“We think them cozy!” she assented quietly to the visitor’s praise of her rooms.
“Cozy! they are lovely!”
While she talked she raised her eye-glasses to make note of some fine etchings upon the walls and a choice water-color upon an easel, and took in, in passing, the circumstance that the rugs laid upon the polished floor were of prime quality, although neither large nor numerous.
“I do hope you don’t mean to shut yourself up in your pretty cage as so many pattern wives and mothers—particularly Brooklyn women” (roguishly) “do? That’s the reason American society is so crude and colorless. With your face and figure and accomplishments (I haven’t forgotten how divinely you recite) you ought to become a Social Success—a star in the world of Society. You ought indeed!” drowning the feeble murmur of dissent. “There’s many a so-named leader of the gay world who doesn’t hold, and who never did hold such a card. Just trust yourself to me, and I will prove all I promise.”
“But, my dear Kitty, I lack the Open Sesame to the Gotham Innermost—Money! Only the repeatedly-millionaired can pass the outer courts.”
“There it is! Epigrams and bon-mots drop from your lips as pearls and diamonds used to tumble out whenever the good little girl in the Fairy-tale opened her mouth. As to millions of money—bah!” with a gesture of royal disdain. “Our best people are not the richest. The true New Yorker knows that. Of course one must live and dress well, but your husband’s means amply warrant that. Jack says cashiers get from ten to fifteen thousand dollars a year. Your face, your manner, and your talents are all the passport you require when once you are introduced. I claim the privilege of doing it. And, as an initial step, I want you and Mr. Cornell to dine with us to-morrow evening. I’ll ask six or eight of the nicest people I know to meet you. They’ll excuse the shortness of the notice when they see what a reason I have for calling them together. Put on a pretty gown and look your loveliest and bring along some music. I mean that you shall capture all hearts. I shall be grieved to the quick if you don’t. The hour will be seven—sharp. Punctuality is the soul of good humor in a dinner company. I must run away. I have an appointment with a tyrannical dressmaker at half-past ten; Mr. Lincoln’s Literature Class at eleven; a luncheon at half-past one; and afternoon tea, anywhere from four to six; a dinner party, and after that the opera. Such a whirl! Yet, as I say to Jack when he grumbles that we never have a quiet home evening—it is the only life worth living, as you’ll own when you’ve had a taste of it! (You dear thing! it rests my tired eyes just to look at you!) Here’s Jack’s card for Mr. Cornell. I’m just dying to see him and if he is good enough for you.”
“A great deal too good!” ejaculated Susie, earnestly, through this accidental gap in the monologue. “The dearest, most generous fellow!”
“Cela va sans dire—with the Brooklyn model! I’m so happy that you are one of us, and no longer a pattern article. Good-by!”
“There! I let her go without showing her the children,” reflected Mrs. Cornell, when she got back her breath. “But we had so much to talk of it is no wonder we forgot them. There are no friends like the old friends. How unjust we are sometimes! I came near not sending her my card because she had never been over to Brooklyn to see me all the while I was there. And Arthur advised me against doing it. He would have it that it is no further from New York to Brooklyn than from Brooklyn to New York. He predicted, too, that she would never come to see me here. He says there’s no other memory so short as that of a woman who has risen fast upon the social ladder. This ought to be a lesson in Christian charity to us both. Kitty’s heart is always in the right place.”
With a becoming mantling of rose-pink in her cheeks, she went singing about her “drawing” rooms, altering the angle of chairs and sofas, and the arrangement of bric-a-brac, already viewing her appointments through Kitty’s eye-glasses. Her thoughts were running upon the projected dinner party. She was the proud owner of a black velvet gown with a trained skirt, and a V-shaped front, and of dainty laces wherewith to fill the triangle. She had a diamond pin and earrings—wedding gifts from the wealthy aunt for whom she was named. The same generous relative had bestowed upon her, at different holiday seasons, the rugs and pictures that adorned her house. Aunt Susan might always be depended upon to do the handsome thing, and she was fond of this niece and her “steady” husband. The home of Susie’s girlhood had been more plainly furnished, as Kitty had known and must recollect. It was natural that the elegant grace characterizing Mrs. Cornell’s abode should mislead the shrewd observer in the estimate of the cashier’s income. Without surmising what had suggested the remark, or that it was a “feeler,” Mrs. Cornell smiled, yet a little uneasily, in recalling it.