Part 28

"Oh, it's a splendid thing for a girl--nothing like it. You see the woman looks after her like a maid and a nurse both; makes sure her bath's the right temperature, takes care of her if she gets the grippe; sits up and gives her beef tea or chocolate after balls, massages her, and things like that. I used to have one myself, but a woman after she's married is different from a Bud. She must have a French woman for her hair if she respects herself."

I said meekly that I supposed so; and then Mrs. Taylour left me to myself for a few minutes, while she talked to Mrs. Ess Kay. They compared notes about appendicitis, which they called the fashionable complaint, and Mrs. Taylour suddenly exclaimed:

"Oh, my dear, I have had just the smartest idea. As soon as Doctor Pearson will let me go to Blue Bay I tell you I mean to wake them up there. What I'll do, is to have an appendicitis lunch. It'll be rather conducive, won't it?"

"You are the most original thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Ess Kay. "How are you going to manage?"

"Oh, nobody shall be invited except those who have had it; and the great feature will be the decorations; operating instruments, you know, and hospital nurses, and--oh, I don't know what all yet, but I'm thinking it out. It was Cora Pitchley's Cat Lunch that put it in my head." She turned to me. "In America we give Women's lunches," she said. "Only women are asked, or a Cat Lunch couldn't be worked. Is it so with you, too?"

"I'm afraid our women would think it a bore if there were no men," I answered. "Anyway, there always are some, I believe. I'm not out yet. Do tell about the Cat Lunch."

"Oh, it was only a pretty smart trick of my friend, Mrs. Pitchley's. She was a rich young widow from the West, with millions, and very pretty and lively, so some of the old cats snubbed her and tried to keep her out of New York society, when I was introducing her around. But she got her foot in at last, so tight they couldn't help themselves, for the Van Tortens took her up, and she was made. So what did she do but give a big lunch, inviting all the women who had been the meanest to her, and not another soul. The whole table decoration consisted of cats; vases made of cats; flower-arrangements shaped like cats; and a little gold cat with emerald eyes for each woman to take away with her, so she wouldn't forget the lunch in a hurry. And would you believe it, not one of them saw the joke till Smart Sayings got hold of it, and published an account of the function next week."

"What did the women do?" I asked.

"Nothing, but feel cattier than before. She's richer than ever now, for she's married a man worth twenty millions, and the first thing he did was to give orders to Celeste, her dressmaker, to turn out two new dresses for his wife, every week of the year without fail, not one of them to cost less than two hundred and fifty dollars. It was such a strain on Celeste, thinking of new ideas, that she had to give it up after the first year, though it nearly broke her heart."

"I should have thought it would be a strain having the dresses to wear," said I. "Fancy getting passionately attached to one frock, but never being able to wear it more than once or twice, on account of your duty to the new ones always coming towards you in a long, relentless procession, down the years. I should hate it."

"I wouldn't," said Mrs. Taylour. "I can't have too many new things, and I always change each scrap of furniture and decoration in my own rooms every year, so that Mr. Taylour won't get tired of them. He's such a nervous man. But you'll meet Cora Pitchley at Newport. Her house is there. She's a type of an American woman, just as bright as she can be. Her second husband was a wholesale dry goods man years ago, but most people have forgotten that, now he's worth his millions, and he's got the most gorgeous place, quite like one of your old castles. The worst of it is, his mother lives with them, and when she was showing the bride--Cora--over the house (which was decorated pretty weirdly for the first wife,) the old lady kept explaining: 'This is the Louis Seize room; this is the Queen Anne room.' Cora just looked at the things, and said: 'What makes you think so?' Smart, wasn't it? But Cora's changed everything inside the house now. She loves change. She's even changed her birthday, so as to have it in leap year; and as for her mind, she changes it entirely at least six times a day; says that's why women have nicer minds than men; they change them oftener. But I've gossiped enough about a person you don't know, Lady Betty. Let's talk about England. I run over to Paris for a month or two most years, but I've only been twice to England. I did all the sights, though, didn't miss anything. I gave four days to London alone. Candidly, I don't think your women dress nearly as well as we do, or hold themselves as well, but perhaps you're more feminine looking, take you all in all. I don't mean anything personal, of course. But I do think your men are lovely. I met a perfectly charming Member of Parliament, and he invited me to tea on the terrace. Such strawberries and cream. But I'm afraid I hurt his feelings. I said I couldn't help thinking 'House of Commons' a most insulting name, and if we called our Senate anything like that we couldn't get an American man who respected himself to go into it. But English people are so queer. They don't seem to mind admitting that there is a class above theirs."

"Betty doesn't need to know anything about that," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "She is on the highest pinnacle."

"Oh, dear no," said I. "There are the Royalties."

"Don't you think you are just as good?" asked Mrs. Taylour.

"I never thought about it in that way," I answered, stupidly. For of course I hadn't.

"Surely you don't bob to them?"

"Indeed we do," I protested.

"Well then, I wouldn't," said Mrs. Taylour, firmly. "I'd have my head cut off first, especially before I'd curtsey to a Man."

Quite a colour flew into her face as she asserted her independence, and Mrs. Ess Kay must have seen that the invalid was getting excited, for she rose quickly to go.

"Come, Betty," said she, and I came.

The lift plunged us down through the inner workings of the skeleton. I had the sensation that it was dropping away from under my feet, and that as I dangled above it like a wobbly little balloon my head had been left behind somewhere near the top. But I didn't leave my heart behind in Mrs. Taylour's flat.

VIII

ABOUT NEWPORT AND GORGEOUSNESS

I was anxious to travel in an American train, so Mrs. Ess Kay said we might go by rail to Newport, instead of by boat as she had intended.

I know it was very wrong in principle, but when we got to the Grand Central Station, (or Depot, as perhaps I ought to call it,) I did wish that slavery existed again, so that I could have bought two or three of those delightful cafe-au-lait-coloured porters in grey livery and red caps. There were several I would have given anything to have to take home with me, and make pets of; but I suppose even if they had been for sale, they would have come too expensive and I should have had to give them up; for their eyes alone, to say nothing of their pleasant white grins, would have been worth pounds and pounds. As for their voices, they were the sweetest I'd heard in America, soft, and a little throaty, with a peculiar quality, quite different from the voice of a person who hasn't been dipped in cafe au lait. With their vivid red caps, their brilliant eyes, and their lightning-flash smiles, they looked to me more like great wonderful, tropical birds than human beings, and they seemed so honey-luscious in their good nature that I'm sure all the things that serious and learned people say in England about the "dangers of the increasing coloured population in America" must be nonsense. Serious and learned people do make such mistakes, through never seeing the fun in anything; and every few years they find out that they have been quite wrong in what they have taught with so much trouble, about comets and microbes and men, and other progressive things.

We had a number of these tropical birds that have been tamed to serve the railway, to help us with our bags and things getting into the train, although there were Louise and a couple of Mrs. Ess Kay's footmen as well. I looked at their brown hands, and they were quite pink inside, as pink as mine. I don't know why this gave me a shock, but it did. Perhaps one had the feeling that the nice creatures were only painted to play their parts, or that their white souls--just like ours--were striking through their skins.

It was a beautiful train. Even the engine was different from our kind, much fiercer, and reared its head higher, like a wild stag compared to a stout but reliable ox. Our carriage had no compartments in it, but was just one long wide, moving corridor, all plate glass windows and mirrors, and painted panels, and velvet arm chairs dotted about, rather like a hotel drawing-room on wheels.

There were a good many people in it when we got in, which annoyed Mrs. Ess Kay so much that she wished she had borrowed a private car from a friend who would have loved lending it. But I was glad she hadn't, for the people were part of the fun. Mrs. Ess Kay was sure they were nobodies, because she didn't happen to know any of their faces; but perhaps they were thinking the same thing about her.