[CHAPTER XII]
Winter was coming over the town. The gripmen of the cable cars were muffled to their noses in heavy buffalo coats, and the pedestrians were heralded by the white steam that testified to the frostiness of the air. The newspaper boys performed "break downs" on the corners for the mere warmth thereof, and the beggars and tramps presented a more blue-nosed, frost-bitten appearance than usual.
Everybody was in town once more. The hills, the seaside and the watering places had all given up their summer captives, and the metropolis held them all. The Tremonts were returned from Europe. The opera season, promising better entertainment than ever, had lured many of the wealthier folk from the country, for the winter at least. Among these were the Wares. It was a fashion steadily increasing in favor, this of living in town the winter over, and retiring to rusticity for the dog days. With the Wares it was not yet become a fashion; it was merely in accordance with Dorothy's wish to hear the opera and the concert season that the move townward was made.
Mrs. Annie McCallum Stewart's little "evenings" were more popular than ever. There seemed a positive danger that she would become known as the possessor of a "salon" and have a society reporter describe a representative gathering of her satellites. On this particular evening the carriages drove up to the house and drove off again without intermission all the evening. People had a habit of coming there before the theatre, or after; of staying ten minutes or two hours, just as their fancy, or Mrs. Stewart might dictate.
One of the latest to arrive was Dick Lancaster. It was his first appearance there that season. He had only come because he had heard that Dorothy Ware was to be there. He hardly looked as well as usual. He had been working very hard, making up for the time lost in the country. His cheek-bones stood out a trifle prominently, and his eyes were tired.
Mrs. Stewart proffered him the tips of her fingers, shaking her head at him with mockery of a frown.
"You ought to be introduced to me again," she said.
"I've been tremendously busy."
"Ah, you plagiarist! The sins that the word 'busy' is made to cover! People escape debts, and calls, and engagements, nowadays, by simply flourishing the magic word 'busy.'" She broke off, and began to look at him steadily over the top of her fan. Then she went on in a very low voice, "And have you found out how one's youth is lost in town?"