第9章
I longed to have the chance of bragging to my wife; but this chance did not come till the concert was quite over, after I rejoined her with my companion, and she could take leave of them all without seeming to abandon them. Then I judged it best to let her have the word; for I knew by the way she ran her hand through my arm, and began pushing me along out of earshot, that she was full of it.
"Well, Basil, I think that is the sweetest and simplest and kindest creature in the world, and I'm perfectly in love with her."I did not believe somehow that she meant the girl, but I thought it best merely to suggest, "There are two.""You know very well which I mean, and I would do anything I could for her. She's got a difficult problem before her, and I pity her.
The girl's very well, and she IS a beauty; and I suppose she HASbeen having a dull time, and of course you couldn't please Mrs.
Deering half so well as by doing something for her friend. Isuppose you're feeling very proud that they're just what you divined.""Not at all; I'm so used to divining people. How did you know Iknew it?"
"I saw you talking to him, and I knew you were pumping him.""Pumping? He asked nothing better than to flow. He would put to shame the provoked spontaneity of any spring in Saratoga.""Well, did he say that he was going to leave them here?""He would like to do it--yes. He was very sweet and simple and kind, too, Isabel. He complained bitterly of the goddess, and all but said she sulked.""Why, I don't know," said my wife. "I think, considering, that she is rather amiable. She brightened up more and more.""That was prosperity, or the hope of it, my dear. Nothing illumines us like the prospect of pleasant things. She took you for society smiling upon her, and of course she smiled back. But it's only the first smile of prosperity that cheers. If it keeps on smiling it ends by making us dissatisfied again. When people are getting into society they are very glad; when they have got in they seem to be rather gloomy. We mustn't let these things go too far. Now that you've got your friends in good humour, the right way is to drop them--to cut them dead when you meet them, to look the other way.
That will send them home perfectly radiant.""Nonsense! I am going to do all I can for them. What do you think we can do? They haven't the first idea how to amuse themselves here. It's a miracle they ever got that dress the girl is wearing.
They just made a bold dash because they saw it in a dressmaker's window the first day, and she had to have something. It's killingly becoming to her; but I don't believe they know it, and they don't begin to know how cheap it was: it was simply THROWN away. I'm going shopping with them in the morning.""Oh!"
"But now the question is, what we can do to give them some little glimpse of social gaiety. That's what they've come for."We were passing the corner of a large enclosure which seems devoted in Saratoga to the most distracting of its pleasures, and I said:
"Well, we might give them a turn on the circular railway or the switchback; or we could take them to the Punch and Judy drama, or get their fortunes told in the seeress's tent, or let them fire in the shooting-gallery, or buy some sweet-grass baskets of the Indians; and there is the pop-corn and the lemonade.""I will tell you what," said Mrs March, who had not been listening to a word I said; for if she had heard me she would not have had patience with my ironical suggestions.
"Well, what?"
"Or, no; that wouldn't do, either."
"I'm glad you don't approve of the notion, on second thoughts. Ididn't like it from the beginning, and I didn't even know what it was.""We could have them up to the house this evening, and introduce them to some of our friends,--only there isn't a young man in the whole place,--and have them stay to the charades.""What do you think," I said, "of their having come up this morning and tried to get rooms at our house?""Yes; they told me."