Pearl looked up from another letter: "Sally writes that she has asked 'that lovely Mr. Green' to Newport in August," she said, handing the note across the table for my inspection.
So I pinched myself to make sure that it was I, as I have pinched myself a dozen times in the past week when my mind has gone back to the old days in the boarding-house and to that dreadful real-estate time. And here is Green, my friend Green, yesterday in a hall bedroom, to-day spending week-ends, to-morrow being toted around Newport as the most "brilliant man Mrs. Radigan knows," which can only mean the most brilliant in all the town. Green was splendid. Even she approved of him, and there were few things about that wedding which did meet her approbation.
I cannot see why Mrs. Radigan was disappointed, except that the Bumpschus-Nocastle affair overshadowed it, as it did all other of the season's functions. It was small. They say it was quiet. It certainly was smart, for, except for Miss Klapper and Green, only those worth knowing were asked, some four hundred all told, of whom perhaps a half came down on a special train, and it took every trap in the neighborhood to get them over to the house. Well could Mrs. Radigan view with pride that assemblage beneath her roof, when the orchestra struck up the wedding-march and Radigan led Pearl Veal through that splendid company, down the aisle they had formed to the rosy bower where stood two bishops and a half-dozen other of the clergy, where I stood with Green. Mint and Bumpschus, Williegilt and Wherry, Hegerton and Humming—every great name in the city was there. Every railroad had sent its representative; every street-car line and bank; every race-track and towing company—even some medicines and breakfast-foods. These were the proudest of the city. These were the great folk of the land. Yesterday none knew her. Yesterday some snubbed her. To-day they journey miles to see her sister married, not because they are very interested, but because she is a power and it is well to be there; they call her Sally and her husband Jack; they throw rice at her sister and old shoes at me in an outburst of affection. Is it a wonder that I pinch myself to make sure that it is I?
And of the future, what? Shall we climb higher or shall we fall? Higher we cannot climb, but of a fall I have little fear, while the money lasts. To-morrow the Radigans will be old and conservative, and Sally will be content with four houses and one small dance a year, will honor her friends with a card handed in by the footman, will head the list of patronesses of all charities, and spend Lent in a retreat. New Radigans will rise, Radigans with more money and more brains and more push. For the Radigans of to-day are the Bumpschuses of to-morrow and the Van Rundouns of the day after. Then they disappear in the great human sea of those who are not worth knowing.
In which Mr. Mudison in His Memoirs Gives Us Some Insight into Mrs. Radigan's Shattered Romance
My own story lies unfolded in my fragmentary record. As I glance back over my pages so leisurely scribbled it seems as though the great events of my life had been squeezed into two years. A man's romance ends when he is married—generally. After that he may be happy, but existence is humdrum. I am floating on placid waters, flowing gently, carrying me easily along, sometimes into the shadow of rugged, threatening shores, but always out again into the delicious calm and sunshine. Some day, weary even of the little paddling, I shall sink. That will complete my history, but others must record it. For myself and of myself I shall write no more.