“Oh, law, no!” said her companion, wearily. “Upon my word, I think a deaf and dumb wife would suit me best. Then she couldn’t go to parties and drag me with her—Look here, there’s a woman I’ve seen sometimes when I go to church with my mother, that I’ve often thought was a nice-looking kind of person. You’d be sure to know her, for one of her brothers is a great friend of your brother-in-law.”
“Who is she?” asked Berty, eagerly.
Her companion seemed to have some hesitation about mentioning the name. At last he said, “Mother says her first name is Selina.”
“Not Selina Everest—don’t tell me that,” said Berty, quickly.
“Yes, that’s her name.”
Berty groaned. “And is she the only woman you have in your mind?”
“She’s the only one I can think of now as cutting any kind of a figure before me.”
“Selina Everest!” groaned Berty again. “Why don’t you say the Queen of England and be done with it? She’s the most exclusive of our ridiculously exclusive set. She is an aristocrat to her finger-tips. She wouldn’t look at you—that is, I don’t think—she probably wouldn’t—”
“How old is she?” asked the Mayor, breaking in upon her.
“Let me see—Tom, her brother, is six years older than I am, Walter is twenty-seven, Jim is thirty, Maude is older than he is, and Augustus is older than that. Oh, Miss Everest must be nearly forty.”