He was silent for some time, and then said gravely: "Your instincts are very keen. That gray-haired gentleman happens to be a person I know something about, and his very presence is enough to contaminate."
I was amazed that he so easily understood my meaning. The sun was reddening the sky, which seemed so pure and still compared with the sinful, noisy city that, for an instant, a homesick longing seized me to escape to its clear, beautiful depths. When we reached the hotel I was cold, and feeling very cheerless; but a comfortable looking maid, not half so overwhelming as our Esmerelda, conducted me to a pleasant room, and soon had a bright fire burning, and a cozy breakfast spread on a little table just in front of the grate. I was not hungry, but I took the cup of hot chocolate Mr. Winthrop had ordered, and nibbled a bit of toast; and then, drawing an easy-chair in front of the fire, soon fell into a luxurious sleep, from which I did not waken for several hours. The maid came in occasionally to replenish the fire, but her light movements did not disturb me. Afterward I found the hotel was not a public one, but a private affair, patronized mainly by a number of old families whose parents and children had come and gone for nearly half a century. The room I occupied, Mrs. Flaxman told me, was the very one my own dear mother had occupied as a bride; and hence Mr. Winthrop had secured it for me. It was the best in the house, I found later on. That evening, after I had wakened refreshed, and eager to see and hear all that was possible in this new wonderland, Mrs. Flaxman, still a little nervous after her journey and anxiety on my account, came and sat with me; and to atone for keeping me in the house, told me stories of that beautiful, far-away time when she had seen my mother in that same room in the first joy of wifehood, and described my father as the proud, happy bridegroom, gazing with more than a lover's fondness on the beautiful girl who had left all for him, and yet in the renunciation had found no sacrifice. She described the rich silken gown with its rare, old lace, and the diamonds she wore at her first party in New York. "Mr. Winthrop has them, your mother's diamonds and all her jewelry. In being an only child like yourself, she inherited all her own mother's. They are all safely stored at his bankers, and I think he means to give them to you soon, or at least a part of them."
"I did not know I had any except what I brought with me from school," I said, with a shade of regret to be so long in ignorance of such a pleasant fact. Mrs. Flaxman smiled as she asked:
"Did you never hear your schoolmates talk of the family plate and jewelry?"
"Oh, yes; there were a few stupid ones who had very little brains to be proud of; so they used to try and make up for the lack by telling us about such things; but we reckoned a good essay writer worth a good deal more than these plate owners."
"There must have been great changes since I was at school. I believe the rising generation is developing a nobler ambition than their predecessors possessed."
"I should hope so," I said, with girlish scorn; "as if such mere accidents as birth and the ownership of plate and jewelry could give one higher rank than intellect. Why, I believe that is the scarcest thing in all the universe."
"It does seem ridiculous," Mrs. Flaxman said reflectively, "but it is hard escaping from the spirit of the age in which we live. It would be easy to hold such things lightly in those heroic days in Greece when Lycurgus cheapened the gold and things the masses held most precious."
"One can have a little republic in their own soul as well as Lycurgus, and indulge unforced in high thinking. I think that would be really more creditable than if every one agreed to do so by act of senate."
"It would be a grand thing for every one to get the dross all burned away from their nature and only have the pure gold left."