
Before the Colonel's time and Judith's the Honourable Joe had been the most important man in Green River, and in evening things, and after a properly concocted cocktail he still looked it, florid and portly and well set-up, with a big voice that could still sound hearty though it rang rather empty and hollow sometimes. He looked ten years younger than his old friend, Judge Saxon. The Judge's coat was getting shiny at the seams, and—this appeared even more unfortunate to Judith—he was in the habit of pointing out that it was shiny, and without embarrassment. Mrs. Saxon's pearl-gray satin was of excellent quality, but of last year's cut, and the modest neck was filled in with the net guimpe which she affected at informal dinners. The Saxons were not quite in the picture, but they were always very kind to Judith.
And if they were not in the picture, Mrs. Joseph Grant, certainly not the youngest woman in the room, though she was not the oldest, occupied the centre of it.
She was like the picture of the beautiful princess on the hill of glass, in a book of Judith's, and besides, she had once been a real débutante, of the kind that Judith liked to read about in novels, before the Honourable Joe brought her from Boston to Green River. Judith liked to look at her better than any one here except Colonel Everard.
"Cosmopolitan—ten years ahead of Wells, or any town in your state; real give and take in the table talk; really pretty women; the same little group of people rubbing wits against each other day after day and getting them sharpened instead of dulled by it; a concentrated, pocket edition of a social life, but complete—nothing provincial about it," a very distinguished outsider had said after his last week-end with the Colonel.
But he was fresh from a visit to the state capital, the most provincial city in the state when the legislature was not in session; also he had a known weakness for pretty women. Green River did not admire the Colonel's circle so unreservedly, but Green River was jealous. Whatever you thought of it, it was made of fixed and unpromising material, and making it was no mean achievement, and the man at the head of the table looked capable of it, and of bigger things.
The Colonel was a big man and a public character, and as with many bigger men, you could divide the facts of his life into two classes: what everybody knew and what nobody knew. If the known facts were not the most dramatic ones, they were dramatic enough. He was sixty now. At fifteen he had been a student in a small theological seminary, working for his board on his uncle's farm, and engaged to the teacher of the district school, who helped him with his Greek at night. He gave up the ministry for the law, used his law practice as a stepping-stone into state politics, climbed gradually into national politics, built up a fortune somehow—these were the days of big graft—married for money and got an assured position in Washington society thrown in, and soon after his marriage chose Green River as a basis of operations, spending a winter month in Washington which later lengthened to three, ostensibly for the sake of his wife's health. The title of Colonel came from serving on the Governor's staff in an uneventful year. He had held no very important office, but his importance to his party in state and national politics was not to be measured by that.
White haired, slightly built, managing with perfectly apparent tricks of carriage and dress to look taller than he was, he was the effective figure in this rather unusually good-looking group of people. Just now he was lighting a fresh cigarette for Mrs. Burr so gracefully that even Judge Saxon must enjoy watching, so Judith thought, though there was a tradition that he did not like women to smoke. Shocking the Judge was one of their favourite games here. It was only a game. Of course they could never shock anybody. They were quite harmless people, too grown up to be very interesting, but almost always kind, and always gay.
The Colonel's profile was really beautiful through the curling, bluish smoke, and Judith liked his quick, flashing smile. He turned now and smiled at Judith. Her own smile was charming, a faint, half smile, that never knew whether to turn into a real smile or to go away and not come again, but was always just on the point of deciding.
"Is our débutante bored?"