It was not the first time he had seen Gerard. They had travelled half over Greece together, having accidentally fallen upon the same route. As the Honorable Edward had all the national fear of compromising himself, and Gerard was as proud and reserved as any Englishman, they went on together for days without speaking, although the only Anglo-Saxons of the party. At last, Ludlow having capsized, horse and all, on a particularly bad road, Ashburner took the liberty of helping to pick him up, and then they became very good friends. Gerard was at that time in the full flush of youth and beauty, and the lion of the Italian capital which he had made his headquarters, where it was currently reported that a certain very desirable countess had made desperate love to him, and that a rich nobleman (for there are some rich noblemen still left on the continent) had tried very hard to get the handsome foreigner for a son-in-law. Knowing this and some other similar stories about him, Ashburner was a little curious to see Mrs. Ludlow, and confessed himself somewhat disappointed in her; he found her rather pretty, and certainly not stupid; lively and agreeable in her manners, like most of her countrywomen; but by no means remarkably distinguished either for beauty or wit. Benson explained to him that his cousin "had married for tin."
"But Ludlow always talked of his father as a rich man, and his family as a small one. I should have supposed money about the last thing he would have married for."
"Yes, he had prospects of the best; but he wanted ready money and a settled income. He was on a small allowance; he knew the only way to get a handsome one was to marry, and that the more money his wife brought, the more his father would come down with. So as Miss Hammersley had eight thousand a year, old Ludlow trebled it; and Gerard may build as many phaetons as he likes. I don't mean to say that the match is an uncongenial one—they have many tastes alike; but I do mean to say that love had nothing to do with it."
"Well, I used to think that in your unsophisticated Republican country, people married out of pure love; but now it looks as if the fashionables, at least, marry for money about as often as we do."
"They don't marry for any thing else," replied Benson, using one of the slang phrases of the day.[26]
While the two friends were gossiping, Sumner and Le Roi had carried off the ladies; and an assemblage of juvenile beaux and young girls, and some few of the younger married women, had extemporized a dance in the largest of the public parlors, which they kept up till two o'clock, and then vanished—to dress, as it appeared, for the three o'clock dinner. Benson's party had obtained their apartments at last,—a parlor and two bedrooms for the ladies on the first floor, and chambers for the three men in the second story, of a recently built wing, popularly known as "the Colony," where most of the gay bachelors, and not a few of the young married men, slept. At dinner the ladies presented themselves as much dressed as they could be without being décolletées; and the men had doffed their grass-cloth or linen garments, and put on dress-coats, or, at least, black coats. Ashburner was a good-looking young man enough, and had sufficient vanity to take notice, in the course of the morning, that he was an object of attention; at dinner many looks were directed towards him, but with an expression of disappointment which he did not exactly understand at the time, but afterwards learned the reason of from his friend. Though making no pretensions to the title of exquisite, he happened to have a very neat shooting-jacket, unexceptionable in material and fit; and "our set," having approved of this, were curious to see what sort of costume he would display at dinner. When, therefore, he came to table,
Avec les mêmes bas et la même cravate,
and the shooting-jacket unchanged, they were visibly disappointed. Benson, to keep him in countenance, had retained his white coat, on the plea of its being most wanted then, as they were in the hottest part of the day, which excuse did not enable him to escape some hints from his sister-in-law, and a direct scolding from his wife.
Our Englishman thought the dinner hardly worth so much dressing for. The dishes, so far as he had an opportunity of judging, were tolerably cooked; but their number was not at all proportionate to that of the guests; in short, it was a decided case of short commons, and the waiters were scarce to match. There were but two parties well attended to. One was the family of an old gentleman from the South, who was part owner of the building, and who, besides this advantage, enjoyed the privilege of letting his daughter monopolize the piano of the public parlor half the day, to sing Italian arias shockingly out of tune, much to the disgust of the boarders generally, and especially of the dancing set, who were continually wanting the instrument themselves for polking purposes. The other was——the reporters of The Sewer; who had a choice collection of dishes and waiters always at their command. To be sure they had their end of the table to themselves, too, for not a person sat within three chairs of them on either side; but this they, no doubt, accepted as a complimentary acknowledgment of their formidable reputation. Every one else was famished. The married women grumbled, and scolded their husbands—those convenient scapegoats of all responsibility; the young ladies tried to look very sentimental, and above all such vulgar anxiety as that of meat and drink, but only succeeded in looking very cross; the men swore in various dialects at the waiters whenever they could catch them flying, and the waiters being used to it didn't mind it; and Ashburner, as a recollection of a former conversation flitted across his mind, could not help letting off a tu quoque at his friend.
"I say, Benson," quoth he, "is this one of the hotels that are so much better than ours, and that our people ought to take a lesson from?"