Edith interrupted me.
"The people in this town are the ones connected with the university. I have always heard that. You've had every opportunity to know them. They've all called on account of Will. You've simply thrown away chance upon chance. Here are the Philemon Omsteds' cards. Mrs. Percival says that Dr. Omsted is awfully queer—kind of a socialist—but that Mrs. Omsted's musicales are the selectest things given. Here are Mrs. Daniel Haynes McClellan's cards, the Bernkapps, Madame Gauthier. I found out from Mrs. Percival, indirectly of course, that all these people are in things. Mrs. Benedict Graham—even she has called on you. And Mrs. Percival says that she was a Granville—daughter of President Emeritus Granville. Dr. Graham is an awfully prominent man himself. Surely you've heard of Benedict Graham, Lucy. Surely—"
"Of course!" I interrupted. "Every one has, Edith, and I'm reading his book, but I'd be frightened to death to go up and pull the Benedict Grahams' bell. I couldn't!"
"You ought to be married to a clerk or a barber, and then you wouldn't need to. I should hate to think I had married a man whom I couldn't live up to. Every one has heard of Will. He has been talked about all over the country. But what about his wife? Who is she?" Edith's words were beginning to cut now and I bit my lip. "There was a tea this very afternoon to which Mrs. William Maynard ought to have been invited. Were you?"
I shook my head.
"Of course you weren't, nor last week to a musicale that Mrs. Omsted gave, and I'll bet you had nothing whatsoever to do with the Charity Bazaar that the younger women in the university set get up every Christmas. Do you think a man wants to be married to a person who is not received—absolutely ignored, as if something was the matter with her? Whom in the world do you know here, anyway? Any one at all?"
Pictures of the little man with the soft tie, the dear white-haired old gentleman whose name I did not even know, and Miss Avery, all impossible I knew to Edith, flashed before my eyes. So I shook my head and Edith went on.
"And the house—it's simply impossible! Such a location! Why, no one lives in this part of town. You would think that Will couldn't afford anything better, but he can. You ought to have two maids. And why under the heavens all this old furniture? People don't use black walnut any more, and that old narrow, square dining-room table is simply beyond words!"
"And you have no butler's pantry nor back stairs," put in Ruth.
"And you ought to make your maid wear black afternoons."