Yet she had a sneaking sympathy for Falkner. Isabelle did not suspect that she herself was the chief undoing of the Falkner household, nor did any one else suspect it. It was Bessie's ideal of Isabelle that rode her hard from the beginning of her acquaintance with the Lanes. And it was Isabelle who very naturally introduced them to most of the people they had come to know in their new world. Isabelle herself had much of her mother's thrift and her father's sagacity in practical matters. She would never have done what Bessie was doing in Bessie's circumstances. But in her own circumstances she did unconsciously a great deal more,—and she disliked to fill her mind with money matters, considering it vulgar and underbred to dwell long on them. The rich and the very wise can indulge in these aristocratic refinements! Isabelle, to be sure, felt flattered by Bessie's admiring discipleship,—who does not like to lead a friend? She never dreamed of her evil influence. The power of suggestion, subtle, far-reaching, ever working on plastic human souls! Society evolves out of these petty reactions….
The rugs came.
"We simply have to have rugs,—the house calls for it," asserted Bessie, using one of Mr. Bertram Bowles's favorite expressions.
"My purse doesn't," growled Falkner.
Nevertheless Bessie selected some pretty cheap rugs at Moritz's, which could be had on credit. In the great rug room of the department store she met Alice Johnston, who was looking at a drugget. The two women exchanged experiences as the perspiring clerks rolled and rerolled rugs.
"Yes, we shall like Bryn Mawr," Mrs. Johnston said, "now that the foliage covers up the tin cans and real estate signs. The schools are really very good, and there is plenty of room for the boys to make rough house in. We are to have a garden another year…. Oh, yes, it is rural middle class,—that's why I can get drugget for the halls."
Bessie thought of her pretty house and shuddered.
"We are planning to call and see the house—Isabelle says it's wonderful—but it will have to be on a Sunday—the distance—"
"Can't you come next Sunday for luncheon? I will ask Isabelle and her husband," Bessie interrupted hospitably, proud to show off her new toy.
And on Sunday they all had a very good time and the new "toy" was much admired, although the paint was still sticky,—the painter had been optimistic when he took the contract and had tried to save himself later,—the colors wrong, and the furniture, which had done well enough in Torso, looked decidedly shabby.