When war of this sort was not afoot, there were the ever-recurrent parades under the hot sun, or in the fitful glare of the gas-lighted, banner-blazing nights.
Very gay was the march past the two visiting princes from Japan, that strange new country opened six years before by Commodore Perry. The two royal delegates were almost drowned in wine. New York, just emerged from a few years of legal drouth, spent a hundred thousand dollars on an uproarious reception at which champagne corks blurted by the thousand.
Patty, as the daughter of an old Oriental shipping merchant, went to that reception and wore a scarf of celestial weave and mountain-laurel color. One of the princes recognized the native stuff and advanced to Patty crying, “Me likee! me likee!” To prove how authentic the fabric was and how near and dear to him, he opened his silken robe at the breast and pointed to a most intimate garment for which there was no respectable name. It was of the very same material, and Patty might have swooned if her crinoline had not upheld her.
His Highness’ two words were two more than she could speak, and he took from his sleeve a paper handkerchief, mopped his gleaming brow, and dropped it on the floor.
Besides the Japanese princes, came the French Prince de Joinville, and Garibaldi, and finally the English heir apparent.
The change in Patty’s soul was so profound that when the Prince of Wales came down from Canada and everybody fought for tickets to the ball in his honor as if it were Judgment Day itself, she made no plans at all. Could this be the same Patty, who, hitherto, would have bankrupted RoBards for a supreme gown and played the Machiavel for a presentation?
When at last even RoBards noted her neglect, and asked her what she expected to wear, she sighed:
“I shan’t go at all. It’s a long time since the newspapers referred to me as ‘the woman who was.’ The prince is nineteen years old and he is not interested in grandmothers.”
Then for love of her and for pride of her, RoBards must plead and compel. He must drive her to the dressmakers and whisper them that nothing should be spared to drape her so that an emperor would stare and a bashaw salaam. Men are odd cattle. He had stormed at her for years for extravagance and now he was outraged by an economy!
Perhaps he was thinking a little of his own position as an important citizen, an American prince; but his chief zeal was in the defense of his beloved from that final fatal discouragement which ends a woman’s joy in this world.