"No; I'll be bound it is not. You never saw a married man talking to his wife in public in that way--unless they were talking about the last month's bills. Why, it is perfectly brazen."
Keith laughed.
"Where is her husband?" she demanded, as Mrs. Wentworth floated by, a vision of brocaded satin and lace and white shoulders, supported by Ferdy Wickersham, who was talking earnestly and looking down into her eyes languishingly.
"Oh, her husband is here."
"Well, he had better take her home to her little children. If ever I saw a face that I distrusted it is that man's."
"Why, that is Ferdy Wickersham. He is one of the leaders of society. He is considered quite an Adonis," observed Keith.
"And I don't think Adonis was a very proper person for a young woman with children to be dancing with in attire in which only her husband should see her." She shut her lips grimly. "I know him," she added. "I know all about them for three generations. One of the misfortunes of age is that when a person gets as old as I am she knows so much evil about people. I knew that young man's grandfather when he was a worthy mechanic. His wife was an uppish hussy who thought herself better than her husband, and their daughter was a pretty girl with black eyes and rosy cheeks. They sent her off to school, and after the first year or two she never came back. She had got above them. Her father told me as much. The old man cried about it. He said his wife thought it was all right; that his girl had married a smart young fellow who was a clerk in a bank; but that if he had a hundred other children he'd never teach them any more than to read, write, and figure. And to think that her son should be the Adonis dancing with my cousin Everett Wentworth's daughter-in-law! Why, my Aunt Wentworth would rise from her grave if she knew it!"
"Well, times have changed," said Keith, laughing. "You see they are as good as anybody now."
"Not as good as anybody--you mean as rich as anybody."
"That amounts to about the same thing here, doesn't it?"